There is a real formula to writing music, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge. It's very formulaic. The subject matter that you can address in pop music is somewhat restricted. It just doesn't allow that same emotive quality that you can put into poetry.
I just remember falling in love with the old Chris Brown music, where it was, like, that real R&B, and I love the radio smashes he's put out since then, but I go back to his older music for that R&B.
I think a lot of people are making music that shares their life experiences, and that's what I choose to do, too, but in my life experience, I also choose to try to find the hope in the music, and I think a lot of it has to do with my Christian faith.
Standing at a Christian music festival in Asbury, Ky., in the spring of 1978, I gave my life to Jesus Christ, and that's changed everything.
I like writing different types of music. I like writing Christian music. I like collaborating with Christian artists. We have a Christian following. I love writing kids' music.
Do I think all contemporary Christian music is good? No.
Rich Mullins was the uneasy conscience of Christian music. He didn't live like a star. He'd taken a vow of poverty so that what he earned could be used to help others.
Me and my family used to have a Christian covers band together... like rock Christian music, upbeat, all in Indonesian. The band was called Roasted Peanuts.
I listen to Christian music.
I can just be a Christian who sings mainstream music instead of having to be a Christian who has to somehow just sing Christian music.
I don't know if it's embarrassing, but I have a lot of girl Christian music.
I never wanted to really make a career out of doing Christian music exclusively, but I love it to my core. I love music. I love what I'm doing now.
We were always just a hardcore band that came out and said what we believed in, but we also talked about the streets and the stuff that we were into and the struggles and everything we were going through. Once people found out we were Christian, it was always, 'Is that Christian music?'
When we first started, I didn't know there was Christian rock or Christian music. I just thought we were a rock band that stuck to our convictions... Like every other hardcore band out there sang or screamed what they thought, we did the same thing.
Writing songs out of my faith was a real natural progression. I grew up singing in my dad's choir and singing with my family. Christian music became the music that I identified myself with and was a way that I expressed my faith. Even at a public school I would take my Christian music in and play it for my friends.
It's no secret that anybody who knows the music business knows that the numbers are substantially different in Christian music than they are in country music.
I grew up in the church and loved contemporary Christian music. I go back to the early days of when it first started with the likes of Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith. Those people that really pioneered are heroes of mine.
I want to be a part of bringing more visibility to the Christian music genre and give it some platforms that it may not have had before. I feel like, as blessed as we've been with Rascal Flatts, I might be able, through some of my own connections and avenues, to give them some visibility in arenas they've never had before.
I am living proof - and I know this for a fact - that you can find encouragement and strength through the message that's in Christian music, because I've lived it.
Most of the music I grew up listening to was not Christian music, although I definitely had a lot of that at home, too.
