Latest / The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine / Leah Payne: What Happened to CCM?

Transcript

Leah Payne: What Happened to CCM? · The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine

0:30
Today we've got Leah Pain with us, and uh, Leah is going to
0:34
give you the whole history of c CM music, the whole history, right
0:39
Leah. That like, I mean, just the whole thing, right,
0:41
that's right, not the A history A. You sound like an academic right
0:48
there. If you're just a versus the you got to cover your bases.
0:52
You can't. You can't be saying to be the you can't be pretending like
0:54
you're the You gotta just go a that's me A history. Well here's a
1:00
thing. We're not a We're not like a book publisher. We're just like
1:03
a podcast that only two people will listen to. So you could do the
1:06
if you want. Okay, sure, No, I'm excited. I can't
1:11
wait to be here. I'm a little bit nervous for you all too,
1:12
because I know you're real fans, so we know we might know a thing
1:17
or two. I think you do. I think you do. I'm excited
1:19
about it. Thanks for having me. We're excited. We're excited. Well,
1:23
let's get started with just kind of honestly more than interesting. You know,
1:29
more than anything what is interesting to me as somebody who you know has
1:34
navigated a little bit of the scholarship world is like the whole point of being
1:38
like a scholar is that, like you disconnect yourself, your own personal story
1:42
from your scholarship, right, Like you're supposed to just be an objective observer
1:48
of what you're observing, right, Yet at the same time, you clearly
1:53
have investment, personal investment into this kind of scholarship. So I'd love to
1:57
just hear I've again, we're not scholars by any means, right right,
2:02
I mean, I'm literally drinking some alcohol. I'm sure Colin's got a whole
2:06
thing right now. Well, Colin's literally yeah, Colin's got his He's got
2:08
his thing. We're clearly not scholars. So we'd love to hear just a
2:14
little bit more of like your own like kind of personal journey of like how
2:16
you got into CCM, because for so many of us, sure like CCM
2:21
starts in so many different places. So I'd love to just hear from you,
2:23
like how did you get involved in CCM and what's that story? Yeah,
2:28
you know so, And I'd like to just make a little note about,
2:34
you know, objectivity and whether or not people who have experience with something
2:38
can or can't, you know, I think there's trade offs to what you
2:42
know if you're an outsider versus an insider. So you guys want to be
2:46
aware of your experiences and biases as an insider. But I think that insider
2:51
knowledge can give you things that outsider knowledge can't, you know. So ideally
2:55
we're all in this together as scholars, and I do have some insider perspective
3:00
on contemporary Christian music. I was raised on the West Coast in a little
3:07
charismatic congregation, like super charismatic congregation. So I was raised on music that's
3:13
kind of like the foundation of what we know of contemporary Christian music's music called
3:16
Jesus music. So think about if, if you like, especially for those
3:23
like early charismatic people or the people that grew up in the eighties and nineties
3:27
and charismatic. I've always thought about this, like if they had one of
3:30
those watches that counted calories, do you imagine just like what the like,
3:35
what your worship like calorie count would be. Oh, because like you're running
3:38
up and down those aisles were running across I've always like that's a whole that's
3:44
a whole CrossFit exercise just by being in worship with God. Yeah, I
3:49
mean ad flags tambourines, you know, Oh my godnessletely absolutely that is a
3:53
fit way to praise the Lord. Yes, I was raised in a very
3:58
very charismatic church, and so with the music of those West Coast revivals.
4:03
My parents went to a little Bible college in San Jose in the nineteen seventies,
4:10
so that was like right where all that stuff was happening. And so
4:14
if you know anything about Jesus music, and so yeah, I was raised
4:16
with Keith Green in second chapter of AX and Larry Norman that kind of music
4:20
was just like and Daniel Lamis I should say that music was just like how
4:28
it was just like the air that was our home. But my dad did
4:33
not like contemporary Christian music. He thought the quality was poor. I write
4:39
about this a little bit in the book. And so we didn't. I
4:41
didn't really grow up with contemporary Christian music the way that I would assume a
4:45
lot of your most devoted listeners did, which was as an antidote to the
4:51
poison of secular music. So because my dad just didn't like it, so
4:58
we I you know, I kind of missed a lot of the cultural value
5:03
of CCM. Just me personally, but because I grew up in a small
5:09
Pentecostal church, I mean, of course I knew what it was, you
5:11
know, like everybody. Most of my friends went to most of my church
5:17
friends went to music festivals and did all of the stuff that was associated with
5:24
contemporary Christian music. So when I after college, I moved to Nashville,
5:30
Tennessee, and I ended up working for a music producer, a very well
5:33
known music producer in CCM, a guy named Charlie Peacock, who is,
5:40
you know, responsible for some of the biggest acts in contemporary Christian music,
5:44
but his career is much broader than that. He's worked with a lot of
5:46
other people. But anyway, so I worked in the business for a little
5:49
while, and then I went to graduate school became a historian, and I
5:56
just CCM as a thing kind of kept coming back to me because as I
6:00
kept thinking about how powerful it was and how in American religious history circles it
6:06
was usually mentioned on the outskirts of things, like it was like kitsch but
6:13
not central. And in my experience, the world of CCM is very was
6:20
very, very, very powerful in the lives of the people who were involved
6:25
in evangelical culture. So That's kind of how the idea for the book began.
6:30
Was like, well, what if you look at the kitsch, What
6:32
if you look at this thing that's supposed to be, you know, something
6:36
that a lot of people think of as just like an afterthought a little bit,
6:42
or or a lot of people will think of it as sort of a
6:46
remnant of an embarrassing evangelical past or something like that. I wanted to look
6:51
at it as a really important force in creating evangelicalism, and I wanted to
6:59
see what it could tell us about the development of this movement that we call
7:02
evangelical. And of course I decided I found myself following people like you,
7:08
Mason, because you're so funny on social media, like your little jokes.
7:13
You've got a lot of great CCM jokes. So, yeah, I would
7:16
love to hear you y'all, like what's your background in, Like how what
7:21
was your entry point to thinking about contemporary Christian music? Well, my mine
7:27
is way more serious than that, oh ah, colon, but I'd love
7:32
to hear kind of your CCM story, like how did you get in?
7:38
Yeah, my CCM story was kind of strange. Mason and I both grew
7:41
up in South Dakota, which is kind of oh interesting. It's kind of
7:44
a desert of a lot of things. And I would say that I have
7:48
family from Sturgis. Oh yeah, yeah, we grew up on the other
7:53
side of the state where we're kind of like Minnesotans in a way. But
7:56
oh yeah, okay, that's great, Okay, cool lived in for a
8:00
long time. Oh yeah. So yeah, it's kind of a desert for
8:03
a lot of things. And I would say that, after hearing so many
8:07
people's experiences on this podcast, we did not have the same CCM kind of
8:13
upbringing that a lot of people have had. Yeah, and I think a
8:18
lot of that comes down to just that culture doesn't get up here as quickly
8:24
or as easily as elsewhere. But no, the mainstays we're always there.
8:30
That the Jesus music kind of revolution, I guess you could say. But
8:33
then it became very like the moment that I noticed it is when it really
8:35
became ultra commercialized. This is actually a thing that I'm actually really you know,
8:43
interested to hear. What you have to say is at what point,
8:46
like we can we can take it all the way back to like you know,
8:48
the spiritual Gospels of of you know, former enslaved people and things like
8:54
that, because I think that's really where does come from initially, but where
9:01
does the where does it become ultra commercialized? At what point would you say,
9:09
oh me, you know, So it's really hard to know where to
9:13
start a book like this, right because if you're talking about Christian people and
9:18
music, then you're just you have to talk about like the beginning, you
9:22
know, like so the New Testament. But I want to So I ended
9:26
up making a decision to start it where the business started, which was in
9:33
the early twentieth century, with these mostly white revivalists who were appropriating black music
9:43
just so, who were sometimes like in the case of Pentecostals, for example,
9:50
there were some interracial versions of Pentecostalism, but overall the business was started
9:56
by holiness people, Baptists and Pancostals who were revivalists. So they were people
10:03
who were well practiced at the kind of altar call version of Christianity that many
10:09
people associate with evangelicalism. But they they so they created these So what years
10:15
are you talking about here, like early twentieth century, So eighteen ninety seven
10:20
was like kind of the beginning of the revivals that inspired some of the So
10:26
one of the biggest labels in contemporary Christian music was Benson and the Benson family
10:33
started creating songbooks revivalist songbooks in the early nineteen hundreds, John T. And
10:41
Eva Green Benson, and they were these Nazarene they became Nazarenes. They kind
10:45
of helped found the Nazarene Church. So they were holiness people. And then
10:50
there were a bunch of Baptists and then Pentecostals, and I would argue that
10:52
Pentecostals really brought the most in terms of the music, and they this little
11:00
group of people in the American South. You know, Southern people had been
11:03
making music for hundreds of years, but it didn't get national distribution until technology
11:11
changed to where instead of publishing music mostly in really elite cities like Philadelphia and
11:18
New York, middle class Ish people in the South could afford to publish their
11:22
own music. So the music of the South went kind of all over the
11:28
United States and these like really catchy revivalist revivalist songs took off, but they
11:35
didn't really get I would say the beginning of CCM as a commercial venture,
11:41
like a really viable commercial adventure. I think I'd have to say Amy Grant
11:46
is kind of the beginning of contemporary Christian USA, even like for like people
11:50
like Keith Green and everything like that whole well, they I mean they were
11:54
they I think Jesus music. So in the book I write about Jesus music
12:00
kind of solves a problem for conservative white revivalists. So for from the get
12:05
go, revivalists were the revivals who made the music that become CCM. They
12:11
were really concerned about shaping the country in what they thought were God honoring ways.
12:18
They were concerned. They had a lot of they had a really strong
12:22
sense of activism, especially when it came to the young. So one of
12:26
the early versions of that would be teetotaling and prohibition. So there were lots
12:30
of songs Brett Revival of songs talking about the Devil's brew like you would be
12:35
in trouble, Mason, and trying to like wouldn't be my first time,
12:39
Leah, Yeah, trying to convince the young, you know, not to
12:43
drink alcohol. And so they had a fair amount of success with that.
12:50
I mean, you know, getting a federal ban on the manufacturing and sale
12:54
of alcohol is no small venture. But so they were really well practic,
13:00
like we're going to use music to shape the young. But then the music
13:03
itself became a huge problem in the form of rock and roll and so rock
13:09
music, you know, it comes out of Black American culture, a lot
13:13
of different musical forms, and then also black and white Pentecostal churches, and
13:18
it was very confounding for conservative white revivalists because they were like, we're going
13:24
to use music to shape the young, and then the music that the young
13:28
life like we have condemned, you know. So there were like a brown
13:33
ten years or so, maybe more like fifteen years or so, there were
13:37
all these kind of efforts at trying to create alternatives to rock. So there
13:43
I cover a lot of the vocal jazz groups. There was a really famous
13:48
like folk ensemble called Up with People that was not from the revivalist networks,
13:54
but there were like Baptist groups that would try and imitate that type of stuff
13:58
and it just did catch on the way rock did. So Jesus music,
14:03
in my mind solves a problem for white revivalists because it is an acceptable form
14:11
of music made by young people for young people, that is authorized by big
14:18
important people like Billy Graham, who brought a bunch of Jesus people to a
14:22
big revival meeting in Dallas known as XPLO seventy two, which is kind of
14:26
like usually the inciting incident of contemporary Christian music because it brought these kind of
14:35
wild West Coast hippie people, many of whom had really dramatic conversion experiences and
14:41
like really mystical wild experiences, and then wrote songs about it. And then
14:48
Explo seventy two exposed the traditional Sunday school networks that Billy Graham could attract in
14:56
Dallas to the hippiest that and so all of a sudden it was like,
15:01
well, these hippie kids, they look like rebels, they look very dangerous,
15:07
but they're singing about the Second Coming, you know, they're singing about
15:09
like all this apocalypticism, and so yeah, rock's okay now, you know.
15:15
And so that was a huge boon. But I think most of the
15:18
Jesus people were just not commercially viable because they weren't professionals. You know.
15:24
They were a lot of them had very you know, they were some of
15:30
them could be krond of rainery or unpredictable. There were rock stars, you
15:33
know, like in the way that rockers can be a little bit like that.
15:37
I mean, some of them weren't, but I'm just saying like a
15:39
lot of them were were not necessarily not necessarily polished and professional. And then
15:46
Amy Grant is this beautiful, upper class Southern woman who is just like unbelievably
15:56
poised. I don't know, I've watched decades of interviews with her. You
16:00
cannot catch that woman saying a false word, you know. I mean,
16:06
she's just unbelievable. So I think she's the beginning of and by all accounts,
16:11
by the way, like the nicest person, and people are very,
16:14
very protective of her. I learned that they you know, people were like,
16:18
don't come for my Amy Grant, you know, so, by all
16:19
accounts, just like the nicest person in the world. However, I think
16:23
she was like a professional, you know, like you could you could build
16:27
an industry around artists like that. Where is Larry Norman? You're not,
16:33
you know, He's just He's going to do his own thing, no matter
16:36
what. So that was the longest answer, But that is my answer for
16:41
you, which is that's why I think she's the beginning. Yeah, I
16:44
think that makes perfect sense. And I think your dad was onto something by
16:47
saying that, you know this, a lot of this music just doesn't really
16:52
hold a candle to some of the other good stuff that's being played right now.
16:56
It's funny my part. My dad is so not online, he has
17:00
no idea, but I'm talking about him all the time, like, yeah,
17:02
he was kind of armory about it, So sorry dad. Anyway,
17:07
Well, you know that that's a common a common trup that that Mason and
17:10
I talk about all the time too. Though, is that a lot of
17:12
times there was always that Christian alternative that was never quite as good as maybe
17:18
what the secular could could bring out. Through your research, have you have
17:23
you found that to be kind of a thing as well. And then once
17:26
that the bigger money comes along with it to kind of fund some of these
17:30
people and try to make them a little more polished in that ultra commercialized world.
17:36
Is that a benefit or is that a negative? Or maybe you don't
17:38
want to put a quantity on that or a oh yeah on that necessarily,
17:44
but yeah, you know, I would say I would say it was ultimately
17:49
unsustainable, so whether or not it's good or bad, So you know,
17:56
the fun thing for me was I. You know, a lot of histories
18:00
of contemporary Christian music focus on the perspective of the artists and how these like
18:07
their art develops over time, and I tried to be pretty focused on the
18:11
business end of things. So why did the business do what it did?
18:15
And from the business side of things, it totally makes sense to have derivative
18:21
pop music because because of the mission of contemporary Christian music as a whole,
18:26
there were always exceptions. So I try to point out that there are lots
18:30
of exceptions along the way, but the main business model was a model that
18:37
was built on providing safe alternatives to what was seen as dangerous secular music,
18:41
so just mainstream music. So that meant that by design, contemporary Christian music
18:48
was always going to lag behind mainstream music, and that was of course well
18:55
known in the industry. But I think for and usually most industry peple would
19:00
say, well, it's like about eighteen months to three years behind whatever mainstream
19:06
you know, act was was out there. And in some ways it worked
19:11
for a long time because the target customer, the target consumer was a teen,
19:18
but the target customer was the teen's mom, right, And so moms,
19:23
I'm a mom, you know, I am like, cool is so
19:27
far in the rear view mirror, you know. And I was telling my
19:32
my son, like, you never come to me. You know, he's
19:36
still in the age where he thinks everything I do is awesome. But I,
19:40
you know, don't hold on to that. By the way, it's
19:42
the treasure. But you know, I'm not going to know what's cool.
19:47
You can't ask me to tell you what's cool. And so I think it
19:52
lasted for quite some time because the people mostly who were buying the music.
19:56
Now, there are always exceptions, and I know you guys are Tooth and
19:59
Nail people, and I think Tooth and Nail thrived in part because they did
20:03
something a little bit different. They were doing more peer to peer sales.
20:08
But your average top selling CCM artist was being purchased by moms. So moms
20:15
just don't know, like they don't know what's what's cool, or they're trying
20:18
so hard, you know, I have. There were so many stories of
20:22
Christian bookstore. A lot of times there would be young men, mostly men,
20:26
who would work in Christian bookstores and help curate they were They did a
20:33
lot I think to try, like teens did a lot to try and curate
20:37
like a little separate section that had like edgy music, but a lot of
20:42
times it's Grandma's coming in saying like my son likes ACDC, you know,
20:48
And then so then they would say, you know, listen to Petra,
20:52
which if you listen to ACDC, you know that that is not a substitute,
20:56
you know, not at all. Yeah, So the business side is
21:04
always really an interesting side for me. And I'd love to hear a little
21:08
bit more again because Colin and I are coming more from like the tooth and
21:12
Nail world, and certainly a lot of our listeners are. I'd love to
21:17
hear a little bit more about. And I know, like you give a
21:21
little sort of like kind of moment for Tooth and Nail, but it doesn't
21:25
take up the entire book obviously, but I'd love to hear just based on
21:29
like some of your studies around Tooth and Nail that might not even have made
21:33
the book, but clearly there's a moment where you go from the mom's being
21:41
the market essentially, regardless of that market is for technically the teen girl or
21:47
not the market is really for the mom to now all of a sudden you
21:52
have a market that opens up where like the mom is not in control of
21:56
like if your kid is listening to Living Sacrifice or MxPx or something right like
22:03
that is that is completely dictated by like your teenage boy, and that changes
22:11
the dynamic of like what the business side is, right, And I'd love
22:15
to hear just like again, because your book is like more focused on the
22:18
business side, Like how does something like tooth and Nail entering into the picture
22:23
of CCM as kind of this like subcategory, knowing that it's actually doing business
22:29
in a very different way than the general market of CCM. Is I love
22:33
to hear a little bit more about kind of that my history that you again,
22:37
like I know, knowing that Tooth and Nail is like not a huge
22:40
part of the book, but knowing that, like you certainly have probably studied
22:41
a little bit of this, Yes, And I have to say, I
22:45
have so much respect for Tooth Andnail fans. I'm a tiny bit scared of
22:48
y'all because these are like the true fans. These y'all are like the fans
22:53
fans. So I found that tooth nail the two labels that I spend the
23:03
most time on when it comes to the indie labels of the nineties are what
23:08
I think are kind of two of the most powerful ones, and no one
23:11
argues that Tooth and Nail is the biggest. But I also interviewed Frank Tate
23:17
a five minute walk who who is responsible for five Iron Frenzy Who? But
23:23
I would never cross a five Iron Frenzy fan. That would be the last
23:26
thing I did probably in this life. You want to want to lose your
23:30
tenure across the five they'll figure they'll figure it away. I have nothing but
23:34
respect for you people. But anyways, so I so those folks to me,
23:41
and I didn't get to you know, I wish I would have had
23:44
more time in the book. But those folks, to me are like a
23:45
continuation of Jesus music, I think in a lot of ways, which is
23:51
to say that the vast majority of the bands that come out of that those
23:55
networks are on the West Coast, and they they they're see develops in large
24:02
part in churches that had like remnants of those Jesus people. A lot of
24:07
them are like kids of Jesus people, and those churches there are mostly a
24:12
lot of the There was a huge cavalry chapel scene and then also Four Square
24:19
and Vineyard churches. Those those churches really had an eye for like developing youth
24:30
culture and youth ministry. And so there were like skate skate parks and like
24:36
massive, like unbelievably like huge production value concert series and but then like little
24:42
basements where people you know. So they did a lot to promote young people
24:48
making music for other young people, and that is the key to their success
24:53
because most of the kind of corporate stuff that came out of Nashville was built
25:00
on a very profitable model of selling to suburban white moms. But Tooth and
25:04
Nail was by design. You know, a young guy created the label with
25:10
the idea that you know, there are all these young people who don't you
25:12
know, they don't want to listen to Carmen, you know, they they
25:15
want to listen to, you know, like some kind of death metal.
25:19
You know, so I think and those guys, because most of that was
25:23
just like totally shoe string budget, they were super creative. One of the
25:29
best stories Frank Tate told me that didn't end up in the book was about
25:34
creating a a an album cover that had let's see, how was it.
25:41
It was like if you ordered I'm going to get it. I'm going to
25:42
get some of the details wrong. But if you ordered an UH record,
25:48
it was something about, oh, I know, it was like one of
25:52
the first mass mailing lists, like when email was very young. They were
25:56
like, put your you know, sign up for our email list. I
26:00
hope I have these details right, and then you'll be on the album liner
26:04
notes. And so then when the album came out, they emailed all the
26:10
fans. I guarantee someone who's listening is going to know this detail. I'm
26:14
sorry if I got it wrong. But and then it was like you could
26:17
buy the album and find your name on the liner notes. Well, that
26:22
is like a genius marketing strategy, right, And so I'm sorry, Frank
26:27
if I get some small detail of that wrong. But that is something that
26:34
a major label, like by the nineteen nineties, most major contemporary Christian music,
26:41
stuff like stuff you'd hear on the radio, was owned by non church
26:45
related corporations, and those labels just were so they had they were making so
26:51
much money. I mean, they were producing like Britney Spears, and then
26:53
they had like a division that was contemporary Christian music, but the tooth and
27:00
nail type labels and bands they were scrappy. They had to be really creative,
27:06
and so I think they were also pretty forward thinking about like using the
27:10
internet, and you know, understanding that grassroots marketing and touring was the stuff
27:17
that was going to sustain you. So a lot of the bands I think
27:21
now, I would venture to say that they have more dedicated fans and listenership
27:26
that have stayed with them, like through thick and thin, because of their
27:32
kind of old school touring in ways that there are so many people like artists
27:37
who probably sold a lot more records back in the day, but no one
27:42
knows who they are now because they were, you know, kind of on
27:47
the kind of traditional model. But I don't know if that's what you're looking
27:51
for, But I have a lot of respect those folks. And I heard
27:53
like just so many funny stories about just being young and and you know,
28:00
like touring the country when you're like seventeen with very little supervision, and those
28:07
are great stories. Well, what's interesting And obviously again your book is like
28:11
very much like CCM centric, which a lot of people might put something like
28:17
tooth andnail under. I actually have my own like grievances of like sure,
28:21
putting CCM and Tooth and Nail and those kind of bands in the same category,
28:25
like they're categorically different, but a lot of people do. And so
28:29
because of that, I at least have to like enter into that discourse.
28:32
But regardless, what's interesting again, because Colin and I are coming from that
28:37
world, because you're like you literally wrote a book about CCM. What's interesting
28:42
about like that Tooth and Nail side of stuff is you have some of the
28:47
most successful CCM artists come out of this like very independent and scrappy kind of
28:56
genre or label. I mean you have so, I mean, I I
29:00
know you don't really cover this, but like one of my fun facts to
29:03
this day is the fact that under Oath until twenty fourteen, had the highest
29:07
charting Christian album of all time amongst Christians. And I remember listening to an
29:15
under Oath episode a couple of years ago where they were talking about this,
29:18
where they had so there's six guys in under Oath. There's six band members
29:22
and then a couple a few of the label people and then their producers and
29:26
a couple other people that are part of the kind of like album release cycle.
29:32
But they were saying there were maybe like fifteen to maybe twenty people who
29:37
had any decision making power in that album at that time, and it went
29:41
number two on the chart. And the next album that went higher than them
29:45
was Nelly for Ferrado or whatever her name, Tato for Tato, who probably
29:49
had like at least hundreds of people who had at least some sort of decision
29:53
making power, like and she was working with Timbaland, which is right,
29:57
I mean that's the top of the top one, yeah, me truly,
30:00
and like there might not be an album that has that few of people that
30:04
are involved in the actual decision making process of an album that went that high
30:08
for I mean, we might not see that again for years. And this
30:14
is a Christian like, this is a Christian band, or at least the
30:17
time at the time was labeled a Christian band. Like that to me is
30:21
still mind boggling. And we have other Christian bands, like you know Amberlin
30:25
that was charting right almost nearly as high, and we've got a bunch of
30:29
the other ones and they're all coming out of this like small, independent,
30:33
kind of scrappy label that's like started out with the guy who literally took a
30:36
loan from his grandpa and had to repay his grandpa. Like that's how scrappy
30:40
this was. Mm hmm. Yeah. I think, you know, one
30:42
of the questions that my the that I try to tackle is why Tooth and
30:49
Nail succeeded on its own terms. I mean, I would say, I
30:57
think the thing is is that label are really expensive. Like the music business,
31:02
it's hard to maintain and so even Tooth and Nail was not immune from
31:07
kind of the corporate pressures. And at the end of the day, and
31:11
I think this is something that really bothers a lot of like hardcore fans.
31:15
The band that sustained Tooth and Nail was the OCI Supertones in a lot of
31:22
ways because and Jeremy Camp exactly, and who buys those two bands music?
31:30
You know, it's the moms. So I think, you know, one
31:33
of the funny things about the book has just been like, oh, this
31:37
is an ode to like maternal authority, because those moms, if those moms,
31:42
I mean, I have some really funny stories in the book about because
31:48
you bring up a lot of good points that Tooth and Nail like, and
31:51
I would argue bands like Five Iron Frenzy, we're writing about things that were
31:56
very subversive. I can't tell you the number of times. Maybe it's been
32:00
you Mason also who has tweeted something like five Iron Frenzy radicalized me or some
32:05
some kind of I I think those ones are are great. And I actually
32:10
talked to land or or take it till who Jeff otherwise known as Jeff from
32:15
five Iron Frenzy, and I asked her, I was like, how did
32:20
you all get away with this? Like you're you're saying stuff like directly going
32:24
against manifest destiny while Stephen Curtis Chapman's The Great Adventure, you know, saddle
32:30
up your horses is like huge, you know, And I'm like, how
32:35
did you do that? And she said something so funny. She was just
32:37
like, I think that it was the kids were wearing like headphones, their
32:43
moms weren't listening, or it was the sounds that the moms weren't all that
32:46
interested in. And so because there were some I mean, a lot of
32:52
the hardcore stuff was like definitely reinforcing, you know, religious right stuff.
32:57
So there's a lot of it that's super conservative, but there's also a lot
33:00
of it that was very subversive, and I think they kind of got away
33:04
with that by getting around the moms, although sometimes there are some funny stories
33:07
where moms would read liner notes of Tooth and Nail albums just to make sure
33:14
and then oh, that's so sweet. I include a story in there.
33:20
And actually I emailed the person because they filled out this survey that I made
33:22
about contemporary Christian music and they were like mortified when their mom called the Tooth
33:29
and Nail like mail order line to complain and and and I was like,
33:37
this story is hilarious. Can I put it in the book. And he
33:39
was like, let me check with my mom over there. Yeah. Yeah,
33:47
those moms, man, good luck getting around them. I still remember
33:52
the very first moment I ever listened to under Oath, remember, you know,
33:55
seeing them on like Steel Roots or whatever, you know, some sort
33:59
of like Christian uh you know, like music video kind of countdown type of
34:04
thing, and then finding them on like Pure Volume or MySpace or something right
34:09
and listening to Reinventing Your Exit or whatever was like on their Chasing Safety,
34:15
which they just announced their twentieth anniversary, and I remember listening to that on
34:20
my little headphones that were like little over the year headphone kind of things.
34:22
Whatever. And our and our computer was in like uh and Colin would know
34:28
this because like our computer was like in this little space that was like connected
34:31
the kitchen and living room. So it was in a very public space,
34:34
so like conservative Christian household. Yeah, I was messing with it on the
34:38
computer. It was out in the open, like there's no hiding. Yes,
34:44
oh my god, Yes, I still remember anyway, were you my
34:50
mom? So anyway, I still remember listening to under Oath and my mom
34:55
like, because it was like crappy headphones, my mom could hear you.
35:00
I was jacked it up as loud as it could and my mom could hear
35:02
it through my headphones, and she was like, what is that screaming you're
35:07
listening to? Oh my goodness. And I had to explain to her.
35:09
I'm like, no, no, like your mom, I swear to God,
35:13
like it's it's a Christian band, like I swear, I swear it's
35:15
a Christian band. And I had to go through that whole like moment that
35:19
so many others of us probably went through of like Mom, I swear to
35:22
God, this is like a Christian band. I just really really like them,
35:25
like please, please, please, please let me listen to it's all
35:28
I got right, Like, I don't want to listen to newsboys anymore.
35:31
I just want to listen to my kind of music. And I had to
35:34
like do that whole explanation. And I would imagine so many of us had
35:37
that kind of similar story and anyway, that's a whole thing that we had
35:43
to navigate, and that is such a significant part of like that CCM history
35:47
for so many of us. I love that story so much. I mean,
35:52
you set the scene so well. I feel like I was there.
35:55
I feel like maybe there was some sort of brown tie at some like maybe
36:00
on the camera. I don't know, a lot of a lot of hopes
36:07
going on. I'll tell you that I love it. Oh yes, the
36:08
era of move Yeah, I love that. Yeah, that that. I
36:14
mean. One of the funny things about that is that's just such a specific
36:17
experience that can only happen if moms are the intermediary in an entire market,
36:23
you know, which I think that that has been. It's it's the defining
36:29
quirk of the Christian music world. And I would agree. I mean,
36:32
one of the reasons why tooth and nail and there have been a couple of
36:37
people were like she should have written more about Tooth and Nail, but I
36:39
felt that it was an act of respect to say that Tooth and Nail is
36:44
not Actually it exists, you know, in a much different like if you're
36:49
going to do a venn diagram. There's only a couple of bands that really
36:52
stand out as like contemporary Christian music bands that would have been from Tooth and
36:57
Nail, But the rest of their ross exists in this other space, and
37:02
many of the most notable of them, you know, went on to be
37:07
main have mainstream labels and careers and all that kind of stuff. So yeah,
37:12
I think, but the experience, the fact that you still had that
37:15
experience is just it's so I don't know, I've gotten a really big kick
37:20
out of hearing all of those stories. They're all they're all there's like a
37:22
ritual to it. You know. It's like the kid is hiding the thing,
37:27
or maybe not hiding the thing, just like enjoying the thing. The
37:30
mom intercedes, you know, or intervenes, and anyways, sometimes a big
37:36
brother or sister will like intercede on behalf of the younger, you know.
37:39
So anyway, I love it. I love it. Those are great stories
37:44
going back to the thought process of commercialization and big business. Yes, Mason
37:52
brought up the under Oath record that you know went absolutely nuts on the charts
37:55
and everything, right, I would argue that Solid State almost went the same
38:01
route as the traditional CCM labels right after that album release. Obviously, solid
38:08
State and and Tooth and Nail are now flush with cash, and they are
38:15
trying to treat all of their other not all of them, a lot of
38:19
their other artists very much the same way that the under Oath was trying to
38:24
create the next under Oath, Right, Like bands like Acid's burn Emery,
38:30
these are bands that all of a sudden quadrupled their recording budget, they quadrupled
38:37
their touring budget. Instead of being in a van that they're driving themselves,
38:40
now they're in a big bus that they get driven for them. If that
38:44
would have gone that route, if that, if that model would have been
38:46
successful, and those other bands would have blown up to be the same size
38:51
or have the same kind of success as under Oath. What do you think
38:54
happens in that Christian alternative scene, like Solid State or Face Down or Flicker
39:00
or whatever you want to whatever other label you want to throw out there,
39:07
Like would it have a similar trajectory to to exactly do you think that if
39:15
do you think that it would go the same route as CCM, and all
39:17
of a sudden, now all the music is less authentic, maybe maybe more
39:22
uh, maybe more generalized for the larger part of society, or I don't
39:28
know, what do you think? You know? Okay, I'm having like
39:30
three different thoughts at once. I'll try and keep it short. The first
39:34
thought is, I think there's always a tension in any kind of music that
39:40
especially if punk is involved in the question, then there's always like an issue
39:45
a worry about of selling out. So it doesn't matter if it's mainstream or
39:49
Christian like. That's a huge because authenticity is such a highly prized like virtue
39:54
in punk and in like certainly many of the other forms of like metal and
40:00
and so I would say that I think that from that perspective, anytime there's
40:06
like a lot of money being made, you're gonna have fans who are super
40:09
testy about that, you know, because you know, on the one hand,
40:14
probably people working at the labels are like, I just want insurance,
40:16
you know. But from fans perspective, they're like, you know this,
40:22
this they it's kind of funny, not dissimilar from some radical teachings from Jesus,
40:28
like money is going to be, you know, a temptation for your
40:31
soul. So I would guess that if they would have made a lot more
40:36
money, that there would be inevitable conversation about that, about selling out,
40:38
But that happens in mainstream spaces as well. Of course. I think that
40:45
one of the things I think is really interesting about those labels and those bands,
40:50
many of whom are no longer labeled, is the staying power that they
40:53
had even when the Internet just like completely overturned all of the business model in
41:00
the early two thousands. So I think one of the reasons why that the
41:05
profitability that you're talking about didn't happen had to do with just the tech inventions
41:09
that like pulled the rug out from under everybody, but the fact that a
41:15
lot of those bands are still around and that they're still like, they're still
41:20
connecting with fans, so that they had something that was It never had the
41:27
numbers that the mainstream bands had, but it had more durability because I think
41:32
you two actually care, right, you really care, and there are not
41:37
a lot of people who are like I really cared about and I'm not even
41:39
going to say a band because someone's gonna get mad at me. But you
41:44
know, the kind of the like the top selling CCM folks, they didn't
41:49
have that kind of connection with their fans. So yeah, I don't know
41:53
it. I wonder if like it in a weird way artistically and kind of
41:59
just the ethos, like maybe it was a better thing that they didn't,
42:05
you know, do that because you can't help yourself. You know, once
42:07
you start making a lot of money, then you have to kind of manage
42:09
that money and then and then you have to make decisions to make more of
42:14
it. And I actually don't I feel a certain amount of sympathy for people
42:20
who are trying to because then once people work for you, you know,
42:22
like a lot of artists that I talked to may have stayed quiet about certain
42:29
social issues that they wish they would have said something about and their reasoning at
42:34
the time, and I feel empathy toward this is that, Hey, I
42:37
have ten people whose income you know, is based on my voice, So
42:44
you know, I feel I guess maybe it's just getting like middle age where
42:49
I'm like, okay, well, you know, I actually understand that that
42:52
is a hard decision to make. Well, the big thing I want to
42:58
know is what is going to happen to CCM. You know, the money
43:01
is changing, right, the industry is changing. It seems like it's harder
43:06
and harder for the for the industry to create big pop stars. It's really
43:10
harder to create crossover appeal. Maybe not, you know, if you're talking
43:15
about like hip hoop and stuff like that, maybe not so much. But
43:17
if we're talking about the pop stars, if we're talking about even country artists,
43:22
right, it's a it's a difficult scene right now. And it seems
43:30
to me. And maybe it's just because I'm less plugged in than I used
43:31
to be in the CCM world. But is it kind of dying a slow
43:37
death or is it just still living off the off the suburban moms. That's
43:43
such a great question, and that's something that I tackle in the book,
43:45
which is so the Internet just gutted the entire I mean, and I should
43:52
say file sharing gutted the entire music industry. Streaming also has has done a
43:58
lot of damage, and the way that mainstream bands and acts compensated for that
44:05
was through a couple they had a few different strategies. One was jacking up
44:08
ticket prices. That's why it costs like an unbelievable amount of money to go
44:14
see your favorite band, and through merchandise and stuff like that. But there
44:20
were changes in evangelicalism that were happening that were related to technology, but just
44:23
other shifts that undermined that method of compensation. So if you, I mean
44:32
you rightly have recognized that a lot of the mechanisms that upheld CCM. So
44:38
I'm thinking of the parachurch organizations, the Christian conferences, the Christian music festivals,
44:47
the Christian camps, the churches themselves are changing. So for example,
44:54
the Americans are worshiping less often and consolidating in megachurch. And what that does
45:00
is it has killed the mid sized church, which for CCM development networks,
45:06
is it even and especially some of those like tooth and Nail type bands.
45:09
That's devastating because the model used to be, you know, you play a
45:14
little church in a coffee shop, and then you kind of work your way
45:15
to a medium sized church and then you eventually get at the big churches and
45:20
then these like huge conferences and you know, campus crusade for christ and stuff
45:23
like that. And without that, without that robust network, you just don't
45:29
really have an industry. So there are a lot of legacy acts, like
45:31
Toby Mack is still touring. You know, the Newsboys, they're like the
45:36
Leonard skinnerd of CCM because they just have a rotating crew. They survive a
45:42
plane crash too Australia. God believe they didn't lean in the Indian Ocean.
45:49
They have even more legendary tales, I'm sure, but so yeah, that
45:53
yeah, But the worship music has taken in the spots of most like on
46:02
quote unquote Christian radio, you'll hear worship music, which is the worship the
46:07
music of the megachurch. So it's like megachurches have and megachurches are like they
46:14
don't need touring bands. I don't know, you know, I pay attention
46:16
to this stuff. Not everybody does. But if you look at the videos
46:22
that Elevation Church is producing, I mean they're excellent technically, like you would
46:28
be hard pressed to find like they're really well done in terms of like the
46:34
lighting and the sound and and so they what I'm saying is they don't need
46:39
a touring band. They are like they're a little music empire in and of
46:44
themselves, so music churches anything like that. And then you're based really really
46:51
small ecosystem that gets smaller and smaller over you, right, but it has
46:54
this outsized influence, like people all over the world are singing their music,
46:59
so they are shaping like how people are doing things, these these very well
47:06
funded, charismatic megachurches. And then the big one of the devastating things is
47:12
that the white women of the suburbs did not have enough kids, and so
47:17
the the moms and there are a fewer of them. So I write it
47:23
in the book about how certain conservative radio stations have corded Latinas like so basically
47:31
where it would like English English speaking Latinas are kind of the new white suburban
47:37
mom market that they're trying to attract, so like Salem or or ka Love,
47:43
they would be targeting those women, but it's not enough of a market
47:47
to sustain the business. So to your question, I think, and and
47:53
also like the women by the way, you may or may not know this,
47:57
but they were known by the marketing persona of Becky Becky's Yeah, so
48:00
Becky's I sometimes I'll just be like so anyway, Becky's and people like,
48:05
what are you talking about? But so the Becky's, they themselves don't even
48:10
listen to music the same way as much anymore. So the traditional CCM model
48:16
was like you get music curated for you by these Christian radio stations, while
48:23
even conservative suburban moms now stream, you know, so the whole way of
48:30
finding things. And then of course I should say Christian bookstore, death of
48:31
the Christian bookstore. You can't overstate how much that devastated the business. So
48:37
will like conservative revivalists mobilize through music, certainly, but it's not going to
48:45
look like what it did with contemporary Christian music because it's just like not the
48:49
same set of circumstances. You know. Now they have TikTok and now they
48:54
have other ways of being in the world. But that kind of the idea
48:59
that like there you couldn't find a Christian college that didn't have like a band
49:04
with bongos, and you know, like like somebody doing some sort of extreme
49:07
ripoff, like those are fewer and fewer, I think, So, yeah,
49:15
yeah, I mean that's actually really connected to the question I was about
49:17
to ask. But yeah, one of the questions I've had when I've talked
49:22
about this with different people, is like, what is the average youth group
49:30
kid now? Like I've been out of evangelicalism for over ten years. Culin
49:32
has as well, Like we've been out of youth group culture for ten years,
49:37
and that's kind of when we started like quote unquote deconstructing and everything.
49:40
And so I feel very like sort of out of that world, Like I
49:45
have no idea what's even happening now, Like I don't know, Like I
49:47
remember when Colin and I were in high school, it was like Francis Chan
49:52
and you know, all the stuff that we grew up with, and now
49:55
it's like I don't even know who those big names are anymore, Like maybe
50:00
it's some Hillsong people. I mean, I truly have no idea. And
50:06
so anyway, like yeah, one of the questions I've wondered is what do
50:09
we do with like the idea around the fact that like the average youth group
50:15
kid now has no sense of like being a tooth andnail kid or whatever,
50:21
Like they don't have like they don't have their reliant k or whatever. Like
50:23
maybe the closest they have is like Lauren d Aagel, but that might be
50:27
it you know, that's a great question. And that's another thing. So
50:32
the youth group. One of the people that I talked with who was super
50:37
helpful was a guy named Mark Ostriker who used to of youth specialties, if
50:43
you've ever heard of youth specialties, And he was so insightful, and I
50:46
just asked him, like, does youth ministry still exist like it did then?
50:52
And his short answer was no, that that like the way the modes
50:55
of doing youth ministry that facilitated contemporary Christian music have changed. Some of it's
51:02
just competition. So there's a historian guy named Paul Putts. I got to
51:07
give Paul a shout out here who's working on a book about evangelicals and sports
51:12
culture. So a lot of evangelicals find that you don't even so CCM really
51:17
did depend on the church building, but sports don't. It doesn't depend on
51:22
that. So like you can you know, like do evangelical spiritual formation while
51:29
you're playing soccer or something like that. And so some of the things that
51:32
like the need for youth group has decreased in part because there's just increased competition
51:38
for other forms of like betterment, you know, like evangelical betterment where they're
51:43
trying to make sure their kids go to dance lessons into you know. So
51:45
it's like that has undermined because a lot of contemporary Christian music depended on kids
51:52
hanging out in a youth room, you know. Is that why that whole
51:53
thing about like that like that high school football coach praying at football games or
52:00
whatever was such a big deal for them was because that football coach. It
52:02
was like such a statement around like we're going to create football coaches now that
52:07
are going to show up and that's where they're going to be like sort of
52:10
ministered to. Is like they're going to be ministered to on the practice and
52:14
game field rather than like in a church youth group basement. I do think
52:19
that that coaches, you know, take on that type of role if you're
52:23
going to take away the youth pastor. And I will say I think for
52:27
most people this no one is consciously doing this. It's just how markets shift
52:31
over time. It's like it's not like everyone all of a sudden decided I'm
52:37
just going to get a caramel macchiato every day in my life. It's just
52:39
like Starbucks came and then they foinally liked it. I mean, I think
52:43
that evangelicals, at least with CCM, they're best understood as consumers, you
52:47
know, like what are they buying and so, and what are they you
52:52
know, like how are they spending their time? And so I think that
52:55
probably very few people consciously thought that, but I could totally see that logic
53:00
going into it because these people are playing really critical roles and sports. Evangelicals
53:07
have a long history of looking at sports, especially for young men but for
53:14
young women, to as an opportunity to like create ideal evangelical bodies, and
53:21
so like a lot of the kind of a lot of the mainstream CCM was
53:24
about regulating evangelical teens, you know, like don't have sex. You know,
53:30
like this is these are the kinds of ways that you should be in
53:32
the world. And in some ways sports can offer a different, you know,
53:37
take on that same idea. So yeah, I think those are some
53:43
of the things that killed it. And then also just the way people listen
53:45
to music, you know, the idea that and maybe some people will fight
53:51
you on this, but the idea that a specific genre really defines you.
53:55
I don't know if that is as strong of an idea in youth culture.
53:59
A lot of young people seem to have really varied musical listening tastes. Like
54:05
in the nineties, you know, if you were somebody who listened to death
54:09
metal, you might not want to be known for listening to Brittany or something
54:15
like that, you know, But now I think people have and maybe it's
54:20
a good thing. The young people are like, you like what you like,
54:22
you know, and I'll listen to whatever. I don't know, but
54:28
yeah, I don't know even know if that's helpful, but that was what
54:30
was on my mind. Yeah, that makes sense to me. All I
54:34
hear is that that Martin Luther just offered a better product than Indulgences. That's
54:39
all. I love it. You heard it. If we if we take
54:45
the same line of reasoning back far enough, maybe five hundred years, that's
54:47
all I'm hearing. Could be, could be. Yeah, you'll have to
54:52
bring in modern historian. Okay, all right, so you only got a
54:54
little bit of time, So let's uh, let's dive into your top five
54:59
most in lunch albums. So let's hear, what are the albums that have
55:01
shaped you in your life? I get really nervous for these kinds of questions
55:06
because I am not a music critic. I try to be super clear about
55:08
that in the book. So that's okay, you can be a total like
55:13
music, like I just love this artist so much. Okay, I feel
55:17
I feel your non judgment. So thanks a lot. So I'm going to
55:21
answer honestly, we're if you if you think of Colin Mack, I do
55:24
not think of judgment at all, like, okay, Okay, I like
55:29
Train and Colin likes Creed, so there's no judgment here. Yeah, really,
55:34
I love that. Okay, save space, I feel it. I
55:36
feel that, Okay. So I'm gonna I'm gonna. I'm a huge fan
55:40
of like you like what you like, I don't care, okay. So
55:44
first album, I would have to say, Keith Green's no compromise in the
55:47
spirit. Yeah, my roots, my roots, Yes, the biggest Keith
55:52
Green guy by the way. Oh so yes, I yes, story,
55:59
his music, everything, Yes, So that I'd have to say related to
56:05
that, and this is the music that my dad did allow in our house.
56:07
Jesus Christ Superstar is a huge foundational album in my life. So one
56:15
of the reasons why I think I felt like such an affinity for CCM is
56:17
because I grew up absolutely loving an even quirky or weirder subculture of music,
56:23
which is musical theater. Oh gosh, I love doing so much. And
56:27
Jesus Christ Superstar is the kind of my original one. But then when I
56:32
was in high school. I'm being transparent here to two high school albums.
56:37
I mean, one is just because of the and this is going to be
56:40
sound so basic, but Nirvana is never mind. I just it's like,
56:45
I'm from the Pacific Northwest, so I have to do that. I know
56:49
everyone's going to be like, that's the wrong album. No, that is
56:52
absolutely the right album. I was. I was like, should I say
56:57
Alison Chains And I'm like, nope, I'm just gonna go with the Nirvana.
57:00
Wait did you did you wait for the the? Uh? Like the
57:04
I forget what they call him now, but like the the like the track
57:07
where like it was silent for like ten minutes all of a sudden, I
57:10
forget what that track was called. But oh my god, and it's just
57:14
like it's so guttural and it's so punk and everything about it. I love.
57:17
I'm from Oregon, so you know it's just yes, so yeah,
57:22
never mind. I would have to say so. Then, like my senior
57:27
year, I got really into Rent. I'm telling you, I'm very,
57:30
very much so Rent. It's obviously you became a scholar someday. I mean,
57:37
it's just clean clain as day, Like I have the most nerdy taste
57:40
ever interesting things happened to be a professor, do you? I know,
57:45
I know, I just I'm like, I'm gonna go with maybe. Oh
57:52
gosh, I just don't even know. Okay, let me think about it,
57:58
Hadestown. I'm really into that right now. You guys, this is
58:02
no I guarantee no one who listens to this podcast Katie is like the Greek
58:07
God. Yes, it's a retelling of a Greek myth. It's musical theater.
58:13
I mean, I'm just telling you that's what I really like. And
58:15
I'm sorry to all of your fans who wanted me to listen list something that's
58:20
more interesting to you, but yep those are. And you know what,
58:23
I'm gonna just wake up in the middle of the night thinking that I should
58:27
have said something else, but thank you for letting me be me. That's
58:30
good. I unabashedly love Phantom of the Opera and Sweet and stuff like that.
58:37
So you know. Oh that is great. Yeah, there's nothing wrong
58:39
with a little musical. Well I let you two teachers just geek out.
58:45
Then that's great. Yes, great, Well yeah, so anyway, but
58:52
I know, yeah, you guys, you guys got to get going.
58:53
But I so I should have done that faster. But we should do one
58:59
thing before we go. You haven't even said the name of the book.
59:01
Yeah. By the way, that's been stuck in my head forever. Now,
59:10
thank you, thank you, sorry, sorry, not sorry. Where
59:16
where can people find the book? Where or where would you encourage people to
59:21
find that? Oh? Yeah, you can find it on Oxford University Press
59:24
on their website, or at Amazon and or anywhere your local bookseller. Yes,
59:30
love it. And where can people get connected with you and and your
59:34
work? Obviously you and I are connected on Twitter? Is that one of
59:36
those places where you would encourage people to find you? Yes, Doctor Leah
59:39
Payne, d R L E A H P A y an E. On
59:43
pretty much any social media outlet. Yeah, thank you so much. Anything
59:47
else you'd like to plug? Oh, anything else? Oh? Yeah,
59:51
you know, if you are fans, because I'm from the Portland area,
59:53
if you're fans of the show, Portland. Ya, you will see me
59:57
as a course extra in one of the episodes where they talk about two people
1:00:01
who pretty much end their lives as they know it by watching Battlestar Galactica.
1:00:06
So look for me, okay the background. Remember what season was that on?
1:00:10
Maybe do you remember? Gosh, I can't remember, you know,
1:00:13
it's been so long. Maybe second seedon, maybe third season? I don't
1:00:15
know, I can't remember, but yeah, look for me, Gott.
1:00:21
It might have been ten years ago when second season came out, so who
1:00:23
knows. But great, Well, I'll go on YouTube to go look for
1:00:30
that episode because it's been that long ago. But I'm looking forward to it.
1:00:35
Well, Leah, thank you so much for chatting more about again.
1:00:38
This is just so great. I mean, obviously there's like so much more
1:00:40
we could talk about, and maybe we'll bring you on at some point again
1:00:44
to chat a little bit more about it. But thank you so much for
1:00:45
writing about the book and chatting more about it. Thank you guys so much
1:00:49
for having me. It was a pleasure. Don't be sad, don't set
1:01:02
down the h