Rock That Doesn't Roll: The Story of Christian Music

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 hi...

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...

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 mo...

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....

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. -- Do you have a Christian rock story to tell? Want to respond to this episode? Leave us a message at ‪(629) 204-...

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 Velo...

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 scratc...

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 th...

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 f...

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...

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 deb...

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 d...

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 sh...

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 -- John Darniell...

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 ---- In 1993, more than 10 years into the AIDS epidemic, the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco (MCC-SF)...

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...

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 runni...

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 reissu...

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...

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 o...

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 th...

After 15 weekly episodes in season 3, Leah and Andrew chat about what else they've been up to this fall, what episodes they've especially enjoyed this season, and what they're looking forward to in upcoming episodes. -- Register for Theology Beer Camp with our promo code RTDR for $75 off. Do you have a Christian rock story to tell? Want to respond to this episode? Leave us a message at (629) 204-4...

Chris DeVille wrote the book on the indie rock boom ( Such Great Heights: The Complete Cultural History of the Indie Rock Explosion ), but before he became a self-confessed "indie snob" he was a willing listener of Christian rock. In this conversation we discuss the influence of Pitchfork on musical tastes and how specific signifiers could have an outsized impact on critical coverage in the blog e...

In 1985 the Contemporary Christian Music industry reached a cultural height it would never regain. That's the basic case that Tim Dillinger has been making lately in his Substack, God's Music Is My Life . With artists like Amy Grant, Leslie Phillips, Sheila Walsh, Tramaine Hawkins and Rez Band pushing the boundaries of CCM from the inside, and mainstream acts like Maria Muldour and Mr. Mister push...