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A decade into his career, Steven Curtis Chapman has learned that his best songs are drawn from the deep wells of emotionally draining waters. The perennial wedding classic, "I Will Be Here," was written for his wife, Mary Beth, as a vow of commitment in the wake of his parents' divorce. "With Hope" was written in a moment of grief-striken inspiration after the death of a family friend's little girl and the shooting in Paducah, Kentucky, Steven's hometown. Even each album title serves as a stone of remembrance for Steven's spiritual walk. For the Sake of the Call brings to mind a season of study in discipleship inspired by the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. An overwhelming sense of God's grace rendered the 44-time Dove-award winner Speechless.

In addition to the largest flock of Doves given to any artist, Steven has been awarded 4 Grammys, 35 #1 singles, 2 platinum and 5 gold albums. While his accolades are many, the lesson Steven is learning now is that sometimes the circumstances of life are meant to be experienced without explanation. An observation of the brutality of Christian martyrdom, the awe of adoption and the uncertainty of our own mortality has led Steven to this declaration of belief in the sovereignty of a God whose ways are higher than our own.

FamilyChristian.com: Finally! A new album from Steven Curtis Chapman. What is the message you're declaring at this point in your life?

Steven Curtis Chapman: Well, it's kind of interesting. We kind of went back and forth, trying to decide, "Do I call this Declaration or Declarations?" I feel like there are 13 declarations on this record that all say different things to communicate one real truth. I think all of that goes together to communicate what the song "God is God" says, which is, "God is God and I'm not." I don't see the whole picture. He does." That, ultimately, is the declaration that I feel I'm making.

I trust that He is working things together for His good. His definition of good is quite different from mine, as I'm learning and continuing to learn. I've wrestled with faith and what it is and what it isn't and what do I do with the pain and the confusion and the chaos and the unanswered questions and all of that. And for me, it's really been about coming to a place to really put my faith completely in the person of Jesus Christ, not in my ability to understand or make sense of things.

I think if people listen to this record, my hope and prayer would be when they are though with it, that they have a greater desire to really know and see the face of Jesus. As Philip Yancey said, "if you're looking for a life that's understandable and predictable and explainable and all that, then you probably should leave the Christian life alone because it is not that." And yet, when our focus, when my focus, becomes, "I want to know Jesus," I don't care about the answers to all these peripheral things that are so important. They're really peripheral to just seeing the face of Christ. And when my focus goes there, it's like those things don't matter as much or they become clearer somehow. They fall more into focus when that's really what I'm desiring as opposed to, "God, I want an answer to this. I want an explanation. I want to know what's going on here. I want to be able to have the right answer to give people for their pain."

FamilyChristian.com: And that's a good point. It seems sometimes that the public expects an artist or author to package this great little message and tie it up in a neat little bow. How difficult is it, in light of some of the things you've experienced in the last few years, to put out this album that basically says the opposite of that: "I don't have the answers."

Steven: It's very hard. Really, the right title for this record would be Clueless. If that didn't sound so much like Speechless that would have been the title because I just feel like I don't know so much. And that's a hard, hard thing, very hard for me. I am-I confess it, I'm saying right here, just go ahead and condemn me to the padded room or whatever—I am a control freak to the extent that I at least want to be able to give an explanation or an answer. It's okay if there's mystery but then I want to be able to somehow at least write a song about it, get my arms around it enough to say, "Okay, here's the moral to that story. The story's still being told but here's the moral." I think for me, it's hard thing to have loose ends. I hate loose ends. I want to get them together. I want to tie a bow around it. It doesn't have to be a pretty red bow. It can be kind of an ugly, scratchy bow but it's still a bow and it still packages it and you can still sort of hold it in your hands. I don't like this sort of going in all directions, still trying to grab for the loose ends.

FamilyChristian.com: In your early days, you were much more acoustic guitar-driven. Now, maybe with your sons growing up you've gotten more into the electric guitars…

Steven: [laughs] My boys. Every 10 or 11 year old boy wants his own electric guitar. Got to be a rock star. I wanted one when I was 11. My dad wouldn't let me have one so I had to keep playing acoustic. I finally got one when I was 37.

FamilyChristian.com: So musically, what would you say the progression is from Speechless to Declaration?

Steven: It is similar to Speechless. I discovered some new parts about making music that I thought were really fun with Speechless. I used a lot of programming and samples and drum loops and all that kind of stuff. So I wanted to use some of that, but I wanted also to give it a little more live band feeling, even more so than Speechless. So that's really what we did. We got guitars. We used the programming in this one more as a flavor as opposed to the foundation for the songs.

We played most of these songs full-out live-live drums and everything and about 45 tracks of electric guitars. [laughs] We had a blast. We had so much fun. We kept putting in more guitars.

I discovered a new amp that I was not familiar with, the Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier. It's kind of the consummate rock and roll amp. It's just huge. Loud, loud, loud, loud. But sounded really cool so we got excited about that. I think there's more rocking guitar stuff on this record. Still, one of the things I love is the orchestration. I love putting strings and orchestration on rock songs that you wouldn't expect to hear it on. I did it on this record on a song called "Bring It On," which is probably the most rocking song on the record. So that was a fun thing.

So musically it isn't like I've gone heavy metal or polka or anything. It just felt like a real natural kind of progression that I wanted to get a little more live. Of course, to play this stuff live now I'm going to have to add about 10 more guys to my band because I've got so much going on with the guitars and with the orchestration and with the percussion and all that stuff. [laughs] I try not to worry about that when I'm making the record. I just kind of go, "Okay, I want this record to sound great and we'll figure out how to do this live later."

FamilyChristian.com: I thought it was kind of interesting that both you and dc talk recorded a song called "Dive" on your last albums. Back on The Great Adventure, you all sang together when they were hip hop and you were acoustic pop. Now you're both considered pop. Are you going to start heading toward hip-hop?

Steven: Yeah, I am. I think they're kind of going more towards acoustic, you know, ballads. I'm going to end up doing hip-hop records, me and Toby. [laughs] I'm taking rapping lessons.

FamilyChristian.com: That's why his record is taking so long because he's waiting for you to finish the rapping lessons.

Steven: Yeah, it's the rapping lessons he's giving me every Thursday. 3:30, I've got to be home for my rap lessons.

I've not heard Toby's record but I've heard "Extreme Days" and it's unbelievable. He's great. He's really a genius. He's just got such great ideas.

FamilyChristian.com: Let's talk a little bit about your new toy that you're talking about, your new studio at home, The Laundry Room.

Steven: That was big fun to get to work in my own studio. I couldn't believe it.

FamilyChristian.com: That surprises me. I would have thought you would have had one already. Did you have any kind of studio at home?

Declaration by Steven Curtis Chapman

Steven: I had something where I would work on my demos and stuff. But my problem is I knew that I had a real studio, then when I'm supposed to just be doing demos, I'll end up sitting up there trying to make a record. And it's not time to make the record yet. I'm a producer too so I want to go ahead and get in all the production elements when I really should be writing the next song and finishing 10 songs instead of spending all my time on one.

That's one of the reasons why it's taken me awhile to do this. Finally I just thought, "You know, if I'll use it in the right way and use it when I'm making a record and not for demos, I think it will be a good thing." It did kind of take awhile to me to venture out into that. But it was so cool. For one thing, on this record, I think there's more musical experimentation on this than I've ever done before. Birds, basketballs. I played marimba on this record. I played snare drum. I played piano. I played Shoie's (pronounced "SHOW-ease") toy piano. I went, "Man, you know what would be really cool? I'll be right back!" I come walking with Shoie's little toy piano. It's like a little baby grand piano. I looked like Schroeder in the Peanuts thing. I'm down here on the floor, playing this little piano. I played these little "ding, ding, ding, ding, ding." It really sounded cool. That's on the song "Carry You to Jesus."

I was really able to be experimental and not worry about, "Man, I'm burning up studio time and I've got this going and a rental on that." That's where a lot of this stuff came from, down in the garage. I got the kids one day and said, "Hey! Come over here and sing the background vocals with me." We had some yells on "Live Out Loud." They were helping me with that. It was really fun.

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