Rock That Doesn't Roll: The Story of Christian Music
Rock That Doesn’t Roll looks at how Christian music shaped the world we're living in now by telling individual stories from the peak era of the contemporary Christian music industry. In the 80s, 90s and early 2000s CCM grew into a billion dollar business that affected millions of evangelical young people. Through interviews with artists, industry players and average fans Dr. Leah Payne and Andrew Gill trace the long-lasting personal, cultural and political impact of sometimes cringe-worthy music. Expect hilarious moments and heartfelt yearning, purity culture and conservative politics- all in equal measure. Whether you’ve deconstructed, come out or renegotiated your faith, we hope you feel seen. If you’ve never given Christian music any thought beyond a punchline, we hope you’ll gain a deeper understanding of a subculture that’s shaping the world around us now. Join our Patreon or Buy Us A Coffee. Or buy yourself a coffee from Larry's Coffee and support the show.
Episodes
This is episode was originally released in 2024.
If there's one music genre lampooned more than Christian rock, it might just be ska. And Christian ska? Expect next level ridicule. But a lovable band of misfits from Denver, Colorado managed to do something that might seem unthinkable: combine two maligned genres and become a cultural phenomenon with an enduring cult following. On the season two finale of Rock that Doesn't Roll, musi...
For 1990s evangelical teens, punk, hardcore, and ska were a gateway to a passionate, edgy way to express their Christianity outside the mainstream. But was the music and the message enough to keep the evangelical faith? In this episode, originally published in October 2023, hosts Andrew Gill and Leah Payne follow three Christian punk rock stories from Dr. Bradley Onishi of Axis Mundi Media, author D.L. Mayfield, and Tim Whitaker of...
Adam Voith began his career in the music industry alongside the early bands riding the Tooth and Nail boom, blurring the line between Christian rock and the secular music industry. He went on to be a booking agent with clients including Vampire Weekend, Bon Iver, Haim, The Mountain Goats, Father John Misty and more. Now he's retired from the music industry and has gone back to his first love: independent publishing. He's just relea...
Matt Hinton has only been a member of Luxury for 27 years, so he's the new guy in the band. He's also a documentary filmmaker with two feature length films to his name: Awake My Soul: The Story of The Sacred Harp (co-directed with Erica Hinton) and Parallel Love, which is the story of Luxury.
Awake My Soul has been reissued in HD and with other assorted improvements. To mark the occasion, a number of theatrical screening are happeni...
Scott Hatch grew up Methodist, but learned about DIY music at his college radio station. When he started his label, Burnt Toast Vinyl, in 1996 he put out bands that had a similar background to him- fellow youth group kids.
One of those youth group kids was Randall Stephens. He grew up Nazarene, but was inspired by bands like Pavement and Guided By Voices to start the band Jetenderpaul in the early 1990s. After releasing three ...
Scott Carter is the host of Ye Gods, a podcast and public radio show that explores codes of religious, cultural and secular conduct with notable guests like Martin Short, Killer Mike and Moon Zappa among many others. Scott is an award-winning executive producer and writer, known for his work on Real Time with Bill Maher and Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher.
In this interview he shares how his views on religion have shifted over...
Chad Matheny is better known by his folk punk band name, Emperor X. His 12th full length album, Unified Field, is out on June 26 and features a single called "Praise Jesus! Hail Reagan!" Much of the album was recorded in Ukraine during the war with Russia. Chad has lived in Berlin, Germany since 2012.
Chad also happens to be a friend of Andrew Gill's since they attended public middle school and high school together in Jacksonville, ...
Jewly Hight is a noted music journalist best known for her work with NPR Music, Nashville Public Radio, The Bitter Southerner and more. She's also a friend of Leah's from their days together in grad school at Vanderbilt Divinity School. In this conversation we talk about how Jewly got into music, her most regrettable tattoo, her feud with the Supertones' singer, clogging, Jelly Roll and so much more.
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Do you have a Christian ...
Flamy Grant may be the world's only Christian drag queen songwriter. She's one of the few queer artists to ever top the Christian music category in the iTunes Store. She's also a guest we've wanted to have on the show since before season one launched. We get an update on whether Flamy and Amy Grant have met yet, manifest a few dreams and get to the heart of what keeps Flamy performing in churches. Also, we consider the possibility ...
Nina Hagen is a true legend. She's considered an icon of German culture. And she's known as "the Godmother of German Punk." But our interview with her revealed that she also should be considered a longtime Jesus Freak. Her latest album, "Highway To Heaven" was released earlier in 2026.
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Do you have a Christian rock story to tell? Want to respond to this episode? Leave us a message at (629) 204-4264.
Tim Dillinger returns to the podcast to continue our examination of 1985 as a pivotal year in Christian music. This time his focus is on artists who tried to break into the Christian industry, including Donna Summer and Maria Muldaur. He also discusses Lone Justice, Mr Mister, Steve Arrington and Tremaine Hawkins. He also reflects on how the industry in 2026 compares to what was happening in 1985.
Rosie Thomas is a singer-songwriter who came up alongside artists like Damien Jurado, Pedro The Lion and Sufjan Stevens. She was one of the first folk artists signed to Sub Pop Records and had a long-running comedic alter ego named Sheila Saputo. Her most recent music project is Lullabies For Parents.
In this interview she talks about her experience as a child performing in musicals, joining Velour100, working at a daycare with Dami...
In the late 1990's Andrew Osenga's high school band caught the ear of a member of Whiteheart. That led Osenga to Nashville and his band, The Normals, releasing three albums on ForeFront Records. In the decades since The Normals disbanded, Osenga has toured as a member of Caedmon's Call, worked as a music executive, written the book How To Remember and created the podcast, The Pivot, to just scratch the surface of his CV.
In th...
Jeremy Alder is a comedian who mines his life as a homeschooled youth group kid growing up in Texas for jokes that will probably be very relatable for our audience. We talk with Jeremy about his special, Purity Pants, his album, Almost A Grown Man, and his failed Christian rock band, Nineveh (or 9veh if Jeremy had his way).
Jeremy also is a seminary graduate, a former preacher and creator of the series "Christians Who Don't Su...
Sam Sanders is the host of The Sam Sanders Show from KCRW. He was a founding host of The NPR Politics Podcast and It's Been A Minute from NPR. Sam grew up in the Black Pentecostal church in Texas, where he played saxophone in the church band. Eventually he would sneak riffs from D'Angelo's Voodoo album into improvised sections of church services. In 2025 The Sam Sanders Show won the Signal Award for Best Spirituality Show.
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Do you...
Rock That Doesn't Roll is coming back with Season 4 launching on March 4th. We'll be publishing every other week after that.
Do you have a Christian rock story to tell? Want to respond to this episode? Leave us a message at (629) 204-4264.
If Rock That Doesn’t Roll is important to you, support us on Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/rtdr(join via the website, not the iOS app for a 30% discount)
Or make a one-time donation...
This episode is a feed drop from Transmissions with Jason Woodbury from Aquarium Drunkard. Here's their original show notes:
This week, we have an exceedingly rare interview with Jason Martin, of California dream pop band Starflyer 59. Fermented in the nascent Riverside dream pop underground alongside his brother Ronnie Martin of Joy Electric in the early '90s, Martin's band SF59 released its debut album, Silver, 30 years ago in 199...
Introducing The Sam Sanders Show from KCRW
This episode is a perfect fit for Rock That Doesn't Roll.
Big Freedia is best known as the Queen of Bounce, but her new album Pressing Onward showcases her gospel choir roots.
She tells Sam about growing up as a young gay church kid in New Orleans, what moved her to make a gospel album, and how twerking and praising God go hand in hand. Plus, she breaks down her iconic feature on Beyo...
It's our third annual Christmas special! Leah and Andrew are joined by returning guests Kelsey Kramer McGinnis and Daniel Gill. Everyone brought a Christmas song or two to celebrate and we even hear some picks from listeners. We've survived 2025. That's reason to celebrate.
Daniel's 23 hour Christmas Playlist.
Leave us a message at (629) 204-4264.
To join our Patreon community who make this show possible, go to https://patreon.com/r...
Co-host and producer Andrew Gill's day job is with Sound Opinions. He recently interviewed John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats, so we're doing a feed drop here of that episode.
To share a song pick for the Rock That Doesn't Roll Christmas Special, call (629) 204-4264 and leave a message.
To join our Patreon community who make this show possible, go to https://patreon.com/rtdr
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John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats discu...
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