Last Friday, one of the best Christian albums of the year—maybe the decade—dropped: John Van Deusen’s As Long As I’m In The Tent Of This Body I’ll Make A Joyful Noise. I posted my thoughts on the album (which is just part one of a double album), plus a Q&A with Van Deusen, on TGC’s site last week.

As bonus content for this newsletter’s subscribers, here is more from my conversation with Van Deusen, covering his musical influences, his audience, and what advice he’d give to aspiring Christian artists.

What were some of the influences you grew up on musically? 

The DIY scene of Anacortes, Washington has been very influential, both on me and globally. I was shaped by this scene. I was coming of age at the peak of its powers, on artists like The Microfones (now known as Mount Eerie), Karl Blau, and Bret Lunsford. Looking back, these artists really imprinted on me a musical ethic of imperfection. The music here in Anacortes has often been lo-fi music. Not lo-fi as in today’s lo-fi beats, but lo-fi as in recording on a cassette. I was shaped to think about the art of music more than its musicality. Are you doing something new and interesting? What rules are you breaking? That’s more important than whether or not it sounds good.

I grew up listening to the big Seattle rock station, 107.7 The End. They played a lot of rock music from the ’90s—and some pretty weird choices like Sonic Youth, Mudhoney, and The Melvins. I was definitely shaped by grunge, post-grunge, punk, pop punk, all of it.

My dad was also a writer for Interlinc, this Nashville company that would send out 30,000 boxes of Christian music to youth leaders all over the country. I think they were probably some of the first people to say, “If you like Radiohead, you’ll like…” So I grew up listening to a lot of ’90s CCM: a very steady diet of Audio Adrenaline, Newsboys, DC Talk, MxPx, Switchfoot. That still influences me today.

What about recent Christian music? Who influences or inspires you today?

I am inspired by peers and love what they are doing (people like Jon Guerra, Tenielle Neda, Andy Squyres, and Sandra McCracken). But nobody’s really making worship music for me. It sounds silly to say that. Sometimes I’ll sift through the playlists of what’s new in Christian music, and there will be an artist who’s trying to do something a little edgy. But it still feels so clean and tidy to me. I think that’s probably where my growing up in Anacortes and Seattle really shows. I just don’t like things clean and tidy. I like first-take mentalities where there are wrong notes. But that’s really why I made this record. I thought, “Let’s try something new.”

What do you hope for the listeners of this album? Who is the audience?

I think it might be most inspiring to worship leaders and people who want to make worship music. A lot of people feel trapped by the genre’s standards. Even if they don’t connect with all of my album, they might feel some freedom to just make worship music within a different genre sound or a production aesthetic that suits their personal tastes. I hope people who listen to worship music—who subscribe to the big Spotify and Apple Music worship playlists—would hear this and go, “Oh … I like this.” I didn’t want it to be so weird that it’s alienating. I wanted it to be somewhat easy to listen to, even though I’m stepping into a lot of different genres.

What’s your best advice for aspiring Christian musicians? 

The first thing would just be to try to invite the Holy Spirit into what you do. See him as a collaborator and someone who is endlessly creative and interesting. But then secondly, stop listening to only modern Christian music. Expand your palette. Read other books, watch older movies. Go into a record store and get older records. Listen to Nick Drake and the weird Beatles records and try to understand Pet Sounds if you don’t like it. Open your mind to other sounds and ideas. Don’t let the algorithm or TikTok or even the playlists define what you like. Listen to other things. Expand your horizons.