Steven Curtis Chapman

Steven Curtis Chapman  0:00  
And I think part of that is because we insecure artists, you know, are always battling with, are we relevant? Does it matter? Do people even care? And people will so often say, man, you know, I'll even if I play a new song, I've had it happen over and over again or a new album, I'll release and people will say, hey, you know that new song is great, but man, nothing's ever going to beat the great adventure. Gosh, when I think of you, it's, you know, more of this life or man, that record dot, you know, dive and You're speechless record. Gosh, that's the record. And it's like a compliment. But it also is a little bit of a, it's a two edged sword because part of you just heard them say. So really, thanks for the effort. But I didn't really need that new music. I just needed to listen to the old songs, you know. And so, as I really wrestled through that, I kind of came to this conclusion that I still have some things that I really feel compelled to say, I've got some things that I not only want to say, but I couldn't have said them before this point in my life.

Trevor Tyson  1:03  
What's up everyone and welcome to this week's episode of Trevor talks, you know, where as usual, we talk to real people about real topics, and real stories. Today's guest is the most awarded artists in Christian music, as well as a father, husband, an advocate for orphan orphans, alongside his wife, Mary Beth, with over 11 million albums sold 59 Dove Awards, five Grammys 49 number one singles as well as cross genre success, and country and bluegrass and a heck of a lot more than I can read off if we want to have time to have a discussion. And he isn't planning on stopping here. I'm thrilled and excited to have him on the show today. Please help me welcome Mr. Steven Curtis Chapman, we're here. Steven, we made it. And it's happening right now. It is it is for real, and you listing off all that all of those, you know, things that I have been a part of the last 35 years, it's 35 years ago, this year, my first record came out. So I'm kind of celebrating, you know, a 35 year mile marker. And, you know, I feel very passionate and, you know, got new music. I'm working on writing new songs and, and releasing new music. And so I feel, you know, very energized and excited. But when you read that off, people often say how does that make you feel? And for some reason, I just kind of want to go take a nap when I hear that long list of things. I like, I'm kind of, can I just take a nap, please? I'm tired. But I don't feel it until I started listening to that. Because I think that is it's been a wild, amazing journey, a great adventure, as I once said, no pun intended there. But a but no. So man, it's so fun to get to chat with you and talk with you. Thanks for taking time to do that. Dude, of course. And it really is a pleasure to have you on I read that you've had appearances on The Tonight Show and everything else under the sun. And you've made it all the way to Trevor talks, which has to be the biggest honor of a lifetime. It is I mean, basically, it's like I knew if I could if I can make it to Trevor talks, man, that's pretty cool. That's pretty much it. 40 years ago, when you stepped onstage at the opry for the first time you were like Trevor's not born yet. But God's given me this vision. I have it on this show.

Steven Curtis Chapman  3:28  
If I can just hang in there. Maybe I can make it so thank you, man. This is like this is you know, I don't know where to go from here. It's all downhill from here, but we've made it. It is

Trevor Tyson  3:39  
an honestly, I've been listening to the song still for the past few days. And I'm going to be really honest with you. CCM isn't my primary job or to go to as we were talking about before, I'm a rock Ed, you asked about the whosoever I filled you in, you've got pod head Laci all these rockers, that's my lane. That's where I stay in. And your song still has been on replay for the past few days. And I have a feeling that it's just going to be an anthem for this year. Because as we were just discussing, like, you just got over some sickness, I just got over COVID Like, it's been tough for a lot of people, especially over the past two years. So with you dropping new music and coming out with new content for people to enjoy, this song seems a little bit it's very vulnerable and it's special. So I'd like to just start off with talking about still in the process that went into it, and what it means to you.

Steven Curtis Chapman  4:36  
Absolutely. Well, I love hearing that you you know are listening to it, you know several times over and just wasn't one listen and like Hey, I got that cool guy. But because that's always the hope and the dream is that man, I hope these songs stand that you know, the test of you know, listening to and I want to hear that again and I want to hear it again any I write songs, I labor over songs and craft songs, you know, in that way, so that there's something that hopefully to 10th time, you know, somebody's listening to, it's like, oh, man, I never caught that, you know, musically, but but primarily lyrically for me to just trying to, you know, tell a story and, and craft, you know, songs in that way. It's one of the things I love. And so, you know, so enjoy. And you're right, I mean, this has been such a crazy time and season, the last two, three years global pandemic, COVID, you know, political, racial, just world craziness going on, and a war going on in our world. And, you know, all the things you know, it's just, it's, it's been such a crazy time. And honestly, I've I have felt compelled in the last few years, you know, to start writing some new music. I didn't have a record contract. I didn't have anything that told me I had to do that. I just And honestly, I wasn't even sure. You know, 35 years is a amazing, incredible run, and there is a part of me, probably an insecure part of me, that had to wrestle a lot with this big question does the world even care about or need, or one another Steven Curtis Chapman record, you know, I've got a lot of friends who, you know, I got a good buddy, who's probably the biggest YouTube fan on the planet. And he says, You know what, I'm the I'm the biggest YouTube fan in the world. And I really don't need another YouTube record, because I have, my hard drive is full. If I have when I say you to, I want to go listen to Joshua Tree, you know, you know, I love Coldplay, when I want to listen to Coldplay, though I don't necessarily care about the new music, because what they represent to me is this if I want new music, I'm listening to you know this. And so I get that. And as a creative guy, I understand why Billy Joel, for example, a few years ago, said, you know, apparently he publicly said, I'm not going to write and record any more new music. And I think part of that is because we insecure artists, you know, are always battling with are we relevant? Does it matter? Do people even care, and people will so often say, man, you know, I'll even if I play a new song, I've had it happen over and over again, or a new album, I'll release and people will say, hey, you know, that new song is great. But man, nothing's ever going to beat the great adventure. Gosh, when I think of you, it's, you know, more to this life or man, that record dot, you know, dive and You're speechless record. Gosh, that's the record. And it's like a compliment. But it also is a little bit of a, it's a two edged sword, because part of you just heard them say. So really, thanks for the effort. But I didn't really need that new music. I just needed to listen to the old songs, you know. And so, as I really wrestled through that, I kind of came to this conclusion that I still have some things that I really feel compelled to say, I've got some things that I not only want to say, but I couldn't have said them before this point in my life. I couldn't have said them with the weight. I haven't walked through the, you know, the the doubt the questions, the pain, the confusion, you know, I lost a dear friend, I lost a brother in law. You know, in this last, you know, year,

Steven Curtis Chapman  8:23  
I wrote so many of these songs, wrestling with tearfully wrestling with Ken I sat across from my brother in law who's 62 years old, who should not be dying of five cancerous brain tumors. And it came out of nowhere. And he's just starting to enjoy his retirement with his grandson and, and we're at a similar season of life and age, and I'm looking at him. And I was wrestling with all this and every, every lyric I write, I'm seeing his face thinking, Can I sing this to him? Or does it sound like just a Bible, bandaid that I'm sticking on this because he's facing the fact that he's probably not going to be here in six months, and grieving that and, you know, wrestling with that. So all of that perspective, I thought, you know, what, I want to write these songs, and have these conversations with whoever will listen, I'm going to try to forget, you know, is it relevant and do people you know, need it or want it, but I just, I need to say it, and I need to do it? And, and so that was kind of the idea and still really captured that? Because the truth is, you know, for all that I've walked through that, I mean, there's a lyric in there that says, you know, it's been beautiful, and it's been terrible, and it's been more wonderful. And it's been more painful than I ever would have known. But even even so, still I want to sing these songs, I want to, I want to say these things, you know, and another lyric that was really vulnerable to write but was so true was to say, you know, I have wrestled, and I've rested and I've trusted and I've tested God's patience, like a foolish man. I mean, I've been all over the map and And now at 35 years, I can say that probably in a way, even be more honest and more vulnerable, that I don't have it figured out, I don't have the answers, the world's more, you know, more complex. And things, even in the church, even in the faith are more complicated and complex and that I certainly, you know, I have the, the brain for and the understanding for and the theology for, but what I do know, what I still can say, with absolute certainty is, if God is faithful, God is good, I wouldn't be singing the songs, even walking through the tragic loss of our own daughter, and 14 years later, that journey of grief. These are things that I still believe in fact, I believe them more more firmly than than ever. And that felt like something important to seeing and to say,

Trevor Tyson  10:50  
Yeah, and that's such an important message. And it's, it's a constant battle that you see within artists, and even like show hosts and writers and authors, it's like, how am I going to stay relevant, and I didn't get that vibe from you listening to the song, like, even after hearing you explain about the song, it just makes me want to go, still, I'm gonna, like, I just want to go into it. And this record that you're working on, and all of the music that's going to be coming out is coming from a place of honesty. And you can't ask for any more than that. It's honest, it's true, this is what I'm going through, meaning you I didn't write it if I wrote it, nobody listened to. So God's given you that gift. And with even hearing about the loss of your brother in law, and your daughter, like, these are unimaginable pains that a lot and tragedies that we're all bound to experience in different ways, shapes or forms. So in the song, as you touched on, you continue to admit that you're still a mess, and that you've fallen short, but you still continue to praise Him. So in particular, like to your loss recently in the loss of your daughter, where Where did you find that thread of peace? Like it's hard to find peace when you're going through tragedy like that, especially with the loss of the daughter? It's tragedy, man, and we've all experienced it and micro doses or maybe even macro doses. But for you personally, how did you work through that?

Steven Curtis Chapman  12:21  
Well, and, you know, I'll I'll say, you know, the answer is, you know, really, most true answer is, how are we continuing to work through, you know, we mentioned before, you know, we started talking about my favorite rock band in the world is a band called Colony house. And they have a beautiful song on our first record called moving forward that my son Caleb, wrote, and, you know, that really is, that's the story of our family of our life of really all of us. But, you know, we are moving forward step by step. And, you know, there's, there's, I mean, so many, it's hard for me, not just to, quote lyrics through this whole interview to answer your questions, because my whole new album is so much of that, you know, written for those very reasons. How do you keep, you know, moving forward? What's that process been like, for us as a family for me personally, as a, just as a dad, a husband, a friend, a follower of Christ in and one who gets to communicate that I how do I encourage people through that there's a song that's actually get ready to be the next single that we're going to release to streaming and it's going to be the first radio single called Don't lose heart. And the song actually even you know, says, you know, that, trying to remember the second verse, Take my hand, I'll show you all the scars from where I've been, remind you how we both know, this story ends. And I know you'll do the same for me. These afflictions that are only temporary, are going to turn to glory beyond comparison, don't lose heart. But the reality is how how we do it, I believe, as people of faith, Paul would say, if we only have hope for this life were to be pitied. We're kind of fools because we're missing the whole point. Because if our hope is just man, if we just get it figured out, we're gonna get this life pretty good, you know, we can get, you know, get it pretty, pretty well dialed in, and life's gonna keep throwing things, those last two years, three years is thrown so much at us that we never could have prepared for, you know, in any way on unprecedented, you know, global pandemic. So, if our hope is just for this life, we're going to be really disappointed. But if we anchor our hope, to a promise of God, that all of this these afflictions are only temporary. And the truth is, it's actually none of it's going to get wasted. If we can really believe that God is that good and faithful, that every even the hardest things even have the most devastating things, that it's not the end of the story. And in fact, it's not just God's going to turn the page, and here's the next page, but he's actually going to redeem all of this stuff, all the crap, all the hurt all the all the tears, and we're going to get to see that we're going to get to watch that unfold, you know, and that's part of what we're in right now. You know, my pastor calls it kind of, we're living between the already and the not yet. And, and we got to, we got to live with both of those. And we either give up hope we lose heart, for we, we trust that God is good, that God is faithful in the midst of it. And we keep holding on to that. And that's why again, I'm still singing these songs to go I I've needed it. I needed those songs, I needed those friends, I've needed those texts that come at a point when I just think God, I think I'm at the end, I think I'm tired every night at the end of the rope, I think I think I'm done for and then that just that word of encouragement that will come and I've seen it happen. I've experienced it so many times. So I'm hoping you know, continue to hope I can be that you're that through this podcast, encouraging people what you guys are doing even with whosoever all the stuff that we're I get to be a part of we get to be a part of that. It's an amazing privilege. And

Trevor Tyson  16:18  
it is, and we touched on like we know how the story is going to end like we don't know exactly like what's going to lead up to it, but we know where it ends. And it it drives some curiosity in me. Like before the Grammys and the Dove Awards, the number one hits and everything and there was simply just Steven Curtis Chapman, the person not the superstar, not the superstar songwriter, and hitmaker, and I'm curious to know a little bit about the journey that you've gone through to get where you are today. So before all of this, who was and who is Steven Curtis Chapman?

Steven Curtis Chapman  16:53  
Well, yeah, I was Steve Chapman. And that's really who I am is a kid from Paducah, Kentucky, who Paducah Western Kentucky. Grew up in a musical family with a dad who played music, country and folk music on the weekends, and bluegrass music. And so I grew up wanting to be just like my dad, I learned Folsom Prison Blues on the guitar when I was six years old, my dad taught me prison song. And still it's still one of the greatest songs ever written. As far as I'm concerned. I love that song Love Johnny Cash. So that's kind of where it began. And Jesus came and changed my family's life really when I was about eight years old, seven, eight years old. And my dad who was pursuing country music and folk and bluegrass music and all that kind of laid his dream down, started a little music store. And still at three years old now my dad still teaches guitar lessons five days a week at Chapman music in Paducah. And so he's still making music. My last record before this one was a bluegrass record, where my dad actually came and sang with me and play guitar. And as did my brother. So I had the great gift of getting the record with my dad while he still is alive, which was incredible blessing for me. But that's I was Steve Chapman, I was not a singer, my brother was the singer. And I grew up kind of in his shadow, I was the background guy, which is why I really dove into playing the guitar and wanted to be a great as good as a guitar player as I could. Because he had the voice. He went away to college. And I started I started writing songs because that was really how I found my voice. I kind of had this weak sort of, you know, tentative, tentative voice and he had this real strong voice. And so I started writing songs as a way to kind of say what was in here, and most of my songs were songs about my faith, and he's just as a kid trying to figure it out trying to, you know, believing in God and yet trying to kind of make that make sense for me as a 15 1617 year old kid and got into college and got this opportunity to be become a songwriter get a publishing deal. That turned into me getting to make a record in my mid 20s My first record, like I said, 1987 and just crazy, you know, that underneath all of that stuff, and then, you know, awards come and, you know, songs go to the top of the charts and, and I'm still sitting there feeling like and I mean, I can tell this honestly, many times, you know, when I would win double awards, you know, I would come back home to my wife and I would I would tell her I'm like we are I'm not I don't know that they've realized that yet. I'm not really a very good singer. I think I'm okay songwriter, pretty good guitar player, but I mean, they just gave me the Male Vocalist of the Year Award, and I'm afraid they're gonna come back and like resend it and say, you know, we've done a recount. And actually that was a mistake. cuz you're not really, you know, because I just grew up with this idea that my brother's the singer, I'm the guy. So all of that, you know, you carry through life with you. I remember reading somewhere where Abano was told, you know, by someone man, how's the biggest rock star in the world stay so humble. And he said something I thought was so profound, he said, there's a very, very fine line between humility and insecurity. And it veils itself very well insecurity as humility. The truth is, I don't know that I'm very humble, but I'm very insecure. And I'm like, thinking being there. That's me, you know? So that's the Steve Chapman probably under all of it, but I referenced it actually in a song. Can I do one more lyric from a new record? I have a song called already. And this is one of my favorite lyrics. So I'm gonna quote the lyric forgive me. But it says I saw a rock star some rock stars singing on my TV could have been the stones could have been Springsteen. They had a sold out, packed out stadium crowd. They knew the words to every song and they were singing them loud. Just between you and me. I had this fleeting thought, would I be happier if I had everything they got? And even though I know the truth tells me I would not I had to go look in the mirror. I see a young kid back in 1983 a sad attempt at a moustache mullet flowing free. He had a pocket full of songs and a decent guitar ready to take a great adventure didn't matter how far just hope to hear the Father say the words well done. So I saddled up my horses, and they started to run, they taken me places and never could have dreamed I'm singing my songs for you. So that kind of sums it up. I just started out with a pocketful of songs and a and a decent guitar and said, God, I want to encourage people and sing these songs. I don't know where it's gonna go. And I'm still kind of pinching myself going. I can't believe this journey that I've had the privilege of being on.

Trevor Tyson  21:51  
Man oh man, Steven Curtis Chapman, everyone. If you haven't heard of Steven Curtis Chapman, if you live under a rock, as we discussed several times in this interview, he is the most awarded artists and Christian music analyst endless amounts of double awards five Grammys over 50 number one hits, like the guy's been around the block a few times. And getting to sit down and have this discussion was it was warming my heart, Steven, like even just getting to talk about the whoever's with someone that's not in like the rock Spectrum was something that I can appreciate His conversation was, it was impactful for me. Seeing as like I never really was like Steven Curtis Chapman like head over heels person because it was a little bit before my time. But he's such a genuine person and getting to know him through this conversation more is just been amazing. So be sure to go check out still which is on a on all streaming platforms right now be sure to go check out the books that he has out, discussing his journey. And then he had a book come out with his wife, Mary Beth last year, there's so many projects that they're working on and be looking out for that record. So we love you guys so much. And I'm so grateful for you. The fact that we still get to record these and that we get to have an episode every single week together has been a dream come true for me. So I know there are a few of you that have listened to I think we're at 9596 episodes are released at the time that this comes out. And that is I don't even know what word astound dishing I don't I don't know what word to use for it. So I truly am grateful. I'm grateful that you take time out of your week to just take a moment with us and with me and get to continue to do this journey. So again, go check out Steven Curtis Chapman is a way to single still, be sure to go check out all of his back catalogue. With 50 number one hits you're bound to know a song or two in there and be sure to check out the new stuff. We love you guys so much and I'm so excited to keep bringing you guys episodes and we'll talk to you guys next week. So if you're struggling or if you need some extra attention or just need someone to know that your wealth and encourage you came to the right place, be sure to check out some of our friends up beneath the skin death the wife hearts support. There's so many amazing resources out there for you. Love you guys so much. I'll talk to you next week. Bye now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai