Album Reviews
Movie Reviews
Concert Reviews

Top 10
Resources
Contact Us

Most of the time, it’s a person called a program director, or a PD. If that guy behind the desk doesn’t like your music, or thinks that a song “doesn’t fit the station’s format,” or “loves the song, loves the lyrics, but thinks your voice is a tiny bit too nasally for his listeners” (I’ve really heard that about my music before), then thousands of potential fans will never hear my song. When I play a concert in a city that hears my music on their station, there are at least twice the number of people in the audience. So what does a guy with a wife and three kids to feed do? He tries to write his songs in a radio friendly way without compromising his art. Is that confining? Yes. What’s frustrating is feeling like I pulled it off, like I wrote a good pop song that’s deep and musically satisfying and have them say that I didn’t leave enough space at the top of the song for the DJ to talk over it, so they’re not playing it. Or that they love the lyrics and the message, but could I remix it without the twangy dobro? 
 
I confess, I’ve met PD’s at radio stations who seem to enjoy the power they wield over labels and artists. They know we need them to pay the bills, and I honestly felt like I was pandering at times. Another dirty secret is that many of the reporting stations pay this one guy (I’m not saying who) to be their radio consultant. That means they fork over money to him to tell them what’s “hot” or what’s not. So then the labels fork over money to get the artists in front of him so that he’ll decide that their art is worthy of radio play and we can all sleep easier because we made a good impression. I’m not saying that things aren’t this way in mainstream radio. I am wondering whether things should be this way in the Kingdom of God. 
 
ST: I remember Rich Mullins getting frustrated when he wouldn’t be allowed to put songs on albums and having to sneak songs on. Your "Silence Of God" seems a tricky subject for CCM. Any problems with that one?
 
AP: Like I said, Essential was great about allowing me freedom in those areas. On my first album the word “fag” is in a song called “Come, Lord Jesus”. It’s a song about feeling frustrated when people claiming to be Christians wave picket signs at the funeral of a murdered homosexual that say “God Hates Fags.” I was prepared for the label to cut the song from the album but they never said a word. I heard a rumor that one Christian bookstore in California refused to sell the CD with that word on it, but other than that, there was no fallout. I was even asked several times to perform that song during church on Sunday mornings, which shows that the church at large is probably mature enough to handle far more than we give it credit for. CCM is probably afraid of backlash, so they’ll opt out of the tougher messages or artistic statements. After all, lots and lots of money is at stake, so it would be too risky to ruffle any feathers; they mustn’t rock the boat. The thing is, I don’t really want to ruffle feathers for the sake of offending someone. I’d rather just be true to the songs inside of me and share them with people in the hopes of healing, not hurting. But it sure was nice having a guy like Rich out there, who figured out a loving way to challenge and agitate. I miss him.
 
ST: Of course this all begs the question as to where art, commerce and ministry meet. Any thoughts?
 
AP: I’ve had several conversations recently with artist friends of mine (not just in the music field) about how frustrating it can be to have a vision for something but not the financial ability to achieve it. Chances are, we’ll go into debt if we do figure out a way to pull it off, which is scary when there are families to care for. And to make it more irritating is hearing about superstar million dollar shopping sprees that would pay off my mortgage, my familiy’s mortgages, my children’s college, and allow me to make music without having to sweat out how to make ends meet. What makes it even more irritating is when what we’re trying to do is in the name of Christ, and the tendency is to whistle and wave at the heavens as if to get God’s attention and say, “Hello up there? I’m trying to do this for YOU. How about surprising me with a phone call from a millionaire who’s looking for an artist to support?” But the thing is that our idea of success and God’s idea for success are vastly different things. I’ve thought about that verse (I forget where it is) that says that God won’t tempt us beyond our ability to withstand. I take great comfort in that verse, because maybe I’m not rich because if I were I’d be a royal jerk. Maybe that’s why I never had good looking girls throwing themselves at me in high school­God knew that if they did I wouldn’t be able to control myself. It’s hard, but whenever I don’t get what I want, or even what I think I need, it is God exercising His mercy on me. 

When I think like that (which is rare, I admit) it frees me from feeling the need to be successful. I can focus on the art, the writing, the chicken pot pie I’m making, because what God wants us to be focused on is the present. The next few seconds are just as hidden from me as the next million years, so why do I need to make this song a radio hit? I can sit down with my guitar and pour myself out, lose myself for His sake, and let the creation be what it is. 

It is our job as Christians to obey our King. He said that we should love one another as Christ loved the church. He said to consider the lilies of the field. He said that whoever loses his life for His sake would find it. He didn’t say that we should try to make as much cash as possible by writing jingles out of Bible verses. He didn’t say that we should spend our time gawking at Christian celebrities or obsessing over our own lack of star power. For an artist of any kind who’s a Christian, our call is to be obedient to our God. He gave us a passion for creating, and forbid it that we should create for a purpose so low as mere human success. We ought to hunker over our canvas and with the holy fire of the image of God burning in us be a conduit of that image and likeness so that the world may know that He is good. He is life, and the world was not made out of nothing. It was made out of God. As long as we are thinking in the wonderfully simple terms of our own place in the universe, which is that we are at the same time helplessly wretched and unimaginably loved, I believe that commerce, art and ministry are ideas that dissolve. We are free to simply obey and love and take each moment as given. 
 
ST: So now that you are free have you any plans?
 
AP: I have almost enough songs for a new record, and I’m so thankful for that. I have a tendency to nurture the fear that the last song I wrote is the last good one in me, so I’m pleased and relieved to have written a handful of new songs that I love. I’ll hopefully be in the studio not long after the first of the year. 
 
ST: There was some talk on a web forum that there were a little collective of you guys thinking the same way. Is there a radical new approach being dreamed up?
 
AP: More and more singer/songwriters are no longer on labels. When artists like the ones I have the honor of knowing are no longer on a big label, the conclusion I reach is that labels, or at least commercial music in the Christian market, no longer knows what good music is. That’s a dangerous statement to make because of how arrogant it sounds. I don’t mean it that way. There are eight or ten of us who have talked about banding together to help one another out. If it’s hard to make ends meet alone, maybe there’s a way to share resources and let the hungry public know that there’s a movement of Christian musicians who they’ve probably never heard of. Most folks don’t realize that what they hear on the radio is only a fraction of what’s being created. There’s a machine of hard working, committed, Christ-loving artists out there under the radar who ought to be supported, and we’re trying to figure out a way to let people know that. 
 
ST: It must be easier now with Pro Tools and online sales to make it outside the “industry.”
 
AP: It is. Many of the pillars that were the reason record labels were founded have crumbled. Records are far, far less expensive to make, and distribution, if limited, is at least possible via the Internet. There are still services that record labels provide that we aren’t yet capable of, like distribution into retail stores. That’s why I chose to enter an agreement with Fervent Records to have my newest album distributed. I called my old producer Steve Hindalong for advice on the deal. I told him that I didn’t want to sell out, that I could still sell records on line and I thought I could get by that way. He said, “Well, you made the record for people to hear it, right? Not just to make money.” He was exactly right. If Fervent could get it to more people, it was the thing to do. I still own the album, and in two years the license they have on it expires. That shows that labels are finally starting to think differently about how to help artists. I recorded the album myself. I made all the calls, and I get to own it. They’re just helping me get it out there. So there’s hope that in the future labels and indie artists will find ways to help one another.
 
ST: The Christmas album… Is there a danger that you just change the voice on the same old compilation of traditional carols?
 
AP: I don’t know if you got the copy I sent across the pond yet, but you’ll find that they’re all originals, with the exception of two instrumentals. One of the songs is an old hymn called "While Shepherds Watched," but I added a chorus and changed the music. So no, there’s no danger of it being just another smattering of classics. I have no interest in that, mainly because there are so many amazing Christmas records my family and I listen to yearly. There’s no way I could compete. I don’t even think of this record as a Christmas album. It’s more of an album about Jesus, focusing specifically on Jesus as the Lamb of God, which is as much Easter as it is Christmas. My buddy and co-producer Andrew Osenga said it well, that Easter and Christmas are really celebrating the same things.
 
ST: What made you think of doing your own?
 
AP: The story of what led up to Jesus’ coming is largely overlooked at Christmas time. We usually focus so much on the fact of his birth that we miss out on the significance of it. I didn’t realize that the whole Bible was about Christ until a few years ago. We tend to trivialize the Old Testament and consider it marginal to the Story, but all of the Old Testament leans toward the coming of a Messiah. Prophecy after prophecy, foreshadowing with the Passover way back in Moses’ day, the Day of Atonement when the lamb was yearly slain for the sins of the people; all these were fulfilled in an astounding way in the person of Jesus. Knowing all that led to his coming allows us to see his birth for what it really meant. That’s what this album is about. It’s a story. It’s the story. C.S. Lewis said that the Christian story is the “true myth,” the mythology that resonated with all the pagan mythologies in which a hero god shed blood and died for humankind, with one great exception: it really happened. If it weren’t grounded in history, it would seem too good to be true. But there really was a Jesus, there really were prophets who foretold his coming, and it was part of God’s great plan throughout history. The world around us is a part of that great Tall Tale. That’s what this album is about. Not Santa.
 
ST: Getting back to Rich Mullins. He has been an influence. What legacy did he leave?
 
AP: Ah, Rich. I never got to spend any time with the guy. I was fairly obsessed with his music in college because I’d never heard any music that moved me the way his did. I never really liked Christian music, and when someone gave me one of his records when I was 18 to learn “If I Stand” on the piano, I was skeptical. I learned the song and it changed my life. I’m not a great singer. I never sang in public really until college (with the exception of a really lousy rock band I was in), and for the first year or so, half of my concerts were Rich songs. He didn’t sound like a trained singer to me. He sounded like a smoker. He sounded like a regular guy whose songs were pretty much in my range. Most importantly, he was saying something. That was the big difference to me. His songs were actually about something; they were honest, true, and beautiful. And I loved him for all his quirky, wise and profound mysteriousness. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished he were still out there stirring things up, writing those songs that leave me dumbfounded. I try to do a Rich Mullins cover at every show, and I’m thankful every time I sing “Land of My Sojourn” or “Hello Old Friends” that God led me to his music. His legacy is the great number of singer/songwriters like me who aspire to one day teach, lead, and write half as well as he did. And there are a lot of us. I think he’d be surprised.
 
ST: What is the writing process like for you? Is it slow day to day inspiration or do you take yourself away for a period of inspiration?
 
AP: Writing is a mystery to me. It is a frustrating, gratifying, curious process that I’m as baffled about now as I was ten years ago. I tried in vain to write something a few minutes before I gave up and sat down to write this. I feel as powerless to call a song from the ether as I do to levitate my couch Luke Skywalker-style. Sometimes though, it comes as easy as, say, pushing my couch across the room. Which isn’t really that easy, but I at least know I can do it if I wrestle it hard enough. 
 
ST: Will being free from record label open up new subjects you’ve avoided ‘til now?

AP: I was thinking of writing a series of songs about cheese in its many forms.
 
       Not really.