Steve Taylor
15 min read ⭑
“To be able to talk to young people, teach them, mentor them and also try to help them grow in their faith is something that gives me joy every day I do it.”
Steve Taylor isn’t just a recording artist with two Grammy nominations and two Billboard Music Video awards under his belt. He’s also a filmmaker with credits like “The Second Chance” and “Blue Like Jazz” and has produced films such as “Sun Moon” and, most recently, “Sketch.” When he’s not working on the multiple film and series projects he’s juggling, he’s busy teaching students filmmaking and mentoring them in the faith at Lipscomb University.
Read on to learn more about Steve’s latest projects, including his new animated series called “The Dead Sea Squirrels,” and the new spiritual habits that help him build community with other believers.
The following is a transcript of a live interview. Responses have been edited and condensed for brevity and clarity.
QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT
The meals we enjoy are about so much more than the food we eat. So how does a “go-to” meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind your web bio?
I have a favorite restaurant in Nashville that I’ve been going to for decades, and it’s called The Pancake Pantry. It is, in my mind, the center of Nashville, and everything else goes out from that center of Nashville. The Pancake Pantry has been there since the ’60s, but I started going there in the ’80s. I used to go there so much that one day, one of the servers (I knew all of them by name) walked up to me and said, “Well, I guess this is for you.” It was a fan letter that someone had sent to Steve Taylor, chair of the Pancake Pantry. The reason I love that place so much is, No. 1, it’s really good. It’s comfort breakfast food, and I love breakfast. But I also like the vibe of the place. It was very Southern. The servers call you honey and sweetie and all those nicknames. Sadly, most of the original servers are now.
I got to introduce a lot of friends to that place over the years. That’s one of my favorite things to do: introduce friends to things I love. The Pancake Pantry was one of them. Again, the food was good, but it was really about the people who worked there. When talking to the owner, I used to call it the “peaceable kingdom” because everything was just always nice there. They moved next door from a smaller place to a larger place because the original was too small to accommodate the line that would gather every morning outside the place. It still wraps around the block. When I got into the new place, I told the owners, “You got the sound right.” I was afraid that they would mess up the sound. The sound was like this great mix of clatter and liveliness, but it wasn’t too much. It was just right. Somehow, they managed to get the sound right in the new place, too. I could go on and on about the Pancake Pantry.
I’ve had really important meetings there. I worked with this band, Sixpence None the Richer, and produced their hit song, “Kiss Me.” Before we started that album, they were ready to break up. Their independent record label had gone bankrupt, and they were at the end of their rope. They’d just gotten really bad news that the new owner was going to be a jerk. I took them to the Pancake Pantry. I said, “You guys are ready to break up. We’re going to go to the Pantry and figure this out.” So that was the thing that kept the band going. Without the Pancake Pantry, that song, “Kiss Me,” that you hear every time you step into TJ Maxx, would not exist.
Money Knack; Unsplash
QUESTION #2: REVEAL
We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So what are yours? What so-called “nonspiritual” activity do you love engaging in that also helps you find essential spiritual renewal?
It’s writing checks. Now, I’m not talking about writing checks to your credit card or utility company. I have a very large checkbook that I use when I’m doing a project. I work in the arts and started off relying on the person who gave out the check. I felt so much joy when I got to the place where I was the one who was able to write the checks for other creative people and artists and musicians — it just made me really happy. I didn’t realize that until this year. We had just finished a project, and I was writing everybody a check when I realized I was getting so much joy out of this. I have a finished project, and now I get to thank all my collaborators in a tangible way.
QUESTION #3: CONFESS
Every superhero has a weakness; every human, too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re all broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite, and how do you confront its power head-on?
I didn’t realize this one was a weakness until it kind of hit me in the face. I grew up in a really obnoxiously great family. My parents were fantastic. Even though we were most definitely middle class, what they liked to do with any extra money was take their family on a vacation. It was a great family. In his book “Anna Karenina,” Leo Tolstoy wrote, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” I realized subconsciously — but had never really put it together — that my family was not the norm. Most people I’ve come in contact with have not had happy families.
Not understanding that my happy family was not the norm made me impatient with people because I didn’t know their circumstances or that they were fighting their own battles. I wish I had figured that out earlier. I got married, and my wife’s family and upbringing were very different from mine. That’s probably the first time I truly learned that having a happy nuclear family — whether they’re rich or poor or middle class — gives you an enormous advantage.
I’ve been trying to learn and put into practice the idea that people have battles that they’re fighting and demons they’re wrestling with. Patience, understanding and empathy are required. If I have a hard time finding that empathy in myself, because I don’t understand the situation, my wife is great at reminding me of what people often have gone through.
QUESTION #4: FIRE UP
Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your current obsession? And why should it be ours?
I went to college at the University of Colorado at Boulder many years ago. I was a music major and a songwriter. I graduated with the assumption that I was probably going to have a band in my 20s and be a filmmaker in my 50s. And so I did that, but as a recording artist, I got to make music videos for myself and for the artists and then expanded the form with different projects. I finally switched to filmmaking in the early 2000s.
While I’ve directed and cowritten two features, I’ve been producing for other directors the last few years. Filmmaking might have all the fun parts, but I’ve got a really good friend, Seth Worley, who I met by accident when he was a teenager on my first movie, and I hired him to do some what we call second unit photography and then again on my next movie. We collaborated on various other things, including some music videos, some promos and a Kickstarter video. He’s a talented filmmaker.
He had come up with a script called “Sketch” that he showed to me nine years ago when it was only the first half, and I immediately thought it was fantastic. Shortly after that, he moved with his family to Los Angeles to see if he could get this movie made. He came really close, but could never quite get a green light from a studio. About four or five years ago, he moved back to Los Angeles with his family. I think he was disappointed because he’d taken his time and came really close but wasn’t able to get this movie made. I was about to fly to Taiwan to shoot another film I was working on, and I got together with Seth beforehand just to catch up.
I said, “What’s going on with ‘Sketch?’”
He said, “It’s dead.”
I said, “No, it’s too good! What? Give me the latest version of the script.” I read it in Taiwan, and when I got back, I got with Seth, and I said, “We can make this movie, but we have to be scrappy about it. We can make it here in Nashville. We can use all our friends, all the people that you’ve been collaborating with.”
The lead actor, Tony Hale, was also a producer on the movie. You’ve likely seen him in “Arrested Development” and “Veep.” He’s a great guy and a fellow Christian. He was on board, and he’d been a fan almost from the beginning. So Seth’s like, if you can raise money, sure, because I’m terrible at raising money. In two weeks, I had two different parties that wanted to put the money up and so we had to move really quickly. We didn’t have a lot of time for pre-production, but this movie was so in Seth’s head that we were able to shoot it, and it debuted at the Toronto Film Festival.
It’s a weird movie and wholly original. It’s not based on any existing intellectual property (IP). It’s right out of Seth’s brain, and it’s about a little girl named Amber whose mom had died six months earlier, and her dad (Tony Hale) is concerned about her because she seems kind of inward and depressed. So he takes her to a counselor. The counselor finds out she likes to draw, so the counselor gives her a sketchbook and says, I want you to put all your feelings in this sketchbook. Amber perks up, grabs the sketchbook and starts going to town. She starts drawing all these comically horrific monsters. Of course, in the movie, the monsters come to life and they terrorize everybody. We’re calling it a cross between “Inside Out” and “Jurassic Park,” which is a pretty good description. It’s also really funny, charming and wildly inventive. It’s got this beautiful, emotional ending. It’s got everything you want in a movie. One reason I can be so enthusiastic about it and convince everybody they need to see this is that it’s actually on Rotten Tomatoes at 100% fresh. The last time that happened was “Paddington 2,” and if you didn’t like “Paddington 2,” either you’ve never seen it or you have no heart. I’m very excited about the movie. I could talk about it for a very long time.
We were just in Emeryville, where Pixar Animation Studios is located. We were there yesterday because they decided to screen “Sketch” for their team. Every once in a while, they’ll take a movie they didn’t make and show it to their employees. It got a fantastic response. To get that kind of response from Pixar, the best storytellers in the business (in my mind), was very exciting as well. The movie has so much heart. I’ve seen it 10 times, and I still get choked up at the end.
It opens Aug. 6 from Angel Studios, who have been a great partner. It’s a family movie, rated PG. So we’re hoping people come out and bring the kids.
QUESTION #5: BOOST
Cashiers, CEOs, contractors or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?
Mike Nawrocki, the co-creator of “Veggie Tales” and the voice of Larry the Cucumber, has a new series that I created with him called “The Dead Sea Squirrels” about a 10-year-old kid whose dad is an archaeologist. The series starts at the Dead Sea in Israel, where his dad’s doing a dig. Ten-year-old Michael gets bored, wanders into a cave, finds two dead, salt-encrusted squirrels that he thinks are cool and smuggles them home in his backpack back to Nashville. He puts them in the window of his bedroom to air out that night, but it rains. The squirrels get wet and reanimate, and now he’s got these squirrels who were alive during Jesus’ time. Hi jinks ensue. That project has given me great joy as well because Mike Nawrocki is one of my favorite people, the world’s nicest guy, and is all about teaching kids biblical values. That’s what this series is about. It’s really funny and gives me a lot of joy.
Mike is actually a fellow professor with me at Lipscomb University, which is a Christian university in Nashville, where I oversee the film program. I get such joy teaching in that environment because, unlike a state school, we get to talk about our faith in the classroom. To be able to talk to young people, teach them, mentor them and also try to help them grow in their faith is something that gives me joy every day I do it. Every time I step into the classroom, I try to remember what a privilege this is because there aren’t that many Christian universities with thriving arts programs. Every day, I feel joy and satisfaction getting to do that.
QUESTION #6: inspire
Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied habits that open our hearts to the presence of God. So let us in. Which spiritual practice is working best for you in this season?
This one is fairly new, and I didn’t appreciate it when it started. Our church is a really great church. It’s kind of medium-size, but it’s growing fast. The pastor there felt like it was really important that people don’t just come to church and then leave, so he’s instituted something called “circle of time,” where at the end of every sermon, he invites everybody to gather up into small circles of three or four people and take five minutes to talk about what they’ve just learned in the sermon.
Now, I was not at all happy about that idea, and I had three choices. We could either not go to that church, we could try to leave right after the sermon before “circle of time,” or we could sit there and take it. We decided we were going to do this. I can’t say it’s always fun, but I so appreciate the practice of doing it. I’m now at the place where I’m actually kind of enjoying it. I know it’s a good thing because we are meant as Christians to be a community with other believers. We can’t do this on our own, and so church is the first step toward that. But it is easy, especially in a larger church, to come in, leave and not necessarily talk to anybody outside of maybe shaking some hands when it’s greeting time. I have really appreciated this, and I like the fact that the church insists that there needs to be some communal time, even in each sermon.
QUESTION #7: FOCUS
Looking backward, considering the full sweep of your unique faith journey and all you encountered along the way, what top three resources stand out to you? What changed reality and your heart?
For four years, I ran a record label that included Burlap to Cashmere — a fantastic band. I would go to New York periodically anyway, but I always kind of considered it a spiritually vacant place. I remember sitting in a club when Burlap to Cashmere had just finished, and the headliner was about to go on. We’re sitting next to a table, probably four people in their 30s, and they were asking, “What’s that band about?” One of them said, “Some of their songs are about Jesus or something.” Another person at the table said, “Who believes that crap?” They were so offended that someone mentioned Jesus from a stage. That kind of became my caricature of what New York City was like spiritually.
Then, not too long after that, we were introduced to a pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City named Tim Keller, who everybody knows about now. We started going to his church anytime we were in New York City. We watched it grow and listened to his sermons, and we started buying the CDs that his sermons were on. (Now, you can listen to them as podcasts.) He became a really profound influence on us in the way he taught the Bible, especially in a city that was not particularly receptive at first. He had a tremendous impact, not only on New York City, but on believers certainly across this country — and worldwide, too. He was not a flashy speaker. He was professorial. He had a profound impact on my wife and me and on a lot of other Christian believers, and he made me think of New York City differently. He helped me realize that the gospel makes sense anywhere. He was certainly a huge influence.
My dad was a pastor — an excellent pastor. In fact, he used to preach from the middle of the platform, not even using a pulpit and no notes. He was one of the best speakers I knew and a great and beautiful soul as well. He died a few years ago, but before he died, he and my mom, who’s still with us, wrote a book on forgiveness. It’s called “Forgiveness: The Key to Lasting Joy” by Roland and Gayle Taylor. They had seen too many situations, including in our own sort of extended family, where a lack of forgiveness ruins everything. It was a really beautiful book. It was short and simple and to the point, but it had a big impact on me as well. It’s a book that I still treasure to this day.
We all have things we cling to to survive or even thrive in our fast-paced, techno-driven world. How have you been successful in harnessing technology to aid in your spiritual growth?
A lot of Rapt interviewees have probably given this answer, but the Bible App is fantastic. My wife and I use it every morning. Sometimes we have the recorded voice read it to us for the message. Our church has been doing a program where we are reading through the whole Bible in two years. I’ve tried reading it in one year and succeeded, but it was too much. Two years is, I think, better. I’m not proud of the fact that I’m still looking at a phone, but I’m looking at it for a good reason. Being able to listen to the voice and narrate it. One of the voices belongs to someone I actually know. He’s an actor in New York City, and he’s great. This other voice, I don’t know, but he’s excellent as well. It’s been a game-changer, because it’s with you all the time. I like traveling light, and to know I got the Bible on my phone right there has been fantastic. You can easily switch between many different translations to see what you might be missing. It’s been a game changer for us.
QUESTION #8: dream
God’s continually stirring new things in each of us. So give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?
There’s always some new project I’m cooking on. The phrase we use in the film business is “multiple projects at various stages of development.” You have to have multiple projects because you don’t know which one is going to catch on or get funded. So I’ve got multiple projects at various stages of development. The one I hope gets made next is a political comedy. How could you have a political movie these days and not make it a comedy? There’s another one that would be more from our personal story that I’m excited to tell. My big problem is I need to narrow down the multiple projects because it’s easy to get excited about different ones. There’s another one about a friend — a Christian apologist who has written a book — that I think would be fantastic. It’s almost a thriller, similar to “The Da Vinci Code,” except it’s actually based on facts. I would love to see that one get made as well. I’ve got no shortage of dreams. We’ll just see what God allows in the next few years.
It’s impossible to say exactly how many people grew up with happy families, but research can confirm this much: family relationships have an enormous impact on our overall well-being.
Our relationships with parents, siblings, grandparents and spouses help shape not just our personalities but also our methods for coping with the world, ability for empathy, the quality of other relationships we build, and even our physical and mental health.
But does this mean that, if you didn’t have a happy family growing up, you’re doomed to a problem-filled life? Far from it.
The Bible tells us, “For my father and mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will receive me” (Ps. 27:10, ESV). And, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life” (Luke 18:29,30, ESV).
Jesus doesn’t care if you grew up in the ideal family or not. He welcomes you. And invites you into his joy and healing.
Steve Taylor is a recording artist with two Grammy nominations for Meltdown and Squint. He’s also the only artist to twice win Billboard Music Video Awards for self-directed music videos. His filmmaker resume as a writer/director includes The Second Chance and Blue Like Jazz, based on Donald Miller’s New York Times bestselling memoir. He’s the producer of two recent feature films: Sun Moon (filmed in Taiwan) and Sketch, which premiered at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. Steve serves as filmmaker-in-residence at Lipscomb University and lives in Nashville with his wife, the artist D.L. Taylor, and their daughter.
