Whether it's pop, R&B or singing vegetables, NICOLE C MULLEN has a voice to deliver the goods. The versatile diva met up with Mike Rimmer.

Nicole C. Mullen

Since the release of 'Nicole C Mullen' CCM stardom has enveloped the singer. Big sales and all manner of awards have engulfed Nicole, while her new album 'Talk About It' seems likely to further expand the popularity of this "exciting new talent". But wait... "new"?

Those naughty people in her Nashville record company conveniently forgot that Nicole C Mullen had already recorded some albums in the early '90s and paid her dues as a backing singer. Formerly known as Nicole Coleman the "C" is all that remains of her maiden name. She confesses, "I wanted to make it Nicole Coleman Mullen but that's a mouthful. We shortened it to Nicole C Mullen - as a compromise".
The Mullen part of her name is of course the result of her marriage to Christian musician, producer, songwriter David Mullen. Just mentioning his name causes Nicole to exclaim, "He's an excellent guy! He recorded three records in the past. He writes so he has tons of cuts on a lot of different people's CDs. He's produced my last two records with Justin Niebank."

Prior to recording her self-titled album, her most famous appearance was as the voice on the Veggie Tales song "Larry Boy Theme". At the last count, it actually sold on four million CDs and videos and she wasn't quite anonymous. She explains, "Actually my husband wrote it and produced it so he hired me to do the vocal." In the actual Veggie Tales cartoon of it, there's a glamorous asparagus who sings the song and who has a mole just where Nicole has a mole. Nicole jokes, "They should have had an egg plant and given her braids like me and made her like brownish-purple! That would be great!"

Who would have imagined that the huge success of her big ballad "Redeemer" would see her self-titled album hit paydirt? It's taken a decade for Nicole's career to really break out. She responds, "I'm slow man, OK! No, actually, I've always prayed for the Lord to put me in the right place at the right time. I didn't want to sign the wrong contract. I wanted to be with the right group of people for the right things that the Lord was giving me. So, it's taken this amount of time and in the meantime I've always asked the Lord to put me in with good people. If I'm going to be out there, I want to learn from the best. He's allowed me to do that. I've seen people do it the right way and I've seen a lot of do's and don'ts and I'm still learning."

In the meantime Nicole has had plenty of opportunity to develop her songwriting craft. Even before her self-titled album was a success, she had already won a Dove Award in the USA for the song "On My Knees" which was recorded by Jaci Velasquez. She wrote the song with her husband and she remembers, "It was an honour. It came totally unexpected. Of course we wanted it but we didn't expect it! So we wrote it for Jaci Velasquez and now it's on my last record also. I didn't think the song would do as well as it did. I thought, 'That's a nice song we wrote
but yikes! song of the year...Wow!' I knew it had to be a God thing and I'm grateful!"

Nicole made a return trip to the Dove Awards in 2001 to pick up the Song Of The Year gong for a second time for "Redeemer". She now confesses that she nearly gave the song away, "I was going to pitch it like I did with 'On My Knees'." She explains, "The more I started playing it though, I thought the song was just too close to my heart, it was my baby!"

Nicole C. Mullen

Nicole explains how she came to write her most successful song. She says, "It took me a while to write actually. I started on the guitar, I was playing my guitar and I wrote the chorus first and then the verses... I think I went through seven different versions of them...it talks about how God is just so awesome. He's a God that told the sun where to stand, just right, in the exact spot! He showed the moon where to hide until evening. The same God that speaks to the waves and the oceans and says, 'You can only come this far and no further, just right here.' That's the same God that holds me when I'm broken. He's awesome, he's magnificant! That song allows me to say, 'I know that I know that I know my Redeemer lives, this God is alive."

Her latest album, 'Talk About It', surprised a lot of people if only because Nicole is blessed with an incredible R&B voice but chose to record an album with more of a pop feel. She explains that the move was deliberate, "Everybody was doing R&B. If you have a million female artists doing the same thing, why would you want to be a million and one? It's not a matter of can I? Just because you CAN do something, should you? I wanted to say, 'This is me, this is how I write, this is the melody I would use and I'm a little off!' I work in the city but I live in the country. I ride horses and I braid hair! I work with inner city kids. These are different parts of me that make me who I am. It comes out in funkabilly! You can dance to it. If you want it in one certain format you can always remix it. You can still get the hip hop remix." At this point Nicole gets all animated with a grin on her face, she adopts her rap artist posture, "Yo Yo here we go here we go now!" She laughs, "For the most part, it's who I am, my music is a reflection of me."

For her new album, Nicole has continued to create music that crosses cultures but she has integrated more funky R&B sounds into the album than last time out. She explains, "The important part is writing the songs and getting the right things and saying it the right way, finding the right sound. It would have been easy to just do a straight hip hop/R&B record, it would have been expected probably from people who know me, but I wanted to take and give you all sides of Nicole. This is how I really do it! That's more refreshing actually."

I first met Nicole at a party in 2000 when nobody knew who she was. A year later after all the huge success I am wandering around a meet'n'greet event in Nashville where there's a huge crowd of people wanting her attention. Later as the event ends I meet her when it's all quietened down and jokingly greet her, "Wow! Nicole! You're a big star now!" She raises her eyes heavenward and starts teasing me. Success has been hard earned and it's taken time so the result is that Nicole keeps everything in perspective. She confesses, "I have seen God do extraordinary things in my life," she insists. "I am ordinary, but I get confidence when I call on Jesus. I see the contrast between the ordinary and God doing something extraordinary; the mundane joined to the glorious. That's what this album is all about. 'Talk About It' is a group of stories about life and about people. It is a celebration of a big God who works through everyday heroes."

For those people who loved "Redeemer", the funkier side of the album may be a little bit of a surprise. However there are three huge ballads on 'Talk About It' and "Call On Jesus" is the one that everybody is talking about! Nicole expresses her own fears and doubts before surrendering to the glory that is Christ in us, singing, "But when I call on Jesus, all things are possible." She confides, "And it is not just for me. The same strength and power that I can tap into is available to everyone."

It may have been a slow build for Nicole to get the recognition her talents deserve but now that Nicole is established it's clear that her songs and her ministry will continue to make a huge impact. Ministry is always going to be the most important thing for Nicole and despite all the accolades she remains focused on the important things. "Talk About It' is filled with songs about ordinary, everyday people," Nicole insists. "And, to be honest, I fit in that category too, because I don't have any special talent. When God decided to use me, I didn't have anything special to offer him. We are all like Clark Kent outside the telephone booth: when we take off the suit and the cape, we look just like everybody else. But when we call on Jesus, and his power and his strength, then we put on his armor and his light. We get to do things that we would never have been able to do in our own strength. There is a Scripture that says, The Lord is good and his mercy endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,'" Nicole declares. "Talk about it! We cried out for his mercy and grace. We cried out in our affliction and he came and helped us. He rescued us. We should 'Talk About It'."