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
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...
Please enjoy this episode from a podcast we love: When We All Get To Heaven.
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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In 1993, more than 10 years into the AIDS epidemic, the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco (MCC-SF) tries to remember all they&rs...
In our season three finale, we tell the full story of Steve Scott's lost records that Larry Norman produced in 1978, but never released. Moving Pictures (and its companion Close Ups) were victims of short-sighted Christian music industry executives and a myriad of bad circumstances after being recorded and they have lived in lore among frustrated record collectors for decades. Now they are close to finally being released.
As L...
Todd Fadel is our guest this week. He is an individual whose life experiences defy easy categorization. He was the lead singer of a Star Wars-themed side project to Tooth and Nail grunge band Sometime Sunday. He was a worship leader at a non-traditional church in Portland, Oregon. He helped run TOMFest. He's also a big fan of Evie.
Most of our conversation in this episode is about his work running Meow Meow, an all-ages venue ...
David Dark is a life-long Nashvillian and an admitted member of what he calls "The Prayer Trade" as a professor of religion and the arts at Belmont University. In 2002 he published his first book, "Everyday Apocalypse: The Sacred Revealed in Radiohead, The Simpsons, and Other Pop Culture Icons." At the time he was involved in The Art House along with Leah and Charlie Peacock.
Now David has reissued the book as "Everyday Apocal...
The English worship band Delirious (technically Deliriou5?) certainly changed church music and probably influenced a young Chris Martin of Coldplay, but was their lasting impact on music bigger than Nirvana's? That's the case made in a social media video by our guest today, Gabriel Wilson.
Wilson is a veteran of worship bands both as a musician and producer. He once toured with Delirious and has produced Delirious singer Marti...
Aaron Carnes is an expert on ska, but is self-aware enough that his book (and podcast) are called In Defense of Ska. Like Christian rock, when folks admit to liking ska they often brace for being mocked. Aaron knows something about both worlds since he was only allowed to listen to CCM growing up.
This conversation is wide-ranging, covering the roots of ska (Madness didn't invent it), the waves of reinvention it has survived a...
The Charlie Kirk Memorial in Arizona was a singular event that blended religion and politics in powerful ways. It featured a lot of Christian music. Brandon Lake, Chris Tomlin, Phil Wickham, Kari Jobe Carnes, Cody Carnes and Tiffany Hudson all led the 100,000 people in the stadium and estimated 20 million watching online in worship songs. To analyze what it means that these artists performed at this event and how their music functi...
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