Tony Cummings chatted to songsmith JOHN WALLER about a much watched coffee-themed video

John: Probably not large enough. My oldest two boys (one just turned 20, one will turn 20 in October), one's biological, one's adopted, I have hope that they will move out before too long and I can have a little bit of my square footage of my home back. But it's not that big a house for nine kids.

Tony: At the weekend I was at a party with my three grandchildren and some friends' children and so I spent the afternoon with about eight or nine children all around me. It was quite exhausting, and I'm thinking, 'How does a man write songs in such an environment?' Do you have to escape every now and again to write a new batch of songs?

The Waller family

John: Yes, I definitely have to escape. I used to write at the house [but] I really can't find a quiet place where they'll leave me alone long enough to write a song. This new album that's coming out this fall, I literally went to Nashville for about a week and wrote with different guys but mostly with Ian Eskelin. I was afraid that I'd forgotten how to write because all I knew was kids around me all the time, but it came back to me pretty quickly. We wrote some amazing songs.

Tony: Can you tell me the name of the album or any of the other songs that are on it?

John: We're calling the album 'Awakening' and all the songs are from my walk of faith; my story, my journey. I have a song called "Mine" and it's really about my kids but one verse is about my 13-year-old - discovering she was texting with a 16-year-old boy and that was a new thing for me to experience. There's a line in the song that talks about me getting Liam Neeson on her. If you've seen the movie Taken you know Liam Neeson's a pretty fierce, protective father so I kind of went into Liam Neeson mode when I found out about this boy. It's a great song and it really makes you laugh when you hear the line about Liam Neeson. There's a song about identity called "You Say That I Am Who You Say I Am". There's a song called "When God Says No" and it's all about how we pray and believe in God for things but at the end of the day he's God and we're not and he is Lord. If he says no, it's out of love and when God says no there is a bigger yes. My gift is exhortation, encouragement, and that's where my songs come out, in an encouraging and uplifting way.

Tony: You probably remember that back in the According To John days, you came to Britain and played the Cross Rhythms Festival all those years ago and we've been following you ever since. I can remember when the movie came out and you suddenly got this song "While I'm Waiting" all over American radio, and I'm thinking, 'Oh, he's finally broken through!' When you look back on your life, was that really the big breakthrough moment for your ministry?

John: Absolutely. There is no doubt that was the breakthrough moment for me. I've asked the Lord many times if he could do that again because it's a rare thing these days to have a breakthrough song. With social media and the way things have changed in the music industry, that there's a lot more competing for people's attention, so it's hard to get people to listen to music and get their attention. And when you do get their attention, it's a lot shorter-lived than it used to be. I'm not sure that I'll ever have a song that breaks through on that level again, but I'll take it if he gives it to me.

Tony: So often Christian movies are so obviously low budget, the acting sometimes isn't great, sometimes it's all very stiff and unreal and yet that one managed to, although it was obviously low budget, everything seemed to work in it. It just had a reality about it which often Christian movies don't. I don't know if you'd agree with that?

John: I totally agree with that. That's the thing about the Kendrick Brothers, their movies work. They start with a message first and then they write a story around that message and they pray. They seek God for a season of time before they even begin to form a concept of what their next movie will be. And that really comes across and nobody can take the credit except God.

Tony: You've got all this ahead of you with a new album coming out in the autumn. Does that mean there's going to be a tour or are you going to be very selective and only do the occasional concert?

John: I will most likely be doing a tour in the fall and then a Christmas tour as well. How far the tour goes and what area we cover, I'm not sure. We've got to go where people receive us and where we can get people to show up! I would love to come back to England; I have fond memories of coming to that festival. I remember our van broke down and caught on fire but we ended up making it and it was a great time.