Christian Single

Feature Artist: Steve Taylor

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    Steve Taylor has been generating controversy since his debut album, I Want To Be a Clone, was released in 1983.  While Christian rock bands like Petra, the Second Chapter of Acts, and Whiteheart were finding acceptance among the "Jesus Movement" generation, Taylor was busy breaking ground for the second wave of contemporary Christian music.

    Patterned after the frenetic, raw, intense sound of the Clash, Taylor supplied what he viewed as the missing link in Christian music - hope.  The result was startlingly different from anything in Christian music.  Young people loved it.  Older people hated it.  Everyone in between just scratched their heads and ignored it.

    With an eye for the absurd and a penchant for satire, Taylor targeted everything from stress ("On the Fritz) to empty sanctuaries ("This Disco Used to be a Cute Cathedral").  But not everyone got the joke, and after 1987's I Predict 1990, he found himself spending more and more of his time defending everything from the album's artwork to its highly emotional, stingingly satirical lyrics.  It was time for a change.

    Taylor took his music to the mainstream with the formation of the modern rock band Chagall Guevara, but remained in the Christian music industry as a producer, helping to shape such heavyweights as the Newsboys and Guardian.  Then Taylor took the ultimate leap of faith and formed his own company, Squint Entertainment.

    Far from being a vanity label, Taylor has yet to release a solo project on the label, opting instead to promote his artists, Sixpence None the Richer, the Insyderz, and the highly anticipated Burlap to Cashmere.  And if that doesn't keep him busy enough, he's also working on a feature-length motion picture.

    "It is far and away the most challenging thing I have ever been involved with," explains Taylor, who is not only directing the film, but also writing and producing it.  "Most of my work has been on music videos, which has about as much to do with making movies as owning a typewriter has with writing a novel.  It is really a big jump - the biggest one I have ever made."

    Working with a million-dollar budget, low by Hollywood standards but about average for an independent release, Taylor hopes to produce a film that conveys God's truths and still speaks to the culture at large.

    "One of the difficulties of writing a Christian film," says Taylor, "is making something that's redemptive without over simplifying the struggles of the Christian faith.  The better way to approach it is to show a Christian in action, trying to live out his life and the tension his faith causes."

        Because it is not a traditional evangelical film, Taylor expects his project to generate a certain amount of controversy within the Christian community.  He says his film, tentatively titled "Saint Gimp," is designed to be distributed theatrically, unlike most "evangelical" films that are shown only in churches.  "There is nothing wrong with that at all," he says.  "The problem is that those films have zero impact on the culture because they don't get shown (outside the church).

    "I think filmmaking is an area of the arts that Christians have abandoned, which has some pretty big implications when you think about it," Taylor says.  "As far as where people get their morality, their attitudes on sexuality, and how they are supposed to live, I would argue that movies carry a greater weight than any other institution.  American filmmaking is impacting the entire world, even more so than at any other time.  Christianity's lack of involvement in filmmaking has far-reaching consequences."

    On the other hand, Taylor admits there are all kinds of reasons for Christians not to get involved.  "It is an extremely difficult field to break into," he says.  "It is such an expensive proposition, and there is no subculture in place (to encourage young filmmakers).  I can understand an aspiring Christian filmmaker feeling that Hollywood is largely antagonistic toward Christianity.   But great work answers all those questions.  If we are going to get the attention and respect of the filmmaking community, we have to start making really excellent films."

    "The point," he says, "is not to make a movie.   The point is to make a good movie."

-- Mike Parker

Transcribed by Mint Shows

Taken from Christian Single Volume 20, Number 8, November 1998

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