The WORLD WIDE MESSAGE TRIBE are rapidly becoming the most popular contemporary Christian group in Europe. Dave Drodge went to meet the aggregation who've brought dance to Christian consciousness and the gospel to the schools of Manchester.

The album is certainly a step forward for the Tribe. It's harder and more ravey than 'Dance Planet', but still retains a few fairly down tempo cuts, the most poignant of which is "There Is A Green Hill", based on the Victorian hymn. "That track happened at church," Mark explains. "Zarc sat at the piano, flicked through the hymn book and started playing 'There Is A Green Hill Far Away'. We both just sung it, it just came." It is a rare track for the Tribe in that Zarc actually sings (very well, in fact) on it and Andy wasn't involved at all. "Andy much prefers faster, dancier tracks, but he was away on holiday when it was recorded, otherwise he never would have allowed it on the album," remarked Andy's wife later.

Another track originally written around the piano is "Rain (Set Me Free)", which is bound to cause waves of interest from Tribe fans. It's a jungle tune, moving on from "This Is Your Hour" on the 'Jumping In The House Of God' worship album. "Everyone under 30 we've played it to seems to love it, everyone over 30 just can't get to grips with the musical style," says Mark. "But jungle is gonna be very big this autumn, we reckon," adds Andy. The song ends with Elaine repeating the line, "Will you be there eternally" choirboy style. "She just did it spontaneously. It was quite spooky the way it happened, but we all liked it," says Andy.

Indeed, many of the ideas on the album just seemed to happen. Andy continues, "We only had about a month left for recording when we decided that everything we had done was awful. Fortunately, we have about 200 people who pray for at least an hour per week for us, mainly whilst we're at school, so we got them to pray about the album and most of the tracks came together quite easily after that. It was a bit desperate for a while though!"

Duncan Campbell, who was at the forefront of the 1949 revival in the Scottish Hebridean islands, where among many other supernatural manifestations people fell down under the power of the Spirit, cried, shook and generally met with God in amazing ways, has been a constant source of inspiration to the World Wide Message Tribe. The track "Re:Revival" features samples from one of his sermons. Mark explains: "The story behind that is interesting. A friend knew that we were really interested in Duncan Campbell and gave us a tape of him preaching about the revival. Zarc had earlier said, 'Wouldn't it be great if he had a really wacky voice?' and he did, and it only took Zarc about half an hour before the track was nearly complete!"

But perhaps the most surprising song on the new album is a new version of "I'll Always Believe In You", which sanctified dance fans will know from the recent album by Re:fresh. So how did it get on the new Tribe album? Andy: "The original song was actually written for the Planet Life services, but we didn't really like it, so it got shelved. But then Re:fresh came up and worked with us in a school; they liked the song, and it eventually got on the Re:fresh album. Then we played it at a concert and everyone loved it! So we asked Ray Goudie at New Generation Ministries if he would mind if Zarc remixed it slightly, and he didn't, so it ended up on our album as well."

Perfect Music
I managed to grab Zarc Porter for a while at his Perfect Music studios, where he acts as engineer/producer with the Tribe (his wife Miriam is also one of the dancers with the band). Zarc is fast becoming a sanctified dance legend. He has worked on albums by Scott Blackwell, 65dBA, Re:fresh, Raving Loonatics, Rhythm Saints and many secular acts. In fact, Steve Nixon, the creative force behind the Rhythm Saints, was in the recently opened second studio when I was there, starting work on his new album 'Golden'.

'Jumping In The House Of God', the last album to emanate from the World Wide Message Tribe stable, was a very valiant attempt at a dance-worship album, complete with instrumental versions of the songs at the end. Says Zarc, "We wanted to record praise and worship songs that we could use at our Planet Life services and the album deal just came out of that." But did Zarc find it difficult to find choruses that could be translated into dance music? "Extremely difficult. Some songs just didn't seem to work. You wouldn't believe how hard songs like 'All Heaven Declares' and 'Come On And Celebrate' were to get right!" Many people have been asking when a follow up is going to be available. "Whilst it is true that the dance-worship albums are going to be a series, I'm not expecting to start work on the next one until next year," replies Zarc.

Zarc's work on Scott Blackwell's latest album for Myx 'The Real Thing' is something to look out for. The album came about through a 'phone call last September when Scott arranged to spend a week recording with Zarc after last year's Cross Rhythms festival, where Scott was playing. "Three or four tracks were done in that one week, but the rest were basically done over the 'phone," says Zarc. "He wanted it to be a mainly instrumental project and wanted to do something different and fairly experimental; harder club mixes, but not so way out that you can't enjoy them at low volume. So it was deliberately aimed at the club type dance events that seem to be springing up all over the place."

I thought it would be interesting to ask Zarc a bit about sampling, a fairly big part of dance music. How much sampling does he do in the studio? "I sample lots and lots of things, but very few end up in songs. It's mainly to get ideas. I get my samples from white label records and sample CDs, but I try to steer away from the popular ones, otherwise you start to sound like everyone else." But what does he think on the legal aspect of sampling? "It's okay to sample drums, nobody seems to mind, but you do have to be very careful with basslines or vocal hooks, so I never sample more than one note for those. Then I'm not nicking someone else's hard work, which is what everybody gets upset about."

Zarc is still keen to continue doing secular stuff. "I want to be progressive in my style," he says. In fact, one of the effects of this approach can be heard on the new Tribe album. "Cameron Dante from Bizarre Inc helped me greatly on the remix of 'Revolution'. He does these amazing scratching noises with his voice." Also just completed is a single for secular group Mozaic. "It's called the "Hallelujah Song" which was originally a fairly big hit for Dr Alban."

Planet Life
The Tribe's vision, Andy explains, is to hold a credible monthly alternative worship service at a place where kids from all over Manchester can get to. But for the time being, 10 smaller events are wanted, to be run independently by churches where the only real contact with the Tribe would be the regular supply of DAT (Digital Audio Tape) and CD backing tracks for the congregation to groove along to and (very) occasional personal appearances. It would be up to the individual church to oversee, well, nearly everything. "For one thing, there is a need in most churches for better PA equipment," explains Andy.

In the very near future, the Tribe will be employing a full time video man, who will be available to run any visuals in Planet Life, which are an important part of the meetings. Also, a full video editing suite is planned by the Tribe to be ready in about a year's time. "The Church in general has yet to grasp the idea of multi-media presentation. Out there, multi-media is the now, but it's gonna be the future in the Church too," says Andy prophetically. Pursuing this subject further I ask whether they are trying to emulate a nightclub in Planet Life. Andy comments, "Not really. A Gospel nightclub is a great idea, with massive potential, but it's not what Planet Life is about. We want it to be a service, with definite parts. There will be prayer times and 15 minutes of Bible teaching in each meeting."

But the mere thought of booming bass, lightshows and video screens are bound to make some in the Church recoil, surely? "We want to make the Church think. Generally speaking, it is hopelessly out of touch and out of date with those that they want to reach," says Andy. "However, we are not trying to set up opposing churches or to oppose Churches. We will not do anything in a particular area if the church leaders are not backing us. Usually though, they are."

This kind of enthusiasm is not limited to local churches either. There are many others interested in the work of, and the tremendous results of, the World Wide Message Tribe's ministry. Mark reckons that they have at least one team a week coming to see how they operate in a school environment, and that is something that the Tribe very much welcome. "We want to see others doing the same kind of thing we are, all over the country," says Mark. There are, at the moment, two monthly Planet Life meetings up and running.