The Plain Values Podcast EP #53 – Grace, Storytelling & the God Who Still Writes

Chris Slaten:
Christian artists have the ability to create on the broadest possible palette. We can be more cynical about humans and the human condition than Quentin Tarantino and more hopeful than Walt Disney. I tell you now how life’s not
Fair. There’s too much beauty. There’s too much goodness everywhere.
God calls us to be faithful, not successful.

Marlin Miller:
Do you see AI as helping you teach or does it make it harder?

Chris Slaten:
Oh, it makes it a lot harder.

Marlin Miller:
I have to start out with a question that I forgot to put on here. So Chris Slayton, AKA the Son of Laughter, where did the moniker come from?

Chris Slaten:
Oh wow. Okay. Yeah. So one, the first album that I put out in 2004 was under my name, Chris Slayton. And it was hard for me to promote because it felt like I was promoting myself instead of my music. So I think when in, I think it was 2013 when the first Son of Laughter project came out, I was looking for some way for the music to be its own separate identity so that could be something that I could get excited about sharing with people. I don’t remember going through a process of trying out a lot of different band names. I think I was just kind of trying to be aware and receptive to some kind of moniker that would work. Eventually I landed on Son of Laughter. I think the first place that I encountered it and knew what it was, was in Sally Lloyd Jones Jesus storybook Bible.
So she has the chapter on Isaac is the Son of Laughter because he’s born in spite of the fact that his parents have kind of cynically laughed in the face of God. They’ve cynically laughed in the face of God. And even though that happens, God is the faithful one. And when the child finally comes that they’ve been doubting in some ways, some parts of them have doubted, it’s kind of in spite of themselves. And then there’s a new kind of laughter that Sarah talks about when she’s finally has him and it’s a laughter that she sees as a kind of gift and it’s a laughter of wonder and amazement and that kind of thing. So you see that as a pattern throughout scripture where the people of God in some ways are mocking or doubting God all throughout. I mean all the way up until the cross where you have literally people mocking.
And in spite of that, you have this, we’re made into something new and we are children in spite of our own laughter. And then I believe the new creation, finally we will sit down to a feast where we’re filled with a kind of laughter of amazement, like an incredible magic trick or something like that. That’s one of the reasons I picked that name.

Marlin Miller:
Okay. Give me another

Chris Slaten:
One. And in general, let me stick with that name just for a minute. I heard Rankin Wilburn is a pastor or he was teaching out in California at the time. I heard him in a sermon say that Christian artists have the ability to create on the broadest possible palette. We can be more cynical about humans and the human condition than Quentin Tarantino and more hopeful than Walt Disney.
So that’s paraphrasing, something like that. That image just really stuck in my head about the kind of art that I want to make, the kind of tension I wanted to have, the complexities I wanted to be able to explore. And the name Son of Laughter to me fit the broadness of that palette. It includes the deep, cynical, problematic side of brokenness of human nature and the absolute faithfulness of God in spite of it, which is again, far more hopeful than what Disney has to offer. So yeah, and there were other reasons I liked the name, but that’s the main thing.

Marlin Miller:
I was thinking about this this morning, this exact thing. One of the things that I cannot wait, this might sound odd, one of the things that I’m really excited about when we get home is to hear Christ’s laughter. I heard a pastor, do you know who Ben Sass is? Have you heard of Ben? Yes. He’s dying of pancreatic cancer. Have you heard Not Dead Yet, his podcast?

Chris Slaten:
No.

Marlin Miller:
It is magnifico. Okay.

Chris Slaten:
It’s

Marlin Miller:
Wonderful. They are absolutely just fantastic. On that podcast, he was talking to a friend of his, Michael Horton from the Modern Reformation Magazine actually. Anyway, but Mike said that Christians, when you really think about it, the only people in the world who can genuinely laugh are Christians who understand what grace is and that there’s forgiveness for all their screwed up stuff. And I’ve never forgotten that. The ability, I love to laugh. I genuinely, I love to laugh. And I try to make people laugh and I suck as a comedian. I’m not that bright, but I think there’s something so beautiful about a really well-time joke. And the idea that God as a creator put it there in us, obviously he’s not going to give us a part of his image that he doesn’t have.

Chris Slaten:
So

Marlin Miller:
You know that he has sarcasm. By the way, one of my favorite sarcastic moments in the Bible is where God, is it Joshua, where he says that they chop down a tree and then they form an idol and they bow down

Chris Slaten:
To it. Oh, right. Yeah.

Marlin Miller:
He has a sense of humor. Oh

Chris Slaten:
Sure. Obviously,

Marlin Miller:
Because he made us goofballs.

Chris Slaten:
Well, I teach Job with my seniors and every time I pass through it, God’s sense of humor, particularly when he steps into the situation, it comes out in the tiniest corners of that text. Where were you? Yeah, yes. Yeah, the whole tone in general. But yeah, it’s absolutely throughout. I think part of that is because I like that you said he gave us the ability to laugh because the ability to laugh is the ability to see what is funny and to be able to appreciate it. And typically what is funny is something that’s ironic, which means that what we’re seeing is multiple layers of something. So what often the best humor is often rooted in some kind of irony where we’re actually seeing pretty clearly multiple layers of things and God’s helping us to see the complexity of the world, which is pretty cool. And

Marlin Miller:
I think I would add often we’re dealing with pain and that’s what we do, I think, to survive in a way is we find the humor, and I’m not trying to make light of anything, of course, but it’s a beautiful thing. And to my atheistic evolutionary friends, how did the sense of humor evolve? How did music evolve? How did. I digress, I’m sry.

Chris Slaten:
Like so many other things, it can be functional.You’ll see in a self-help kind of article, it’s good to laugh because it’s healthy for all these kinds of reasons, but there is a way in which it’s not functional, like beauty in general. And that’s pretty cool. Also, not taking ourselves seriously is part of it too. So there’s a humility that can be cultivated when you have a sense of humor. I think when God graces you with a sense of humor about yourself, because you can’t laugh at yourself unless you know that you’re loved too. You have to have that kind of security there, being able to see your weaknesses and to still be secure at the same time.

Marlin Miller:
I had a good friend sit there a couple weeks ago and he said, “One of the biggest failures that leaders make is they never expose, they never become vulnerable with their own team.” And their team knows that they’re as flawed and messed up as they are, but when they’re so insecure that they never let that guard down and show their humanity, the fact that they’re as messed up as everybody else, that it breeds distrust, it breeds insecurity among the team, all these things. And if the leader would just have the guts to say, “You know what guys? I messed up. I’m as broken as you are. You guys know it already. You probably see my faults way better than I do.” If he just calls it out and owns it and says, “Yep, I’m an idiot.

Chris Slaten:
Yep,

Marlin Miller:
I am.” It’s okay. It’s okay. And I think there’s tons of things that you can unpack out of that that happens to the team then, the loyalty and the trust that comes out of those bonds. Sure. It’s so much better. Again, far digression here. My wife Lisa adores rustic strength soaps. This is what she said about the dish soap. “This all natural dish soap makes hand washing dishes and large items a breeze and is gentle on your hand. It only takes a small amount to scrub a sink full and it smells great. I use it to clean my countertops and to wipe down the table and chairs as well. I love knowing it is made of all natural ingredients, keeping our kitchen clean and free of toxic ingredients. Guys, rustic strength is the real deal. Go to rusticstrength.com and use PV15 for a little discount.
When did you realize that you had the creative bug?

Chris Slaten:
Well, I think you would agree with this too, but I think everyone has the creative bug. That’s part of being made in the image of God.

Marlin Miller:
Amen.

Chris Slaten:
So when I’m thinking about that question, it’s more of when did I know I wanted to start messing with sounds? And I was interested in music at an early age. I took Suzuki violin, I think when I was five. And so that’s like heavy ear training. It’s always been hard for me to sight read no matter how much music theory, how many lessons I’ve had because my ear is very strong.

Marlin Miller:
Pause. Yes. Does that mean, Chris, that you could hear a song on the radio or now Spotify one time and just up and

Chris Slaten:
Play it? No, I wouldn’t. No, no, no, no, no. It just means that I depend more on. This is more of like a. I depend deeply on my ear. I have to be able to hear it. As

Marlin Miller:
You’re playing it or to learn it? To

Chris Slaten:
Learn it. So to come back to your question, specifically with creating, so I don’t create. Some composers do a lot of thinking while they’re creating and they understand what they’re doing. They could explain to you what they’re doing. I’ve always been like, I’m hearing a melody, I’m putting my fingers down. Then I think when I was in middle school, I was on the piano and then I got the guitar when I was in eighth grade, putting my fingers down and just kind of listening for a song. So I was making instrumental songs as soon as I started taking piano lessons in probably fifth grade. When I really started doing that, I would have cassette tapes and record the ideas and my piano teacher, his name was Dave Walters, he was a jazz teacher and he would ask me at the beginning of a lesson and be like, “What did you make up today?” And I would play my thing and then he would come in and improvise around it and give this kind of dignity to it, to a little middle schooler.
And

Marlin Miller:
Gives you all kinds of confidence in the process. Yes.

Chris Slaten:
Yeah, yeah. It wasn’t like you should have been practicing instead. He would always allow for there to be some time like that of what have you been making up? I would think about it in terms of movies at the time. So I was kind of making soundtracks to stories and things like that, which has definitely influenced how I go about with production and that kind of thing. If you listen to the recordings versus just hearing me play live, I’m thinking more in terms of whole soundscapes per song. So it’s like I’m always creating a little movie soundtrack for that one particular song, and then I’m going to do something different with the next one, depending on what the story is. So that comes back to when I was in middle school, how it was like. I can really see the root of that developing there where I was thinking of stories or atmospheres and then melodies were coming out and often by mistakes.
I’d make a mistake and be like, “That’s cool. Could that turn into this?” And that’s where now I’m in territory. I don’t know what chords I’m playing. I don’t know what notes I’m playing because I’m just following it.

Marlin Miller:
So how do you then go back and reproduce it?

Chris Slaten:
Memory. Yeah. Wow. For me, once I would find. It’s repetition, lots of repetition. So once you hear that melody, I’m playing it over and over again. I don’t think I could articulate this till I got older, but asking the question what am I hungry for next in terms of developing the song, where do I want it to go? And then I’m trying out new things, but then constantly repeating. If you were to ask my wife how many times I will play the same song when I am writing, it’s just like I am a broken record for however long it takes. And sometimes there was a hymn I was trying to write. I’ve been trying to write for a few years. I don’t think of myself as a hymn writer. It was a big challenge for me to write for other voices. So there’s a lot of insecurity in it and writing and rewriting.
And with that, we’re talking like my family’s hearing me play this song, No Bond Like the Body of Christ, and it’s variations for years of just hearing that over and over again coming from my bedroom when I’m in there working on it. So lots of repetition until it feels exactly like what it needs to be.
I never have to look at music when I play and it’s not because I have some kind of incredible musical memory. It’s because I have repeated it so many times that it’s just all. The words are muscle memory. The lyrics are muscle memory, the music is.

Marlin Miller:
Oh man. Okay. All right. Okay. First question, would you be that way if it wasn’t for Dave teaching?

Chris Slaten:
Oh. I mean, he was a big contributor to that. I think he more contributed to my love of jazz chords, which I also don’t know what they are. It’s the sounds and the feel. I started loving just the feel of certain jazz chords. And you can hear that in the song Grace is Gold. Which

Marlin Miller:
By the way, for the listener, I’m going to just clarify as you’re grabbing that, what you might be hearing in the background is the crew upstairs preparing for this evening and they’re setting up the chairs and they’re doing all the stuff. But while you’re doing that, Chris, I did want to ask you before I forget, because of your muscle memory on the guitar and the singing, do you find that it allows you to add more of yourself or more. I’m not even sure how to ask it, but because you know the music and the song so intimately, every time that you play the story is not over or no story is over, how does that actually manifest itself in front of us tonight?

Chris Slaten:
I’ve learned that I don’t get tired of the songs, especially once I’ve. I think the purpose of repeating it is repeating it when I’m creating it until I find something that I want to play over and over again, which is kind of funny. So I’m repeating it to get all the kinks out of it until I find something that I just find that it’s like, oh, I could play that over and over again. And then when I play it new with a group of people and I’m inviting them into it, I’m enjoying the songs. I’m trying to inhabit it in the present in that moment. If I can’t invite them into my joy there, then it’s like, what are we doing?

Marlin Miller:
Now one more question and then I’ll shut up. I have friends who also write songs and play and I’ve asked them to play songs that are 10, 20 years old and they don’t remember.

Chris Slaten:
It’s

Marlin Miller:
Not that they don’t remember, but they’re rusty. They don’t play them all the time. With you, I’m curious if you could play me a song anytime, actually right now from any song that you’ve written and recorded because of that muscle memory being so strong.

Chris Slaten:
No. In fact, I got a little self-conscious when I was like, I’m going to show you how the jazz chords come out and this song is on this summer tour. I’ve not played Grace’s Gold, so I’m like, I don’t know if I’m going to. There we go. Yeah. So these chords. Oh, this is going to happen. Okay, here we go. This is fantastic. This is actually pretty great. Okay. Yeah, that’s it. So clearly, that’s where I hear Dave Walther’s influence. So it’s like I’m playing these warm, suspended chords that I love the sound of them, but I can’t improvise like a jazz musician. So I didn’t. Wow. Yeah, that’s where I see that kind of thing.

Marlin Miller:
That’s fascinating. Are you the forever tweaker?

Chris Slaten:
Yes.

Marlin Miller:
Which I was going to say. I kind of think you are the way it sounds.

Chris Slaten:
Yes. Yeah.
There is the question of when do you put a song down? And with the song that I mentioned a minute ago, No Bond Like the Body of Christ, that song, it’s important because it’s congregational that it’s singable. So I was constantly demoing it with different congregations and groups of people and it shows, and every time it’d be like, “Nope, nope.” I remember one time I felt like I finally got it and I played it at this show in Chattanooga and then I played it and I was like, “That feels totally wrong.” I’d already been working on it for years at that point, and then the next day I changed the time signature, completely changed the feel of the song, and then that summer went and recorded a live version of it with Old Bear. Are you familiar with the Bellsburg album? They did Rich Mullins in his house.
Does that sound familiar to you? It’s shown up a lot in the rabbit room, but anyways, I wanted to record something like that, like a live studio kind of thing with them. Had that song, played it, we recorded it, it’s good. Eventually I’ll release it, but then I was like, “Nope, still not it.” Totally changed it again. A month ago, in June, recorded a version of it with upright, a piano, and drums, and we live tracked it and made the parts that night, and it finally feels like the right song, but lots of tweaking.

Marlin Miller:
Okay. When you’re saying the tweaking, you’re not messing with the lyrics. Oh

Chris Slaten:
No, the lyrics are. Really? Because the other one is in, I think it’s in three, four time, the lines don’t work. So there’s going to be – So you had to? Yes. There’s going to be a campfire folky version of this song that will come out there, and it’s a little bit wordier. And then there’s one that is this more like gospel groove, and I’ve shaved off a lot of the lines and rewritten some parts. So no, all of it, I think I’m done with the song. We’ll see. I

Marlin Miller:
Love it. Yeah.

Chris Slaten:
Well, I

Marlin Miller:
Can’t wait to hear it. Yeah.

Chris Slaten:
Will

Marlin Miller:
You play it tonight? Now

Chris Slaten:
I will. Okay. All right, cool.

Marlin Miller:
So you teach English lit, right? World lit, whatever it is. Yes.

Chris Slaten:
So I’ve taught six through 12 at the high school or the school where I am. I taught middle school for four years, and now most recently I’ve been in this kind of AP language for juniors, which is primarily about rhetoric, analyzing rhetoric, writing speeches. It’s a lot of nonfiction texts. And then with juniors, it’s a little more of a. I mean, it’s literature, more of world literature, ancient literature. So it’s like Hamlet, Oedipus, Job, but then we were also doing The Rise of Watching God, Screwtape Letters. I’ve been doing that for a few years now. Now I’ve got to shift to sophomores, which is The Odyssey and Beowulf. So a lot of older texts there, but then with my juniors, it’s a lot more modern texts and nonfiction speeches, that kind of thing. Do

Marlin Miller:
You know who the Haunted Cosmos guys are? No. Do you know who the Blurry Creatures guys are? No,

Chris Slaten:
But I love these names, so I’m now interested.

Marlin Miller:
They are some of my wife and I’s favorite podcasts. Okay. Some of them are simply a little too freaky for us. We’re a bit on the pansy side, but they dig into the aliens, the squatches, all that stuff. And I think the guts of their whole premise is that all those things at its core are simply the supernatural, like the demonic side, manifesting itself as certain things to distract us and to pull our focus and our light away from Christ. They have opened our eyes to ideas, and again, holding this with a very, very open hand.

Chris Slaten:
I realized I was kind of laughing a little bit when you were talking about it, and it’s because I was going from world literature to this, and I was trying to figure out, okay, what’s the connection here? We went from. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So I’m interested in what you’re. I’m interested. Yeah.

Marlin Miller:
So Beowulf. Okay. I should back up and give you a little bit more context. Okay. They would all four say, or I think that they would say. I haven’t talked to them, okay, so I don’t know, but I think they would say that the Greek gods and the old historical myth, the mythological stuff, is all based on past history where the Nephilim were tied into a lot of that stuff, where you had giants and they were godlike and all of those things. Chris, I don’t even know what the heck I’m talking about. No, no,

Chris Slaten:
I love it. I love it. But

Marlin Miller:
It’s so fascinating. Yes. And again, it’s one of those parapetia things where I grew up in high school and I love to read and I would read that old stuff and you’re talking about Zeus and Apollos and all that. Here’s the point. Is Beauwolf based on a real person, a story? Because I believe one of those guys’

Chris Slaten:
Podcast

Marlin Miller:
Was talking about they think Beowulf was a dude that went to go find Noah after the flood. He was making the journey to go find Noah. I don’t know if that’s true or not. Okay. I mean,

Chris Slaten:
I would love to listen to that, and that sounds fascinating. I have a friend who he delights in trying to bring the Nephilim into a conversation. I have. I’m like, “Okay, let’s go with it.” Sure. I mean, I’d love to hear people play around with those kinds of ideas. I think with my class, primarily what we’re doing is analyzing the human experience and trying to understand in light of those things and mythical types, trying to understand more of what it means to be human, what it means to understand our brokenness and our dignity. And one of my favorite things in general with literature, I can’t remeber if I’ve said this or not, but is for there to be. I want to get into a text with students that is filled with tension. And I don’t mean stress tension. I mean, you have two opposing ideas that are somehow existing at the same time, and there’s complexity and nuance.
So in a story like with Oedipus, yes, it’s interesting to think about our relation to the gods in this case, or even to think about, like you’re saying, what’s the literal origin of this kind of story? Where’s it coming from? But what I think is fun to look at is this is a character who is simultaneous. Lead the hero and the villain. And there’s this profound irony that’s running through the whole thing. He is blind to himself in his story in ways that. You and I were talking before we jumped into the podcast of the experience of you live your life and you believe certain things about scripture, about anything, and then this shred of truth by grace comes in somewhere and you realize I was wrong about so many things. And this character is wrong about literally everything in his life. And it holds up a mirror to us to start asking the questions of what questions are you not asking?
And if it was going to cost you something, would you be willing to keep asking those questions even if it costs you unlearning all kinds of things? That happens with Hak Finn too, where his whole thing is like, he is not civilized, but what little civilization he has gleaned and has shaped him, he’s having to unlearn it as he’s learning Jim’s humanity on the river. So I think for one of the reason I love going into those kinds of texts with students is that it’s a universal thing that humans are profoundly blind and broken and profoundly made in the image of God that has this dignity and beauty that it would be a crime to ignore. But also I do like. So the Bible Project podcast, did you ever listen to that? Yeah. Okay. With the Nephilim and those kinds of things. They talk about spiritual beings, that kind of stuff is really cool.
There’s some of the books they’ve recommended that I’ve wanted to dig into.

Marlin Miller:
Can you give me your favorite experience of seeing that 16 or 17 year old kid really catch something, really understand something that he’s never seen before, about God, about life, about himself where you’re like, “This is why I’m a teacher. This is why I’m here.”

Chris Slaten:
Oh, sure, sure.
There’s kind of so many. My memory with teaching isn’t great because it’s a flood of, you get 80 new students every year. Homecoming is a little bit like practicing for Alzheimer’s. You see these people that you’ve had this profound connection with and it’s been literally like a fire hose of one thing after another every day. And it’s like, “Oh, the name isn’t coming, but I remember all these things.” So in terms of recalling a specific memory, when I think about. Okay, just give me a minute. There’s two that are coming to mind. I can’t think of any specific examples just right offhand about a student discovering something about themselves. I know it happens a lot because I see it in their writing and a lot of times there’ll be their journals and those kinds of things. See those connections. They will see themselves in Hamlet or Ophelia and start asking questions about their own story and their perception of the world.
I mean, one of the things that I’ll say to him just in general is part of the Disney take on growing older is learning to trust yourself. And my experience with growing into God’s. The world that his kingdom is actually just learning to trust yourself less. Trust him more. And trust him more. Right. And so it is a move towards security. It’s a move towards a better security. So there’s lots of examples of students who are beginning to question their own perceptions of things that happens. But then in terms of when I think of moments where students get particular chills, a lot of them. And they will say, “I’m getting goosebumps.” Then it’s like they’re uncovering something and it’s happening live in the moment. Frequently it’ll happen in discussions. It almost always happens with the Great Gatsby because while that book is filled with just one disgusting character after another, Fitzgerald’s actually put something together that he told his editor, Maxwell Perkins, that he wanted to create something that was beautiful and intricately patterned.
So the text itself is intricately patterned, and I try to tip them off to these patterns as we get into it. In

Marlin Miller:
The pros.

Chris Slaten:
Yes. Yeah. So for an example of that, the very last page of the Great Gatsby, I’ll just have them mark every word in that last page that has been a motif in the text. Almost all the motifs are on that last page, and they also really strongly connects with another key page, particularly Daisy and Gatsby’s first kiss that shows up earlier in the text. They go back and forth between those pages and they see these threads being connected and then he connects it to Americans and American identity by the last sentence. So now it’s connecting to them.
I love for them to then go do close readings of the text. The goal by the end of the unit is I could pick a random page and give them a couple hours in class and they could see profound meaning on that one random page of the text. So typically what’ll happen either as they’re working out these ideas together or on their own is they will start seeing patterns that they never noticed the first reading through. They start realizing that the best reading is rereading and in class the best reading is rereading, the best writing is rewriting. That’s where the magic happens. And once students start catching that, it opens up a whole world of literature to them, but also they start seeing that everything in their own lives is significant.

Marlin Miller:
And there’s more to it than what they’re initially seeing.

Chris Slaten:
Yes, exactly. Absolutely. Absolutely. So when I think of specific experiences of this is worth it, it’s when students are like, “Did you notice that he used the same word here as he did here, here, here on this page?” Instead of trying to total conspiracy theorist with these patterns, they’re learning how to. What does that mean in a tempered way? How can we understand some arguments that are actually being made through the patterns that he’s embedded in the text? And so then as a believer, there’s a couple of things that are happening that excite me. One is, like we just said, beginning to read your own story that way. And when they’re seniors, we do memoir writing. We try to get them to not pick the most sensational things of their lives, but the most ordinary things to write about. But then also this kind of mindset when you start putting it to scripture, which is.
Are you familiar with Robert Alter? Have you heard of Robert Alter? I

Marlin Miller:
Don’t know that I have.

Chris Slaten:
So he is a Hebrew scholar who he’s translated, he has his own translation of the Old Testament that’s taken a very long time. He has a book called The Art of Biblical Narrative where he makes the case that many scholars have ignored just how, again, intricately pattern and elegant and sophisticated scripture is as art and as literature.

Marlin Miller:
If you take the inspired part out of it, he’s saying it’s still a beautiful piece of art by itself.

Chris Slaten:
Yes, yes.

Marlin Miller:
So

Chris Slaten:
Now

Marlin Miller:
Can I pull on that?

Chris Slaten:
Right.

Marlin Miller:
Is he implying that Paul or Jeremiah were fantastic writers on the human side or would you attribute that to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit?

Chris Slaten:
I mean, I would.

Marlin Miller:
Which by the way, I’m sorry, I’m not trying to mitigate

Chris Slaten:
Any

Marlin Miller:
Either of those sides.

Chris Slaten:
No, no. He is not a Christian and he’s primarily dealing with the Old Testament text.
So how he would talk about that, I wouldn’t answer for him. But in terms of how I think about it, I think that however the texts came together, there is beauty and intricacy that is going beyond the power and ability of the writers themselves. And anyone who studies literature who’s diving into it is in trying to read, expecting that kind of sophistication, they’re going to find it, which the Bible Project in general, that’s one of their main goals is for people to be able to read patterns in the Bible and to see that kind of thing. And I think Robert Alter’s actually been an influence for them too.
So yeah, like in the Old Testament or in the Book of Genesis, this actually now, this is another turn, but this is where you had asked me about the musical that I’m working on. It was my experience of doing this with the Great Gatsby and then being able to read in this way and then reading Robert Alter’s The Art of Biblical Narrative while our church was preaching on the book of Genesis and my small group was slowly going through it and we were reading it out loud multiple times and basically having seminars chapter by chapter on the book of Genesis every week with my small group. And I started in that the small group started reading Genesis the way that I was reading Gatsby and seeing these patterns in it in a way that I hadn’t seen before. I was trying to figure out how do I help other people who haven’t had all the experiences that I’ve had with literature?
How could I help the average person to be able to see the beauty of these patterns? And the idea was like, well, one of the only big tools I have is music and musical motifs are a beautiful thing for that. So that’s kind of where the idea of writing a musical about the life of Jacob, birth to death, which is still very much something I’m in the middle of. I have no idea what this is actually going to turn into, but that’s the goal there with the musical or one of the goals is to explore that musically.

Marlin Miller:
Do you think it could end up as an Andrew Peterson Christmas thing?

Chris Slaten:
You mean like a traveling or what do you mean by that? Or that a concept album kind of. Yeah.

Marlin Miller:
I’m blanking on the name of it. I’m sorry.

Chris Slaten:
Oh, the Lame of God? Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Marlin Miller:
Yeah,

Chris Slaten:
Exactly.
So one musical that has gone a route like this is Hadestown. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, but it’s the story of. It takes the Greek myth of. Oh my goodness, I just blanked on his name, Orpheus, the musician, who goes into Hades to retrieve his lost love, Uridassy. So that story, which is now a Broadway musical, originally was a concept album by Anais Mitchell. And it was in the 2010s or earlier than that, probably like 2008 or something. So that was a concept album first, and then they figured out how to turn it into a Broadway production later. And they rewrote a lot of stuff, connected the dots, totally reworked it. Potentially that’s how we do it.
At this point, I have probably about 10 songs that I like, and I’ll play one or two of them tonight at the show. But whether or not this is going to be a concept album, whether or not I’m going to have to just get a bunch of friends together and we’re going to figure out how to do it as stage it first and then have an album come from a cast recording kind of thing. Either way, it will probably. I started with the idea in 2016. I have a feeling that I won’t be done with it for another 10 years and then we’ll just put it out there. It’s just something I tinker with. Imagine a retired man with his train set in the basement, painting his little models and stuff like that. I’ll get into the musical and just tinkering and playing around with stuff there.
That’s

Marlin Miller:
So cool. Okay. Favorite authors? Dosaevsky, Dante, Dickens.

Chris Slaten:
Yeah.

Marlin Miller:
All three Ds.

Chris Slaten:
Sure. There you go. Sorry. Good job. I mean, probably the first one that woke me up as a kid was C.S. Lewis. I remember reading The Problem of Pain before I’d even. That was in middle school, and that was –

Marlin Miller:
You read The Problem of Pain as a middle schooler?

Chris Slaten:
I was like an eighth grader. I was an old soul. The

Marlin Miller:
Deepest end of the

Chris Slaten:
Pool. Yes. I don’t know why I went there. There was also. I’d read Philip Yancey’s Disappointment with God, and I don’t think I was wrestling with depression significantly, but I can’t remember how. It was like eighth or maybe ninth grade. Both of those books allowed me early on to start thinking about how doubt and faith work together and suffering and those kinds of questions. So C.S. Lewis, and I loved his sci-fi trilogy, and I’ve taught a lot of his books now. That’s an easy one. But East of Eden by John Steinbeck is probably my favorite novel of all time. I’ve read it multiple times.

Marlin Miller:
Chris, I’m going to embarrass the tar out of myself. Okay. You are the umpteenth person that said it’s the best American novel of all time, right?

Chris Slaten:
That’s

Marlin Miller:
What everybody says. I have begun it, but I am not making progress. I’m in the middle of so many things and East of Eden is on my nightstand and I’m not making it and I should have my own budget.

Chris Slaten:
Do you know roughly where you are in it?

Marlin Miller:
Oh, I’m chapter two or three.

Chris Slaten:
Okay. Yeah.

Marlin Miller:
I’m still

Chris Slaten:
Very – I stalled out on it two or three times before I actually went.

Marlin Miller:
Okay. So I’m not a total loser.

Chris Slaten:
I would say once you crack a hundred pages into it, you’re going to get to a place where once it gets going, I mean, it’s so rich. It’s funny. It’s big and beautiful. It’s extremely dark and it’s wrestling with all of the big things and it’s great. By the end of it, even though I don’t share some of his conclusions, even particularly in how there is a conversation about Genesis that keeps coming up and I’m like, I think that might. A few of the things he said there I think are based on a misunderstanding of. But it doesn’t matter because it’s like he’s wrestling. It’s so good all the way through. It’s one of those that, especially as a parent, that I think is once you’re a parent and you read East of Eden, I have high schoolers that read it and they love it.
But as a parent, you read it and you feel it in a very different way because it’s about working through things generationally
Because
It follows multiple generations. So you’re watching how things work out in them. Yeah, highly recommend that one. And then I love a lot of poetry.

Marlin Miller:
Dana Joya.

Chris Slaten:
Okay. Yes. Yeah. So I’ve only read a few poems and we have some in the collections that we’ve taught, but I’ve never sat down with a whole collection.
An author that I really got into last year that I got a kick on was Kaim Potok. Are you familiar with him at all? Okay. Oh, you’re going to love this because I think it actually wrestles with some of the things that you’ve worked through. So his most famous work is The Chosen, which is about an Orthodox Jewish community, I think in Brooklyn, and a more progressive Jewish community and some boys who are friends working through all kinds of things. It seems like it’s going to be about friendships on opposite sides of the track kind of thing at first, but then it turns into diving into all kinds of interesting questions.

Marlin Miller:
How do you spell his name?

Chris Slaten:
C-H-A-I-M. I don’t remember if it’s AI or I-A. I think it’s A-I-M. And then Potok is P-O-T-O-C-K, I think. My name is Asher Love, was the first one I read of his, which is about a young Jewish artist. He’s a painter. It’s been a couple years since I’ve read it, but that was the first one that got me. But I read The Chosen and loved it, and so then I read the sequel to it. I’m blanking on the name of it right after that. It didn’t quite measure up, but it was like I wanted to be in that world the whole time that I was reading it. It was working through questions of tradition and faith and the human experience. His writing is just profoundly compassionate and observant. Highly recommend. Oh

Marlin Miller:
Man. Boy, thank you. Aldus Huxley or Orwell?

Chris Slaten:
Well, I still have not read 1984.

Marlin Miller:
Really?

Chris Slaten:
So yeah, I’ve read Brave New World and really enjoyed it, but 1984 is one of those that I keep, probably like you and East of Eden, I keep putting it off. Honestly, I think what I’m waiting for is I feel like it’s inevitable that I’m going to be teaching it at some point. So it’s like the year that I teach it, I’ll read it and until then I’m going to read all the other things. Everything else. Yes. Yeah. Because once you start teaching something, you read it so many times.

Marlin Miller:
Do you ever. Okay. I am sure that you have experienced this where you’re reading something or you’re writing something and you’re in it neck deep. You’re in it so deep that all of a sudden you look at the word again on the book over there and I go, “That’s not spelled right.” Do you know what I’m talking about?

Chris Slaten:
Oh, you’re saying you’ve repeated it so many times it sounds absurd, that kind of thing and you’ve seen it.

Marlin Miller:
Chris, it happens for me in the actual spelling of the word. Sure. It doesn’t even look right. I look at it and I go, “That born, that’s not spelled like that.”

Chris Slaten:
Right.

Marlin Miller:
And I have to jar myself out of it or something.

Chris Slaten:
Oh, I think that’s a normal thing. Well, you step out of things for a minute and you’re like –

Marlin Miller:
Incidental thing or

Chris Slaten:
Something. Yeah. Somebody described reading as like reading and talking a group is looking at, what would they say? You’re looking at a tree and collectively hallucinating. When you start thinking about language too much, it has that effect.

Marlin Miller:
It almost messes with you. Yeah. Did you hear of or read the New York Times, I think, story on the death of reading? Just came out.

Chris Slaten:
Oh, I think it’s in the Atlantic. I’m sorry. I bookmarked it. It is. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. That’s right. It is. I haven’t read it yet though.

Marlin Miller:
I’m not sure who actually wrote it. Was it Caitlin Flanagan? I don’t know. I don’t know. That doesn’t sound right. But anyway, I have not read it yet either. Ben Sass was talking about it on the Not Dead Yet podcast.

Chris Slaten:
I saw someone share some statistics from it, but no, it’s kind of bookmarked. So one of my favorite ends for finding articles like that, one of my friends started a group called English Teacher Weekly. Highly recommend. Get out of here. Yes. Yeah. You’re going to love this. Can

Marlin Miller:
I join if I’m not an English teacher?

Chris Slaten:
Absolutely. So his whole thing is if you love talking to the weird English teacher at a Christmas party, then this is the thing for you. It’s more of these are the kinds of things that English teachers are and should be reading. Sometimes it’s about patterns in education, which would be that kind of thing. But a lot of times it’s also what’s happening in literature and tons of recommendations and little synopsis of. It’s an overview of the week to help you keep up with the kind of reading you’re talking about there. Highly recommend.

Marlin Miller:
Yeah. I’m going to look it up. I’m going to join. It’s just an email thing?

Chris Slaten:
Yes. Yep.

Marlin Miller:
Yeah. Okay.

Chris Slaten:
It’s my favorite weekly email that I’m signed up for. It’s always like. Sometimes I’ll pick one or two articles. It’s like I get the gist of several of them and then I’ll pick a few that I print out, like a hard copy of it. Yeah. And then

Marlin Miller:
Take to the kids.

Chris Slaten:
And then I’ll take it. Well, no, no, for myself. Yeah. Occasionally there will be one that works with the students, but no, this is more of just being informed about what kinds of things are being explored in literature and philosophy art.

Marlin Miller:
This episode is brought to you by our friends at Azure Standard. Lisa and I just recently signed up, finally, and we are loving it. Non – GMO, organic. It is all that you can ask for. Go to azurestandard.com and tell them plain values sent you. You can use the code HL15 for a healthy little discount. Thanks guys. I want to back up a little bit and just get your thoughts on the culture at large. If I was to ask you when you look across all the mess that we find ourself in, from the transgender movements to the GMO food thing and the big ag and the big pharma and all of those big balls of wax, is there one. Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot. Probably the biggest, of course, is AI. And then you throw in the death of reading and are minuscule little attention spans anymore.
Dude, I’m sorry to call you dude. It’s fine. I call my friends dude

Chris Slaten:
Far

Marlin Miller:
Too often. Lisa always says, “Marlon, that is not very professional.You should probably stop that.” But I don’t know. I can’t imagine being a teacher today with AI. They can, in two seconds. I’m asking too many questions at once

Chris Slaten:
Here. Sure. Yeah. But

Marlin Miller:
Just

Chris Slaten:
On the

Marlin Miller:
Teaching –

Chris Slaten:
These are all really big. Yeah.

Marlin Miller:
Yeah, they are big. On the teaching thing, how do you. I mean, you’re at a Christian school. You still got cheating going on.

Chris Slaten:
Oh yeah.

Marlin Miller:
I’m sure. How do you fight that? How do you tell? Can I just ask the most hilarious thing in my mind about AI?

Chris Slaten:
Okay.

Marlin Miller:
Okay. So as a publisher, we have writers sending us stories and all that. And I remember when I learned that there’s now an AI thing that is meant to sniff out when people use AI. You can dump a story into the AI thing and say, “Hey, was this made with AI or not?” Right.

Chris Slaten:
Yeah.

Marlin Miller:
I think that is hilariously funny. Yes. That’s hilariously funny. How do you do that in your teaching? And then we’ll go back to the culture stuff.

Chris Slaten:
Yeah. Well, I mean, the word culture is actually really important to that because I think one thing that you’re aiming for is a culture of authentic learning where the students value the learning. Dave Stewart Jr. is one of my favorite teachers on teaching. And I think the way that he talked about countering AI is to think of this last year as the year of value. It was a theme he kept coming back to, which is how many different ways are you helping students to be able to value the work that they’re doing?

Marlin Miller:
When they’re doing it themself?

Chris Slaten:
Yes. Yeah. To value the process of writing. In this case, in the process of writing, it could also be with the process of reading, but how many different ways can you do that? And I mean, he has a whole toolkit of ways to create value in student motivation.That’s kind of his thing. So I think one thing is inviting them into authentic writing that could not be reproduced with AI. So the types of assignments that you set up, in one way, AI is a gift because it causes us to question, “Oh, was I actually giving prompts out that anyone could just phone in like a robot and to just use a formula to be able to answer this kind of question? Was I actually, both pre-AI, was I encouraging the kind of writing that AI could do?” So asking questions about the kinds of assignments that you’re making is, I think, part of it.

Marlin Miller:
Do you see AI as helping you teach or does it make it harder?

Chris Slaten:
Oh, it makes it a lot harder.

Marlin Miller:
It makes it a lot

Chris Slaten:
Harder. Sure, of course. Of course. Well, one, when I sit down to give feedback on a piece of writing, one of the first things that I have to do is check the student’s revision history where I do a replay and I literally. Google makes it so that I can watch their whole writing process on the screen. So I hit play.

Marlin Miller:
Hold on. They’re using Google Drive?

Chris Slaten:
So yeah, we’re using Google Docs.

Marlin Miller:
Google. That’s what I meant. I’m

Chris Slaten:
Sorry. So if they write something – Oh my goodness. This is not everything, but if they’re. And well, that’s the problem is with Google, if now AI tools are being built into it and we’re having to reconsider everything, I mean, in general, schools are moving towards paper, but while we’ve been in this in between place, my school has been in paperless mode pretty much since COVID, which kind of pushed us into that a little bit. And now we’re turning back and we’re looking at the value of paper. But while we’ve been in this kind of in between place, I would have to sit there and Hit replay and watch. I could put it at eight times speed and see did they write continuously? Well, so it tells you how many copy pastes. So that’s easy to see if they’re copying and pasting. But what they would do is they’ve learned you can’t do that.
Because

Marlin Miller:
They know you’re watching.

Chris Slaten:
The smarter ones have figured that out. Anyways. I love it. I love it. The other ones will get it written on another device and then they dictate. And so you can see there’s no actual thinking going on. It’s just they’re writing linearly, which is how people don’t write because they’re dictating something. And so I’ve had experiences where I’ll then pull a student up and just say like, “Hey, can you show me your ChatGPT? Pull up your account and let’s look at this.” And that’s happened. There’s so many other versions of this and the main thing is stay in the game. But then also now we’re moving back to paper. So having more writing that’s happening with paper, but then if they’re writing at home on paper, it’s actually now less easy to detect if they’re dictating because they’re – Because you

Marlin Miller:
Can’t watch it.

Chris Slaten:
Because I can’t see what they’re doing at home. So then now it’s like, well, let’s do more in class writing.

Marlin Miller:
When you said stay in the game, what did you mean by that? Did you mean that you got to be really careful? Because if I’m the kid and you come at me with, “Hey, show me your ChatGPT please,” what’s the typical response in the kid? Is it, “You know what, screw you?”

Chris Slaten:
I mean, it’s different for every kid. But for you

Marlin Miller:
To say stay in the game though, you still have to keep my heart in it,

Chris Slaten:
Right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And keeping the student’s heart in mind. We’re discipling students.

Marlin Miller:
Chris, I cannot imagine. Literally, I’m sitting here trying to imagine there would have to be seemingly a million things to remember, to keep in mind while still trying to pass on the love of learning and all of the big things, but you have. Oh my goodness. I’m sorry.

Chris Slaten:
I mean, this is true if I think of any work, which is that we’re invited into. I didn’t get to pick being in this present moment in time. No human ever gets to pick what they’re a part of. And I think if we’re following Jesus, it’s always an insurmountable task. It’s always too big for us. And you know that God wants us to be in this place of dependence. So whatever the job is, for me to just fret over how can I make this the most manageable thing possible for me? Obviously you have to have boundaries and you need to work wisely, but if you’re doing real work with individuals, it’s always going to be too big for you. And that’s part of the invitation of being dependent on the Holy Spirit in everything. All

Marlin Miller:
Right. I’m going to say a quote and I just want to get your knee jerk reaction.

Chris Slaten:
Okay.

Marlin Miller:
Okay. God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.

Chris Slaten:
Yeah. So yeah, the case in point. Yeah. He does, of course. And that is – That

Marlin Miller:
Is the point.

Chris Slaten:
Yeah, it’s the point. That’s the point.

Marlin Miller:
I’m sorry to laugh.

Chris Slaten:
Yeah. Everything is too big for us. One of the songs that I’m going to play tonight says, “I wrote it as like a lullaby for adults who are waking up at 3:00 AM with way too much on their plate.”

Marlin Miller:
That’s never happened to me.

Chris Slaten:
I’m sure. I’m sure.

Marlin Miller:
Baby all the time.

Chris Slaten:
Yeah. So the line is, “If you need some relief, reach for the moon from your moonlit yard. It’s a way to see, a way to see how small we are. The day’s demands are for bigger hands. Don’t hold that load on your own. Try instead to rest your head on the shoulders that carry you home.” So part of the beauty of having too much is that we’re then invited into this intimate fellowship with God. And I’ll tell a little bit more about this tonight, but River, when he was two, would walk around with a blanket and he would hold up the blanket in the house to whoever he was talking to and say, “Secret meeting.” And we’d always knew what the meant. It’s like you pull the blanket over both heads and now we’re going to look each other in the eye. And then he would just be so satisfied.
He’d be so satisfied at like, “I have your full attention. We’re having a secret meeting right now.” And we could talk about anything. He’d be like, “Talk about, what do you want to talk about, buddy? Robots, animals.” And we’re there one-on-one. And when he started doing that, for me, it opened up in the Sermon on the Mount how often Jesus’ reasoning for the things that he says is because your father in secret knows. So don’t let your fasting be public, wash up because your father knows that you’re grieving, you’re mourning, you’re fasting. Let your giving be in secret. Let your prayer be in secret. It’s always because your father who sees in secret, all of that. And I feel like the more that we are carrying, the more we have an invitation to be in that childlike dependence because we’re all children no matter what age we are and that’s what we’re being invited into.
So yeah, it is definitely too much, I think like everything.

Marlin Miller:
Yeah. And the real peace comes when you have the humility to admit it and to say, “Man, I can’t do it on my own.” And you just let it go. Not in a bad way, but you –

Chris Slaten:
Right. Not an escapist, not in. You’re still trying to be faithful and to move forward with the thing, but you’re continuing to bring that burden and that anxiety to him. So then in that case, do you know Kevin Chandler? Are you familiar with him? So his physical situation makes it so that he’s in a wheelchair. He would describe himself as a crumpled Muppet. I think that’s the physically describing himself. Is

Marlin Miller:
He the We Carry Kevin guy?

Chris Slaten:
So one of the cool things about his whole thing is that, and if y’all don’t know about it, his friends have carried him in a backpack around Europe, which is really cool.
It’s like our needs become opportunity for, in that case, relationship with others. And the more that we can see our needs, which I think they’re revealed more with the weight of the things, the complexity of the things that we’re carrying. And when you’ve described to me your family situation and adoption and Down syndrome and all of that and the journey that you’ve been on with your family, I can only imagine how that has opened up relationships for you with others and with God in profound ways because of the need that’s there. So yeah, that’s another kind of place I go to when I’m thinking about that.

Marlin Miller:
Yeah. Okay. A couple more things here.

Chris Slaten:
Got it.

Marlin Miller:
I never give you a chance to talk about the culture. Talk about the big things. What are your thoughts? What are your concerns on AI? What are the biggest things? When you look at Little River, dude, what a beautiful little kid. He is four, four and a half. And

Chris Slaten:
Then have concerns about the larger culture. What am I worried about?

Marlin Miller:
Right. What do you and Lindsay talk about in the evenings? And I know that I’m going off of my script here that I gave you before, but what grabs your heart? I

Chris Slaten:
Think I want my children to know what we were just talking about, which is one of the reasons I wrote that song, which is called Lift Up Your Eyes. It’s not recorded anywhere right now. It’ll be on the next album, but that song I think sums up what I want my children to be able to carry into adulthood with and into old age, into the next life. What I want them to be able to know is the profound opportunity for the secret hidden life with the father. So when I think about what I want my children to have and then what am I worried about with the culture, it’s hard to engage that if there are other voices that are monopolizing your attention, particularly when you have a moment to yourself.

Marlin Miller:
Are you referring to you or are you referring to them?

Chris Slaten:
I’m referring to. I mean, the easiest place to go with it is cell phones, but in the modern world with cell phones are one of the things that allows us access to all kinds of voices beyond ourselves, but also transportation, also just the way. There’s so much opportunity for everything. And so for all of these other. In my children’s imaginations and what their mind is occupied with, I want them to be able to have and to learn how to make space for knowing God on that level and to also have the grace with themselves that when they don’t do that, often he’s going to create it in spite of them and often through their needs and through their suffering and through the struggles that they go through, that these are all opportunities for that. And then you can point to so many things in our culture that’s just like, I mean, how many different things can you think of that monopolize our attention and our imagination?
I would say that’s the number one thing when I’m shooting from the hip right here, not having thought that out ahead of time that I think of in terms of concerns for that. I don’t want some louder, dumber, more consumeristic, materialistic voice other than the voice of truth, other than God’s voice to be the thing that is occupying all of their attention. So yeah, I think that would be my answer to that.

Marlin Miller:
I got to tell you, last night after I got home, after the mess that we had and I was trying to clean up, Chris, I told Lisa, I said, “Babe, you’re going to love Chris and Lindsay’s kids and you’re going to love Lindsay.” I said, “Their kids, your two older ones are so…” I mean, how long were we together last night? 20 minutes, 15, 20 minutes? Thoughtful, kind, considerate, all the things that I would hope our kids are.

Chris Slaten:
Right, right. I think they’re pretty great.

Marlin Miller:
They’re pretty

Chris Slaten:
Stinking

Marlin Miller:
Great, man.

Chris Slaten:
Sure.

Marlin Miller:
And I don’t even know them, but I was just impressed. Oh,

Chris Slaten:
That’s cool. Thank you for saying that.You

Marlin Miller:
And Lindsay have a really cool approach and grasp on parenting in a hectic, brave new world as we are. So yeah, my hat’s off to you, man.

Chris Slaten:
Thank you. I think Lindsay would say too, that is in spite of ourselves. Yeah. I mean, that’s how you look back at your story and you just see God’s grace. And I feel like whenever I talk to parents typically whose children I love and I’m like, “How’d you do it?” Typically, I’ll have to push them to say just, “What are some specific practices?” But usually the first answer is just like, “God’s doing stuff. These are God’s children and all the places I though we were going to go with this went this way and I tried to do this and it went this way and then it turned out beautifully like this.” So you know how that is.

Marlin Miller:
Yeah. All right. I’m going to go to the lightning round here in a second, but I want to just make sure that I didn’t miss anything that I really wanted to ask you about. Oh, Hutch Moot.

Chris Slaten:
Oh, sure.

Marlin Miller:
Hutch Moot. We have to talk about Hutch Moot, which by the way, in honor –

Chris Slaten:
Rabbit Room.

Marlin Miller:
The Rabbit Room. That’s exactly right. How did you connect with Andrew and Pete

Chris Slaten:
And

Marlin Miller:
Rob Wheeler and all those guys?

Chris Slaten:
Sure. I’m trying to give the condensed version here. My wife was a really big fan of Andrew Peterson before I was, and we would go to shows. Initially, she would play his music and I would just hear the recordings. I was like, “This is not my thing. I’m not interested.” And part of it was because she overplayed him, that kind of thing of like, “All right, we get it that you like Andrew Peterson.” She’d already been to several of his shows before we started dating. So anyways, eventually she took me to an Andrew Peterson show and I loved it because once you experience his music with him as a person, it changes the experience a good bit, not just as a recording. And so she knew him and afterwards we’d go up and talk to him. We went to several shows like that. At one point, Ben Shive was touring with him and through a series of events, I was working on my first album that was supposed to come out in 2004.
There’s a company called Music for Missions. Eric Parker started it and his whole thing was like, he said, “I will pay for an entire fully produced album if the proceeds can go to a missions organization of your choice.”

Marlin Miller:
Wow.

Chris Slaten:
It was a pretty cool idea. What

Marlin Miller:
A great idea.

Chris Slaten:
There’s some things that eventually he’s not doing music for missions now and he’s changed some things about that, but at the time it was really exciting. I picked Tsunami Relief through Gospel for Asia. We started working on this album. I started writing songs for it. And one of the times after a show, we were talking to Andrew and Ben, and Ben asked about what I do. I mentioned the recording and he said, “Hey, if you will buy me a burger and pay for my gas, I’ll play on it.” I was like, “That’s cool.” Done. We ended up, that didn’t even have to happen in terms of him coming down. He just did it remotely. He played accordion and I think on two tracks and sent it to us, but we became really good friends because of that. When he would go on tour, when he’d be on the road with Andrew, frequently he would call just because he wanted to talk about music and he just wanted somebody else to like, “What are you listening to?” He’s such a voracious listener.

Marlin Miller:
Just bouncing ideas off.

Chris Slaten:
Right. And wanting to hear what people are into and he knew that I listened really widely. So we would just talk about what we were listening to and enjoying. We had that friendship going for years where he would just call and want to talk about music. And then finally it was at a Dave Barnes concert he was playing at from the stage was like, “Hey, we should do an album together.” I was like, “I don’t have any songs.” He was like, “Write some.” And so I wrote, I think it was a song a year for about five years, wrote and produced with him.

Marlin Miller:
One. One song a year.

Chris Slaten:
Yes. Yeah. This gets into last night you brought up the slow cooker thing.

Marlin Miller:
Yeah.

Chris Slaten:
Some of my friends who write really prolifically can see the contrast. My writing is very, very slow.

Marlin Miller:
Intentional and.

Chris Slaten:
Yeah. It’s kind of the only way that I know how to do it and I’ve learned how to do it. So when that album came out, Peterson connected with it and really loved it and was plugging it. Lindsay and I had gone to the first Hutch Moot as ticket holders, skipped a year, and the next year that album came out and I was like, “Can I just take out the trash and volunteer there?” And they were like, “No, you can’t.” And then a couple weeks before Hutch Moot, they were just out of nowhere were like, “Oh, we want you to play on opening night with these other people.” They’re all professional musicians. I’m an English teacher. So it was in –

Marlin Miller:
Sorry.

Chris Slaten:
Yeah. Oh

Marlin Miller:
Man. That’s awesome.

Chris Slaten:
So I was like, “Oh, I have a ticket now.” And that actually happened for several years where they do this in the round thing at the beginning and they kept inviting me back to do stuff that I was working on and do with, again, all these full-time professional musicians. I felt very out of place and was like, “But this is really cool.” And then I think the first one I did with Ben, we got the idea for actually teaching a session and it was on the art of listening. And after that, I loved it so much that just every year I proposed a different session and have been doing sessions every time, every year there. Frequently, my sessions get turned down. I’ll propose it and then it’s like, “Oh, I’m not going to Hutch Mu this year.” And then someone else I’ve connected with will be like, “Hey, I’m doing a session on this and love for you to be a voice in this.” So it’s been so many different topics and I typically use it as an excuse to, rather than coming in as.
At some conferences, people are presenting their papers that they’ve worked on. Hutchmus does not feel like that. My experience has been once I picked the topic with a group, I’ve now decided, “Hey, this is going to be the thing that I want to put some additional writing and thinking into. This is an excuse for me to dig into this thing I’ve wanted to dig into.”
So one year was adaptation, so adapting the Jacob musical, and I did that with Andrew and the Wing Feather Saga and that kind of stuff. Another year was. I did a thing with Lanier Ivester just on The Great Gatsby. She did Tolkien and Enchantment and I did Fitzgerald and Disenchantment. It’s

Marlin Miller:
A proper book.

Chris Slaten:
Yes. And so then this year, the day that we were leaving for this tour, I got the session accepted. And my friend Drew Campbell, I mentioned to you, who does English Teacher Weekly, and Dave Stewart, who I just mentioned earlier too, we’re doing one called The Classroom as Cosmos, which is thinking through this alternate world that you create in a classroom and all the different layers of how we think about what we’re bringing a student into when they come into the classroom.

Marlin Miller:
That’s a horrible idea.

Chris Slaten:
Yeah, it’s going to be pretty great. Oh

Marlin Miller:
My goodness. So I got a dumb story for you about Hutch Moot. Matt, upstairs, told me about Hutch Moot years ago, and I decided Dog Biscuit, I’m going to get there. I have to go experience Hutch Moot in person at least once in my life. Matt told me, he said, Marlon, if you’re going to go, you got to buy tickets as soon as they open

Chris Slaten:
Because

Marlin Miller:
They’re gone.

Chris Slaten:
February or March, and they’re gone for October.

Marlin Miller:
Mentally, I was like, “Yeah, okay, whatever. I’m sure it sells out fast, but it can’t be that bad.” So he said, “No.” He said, “I mean it. When they open the doors, you got to be there and you got to buy right away.” And I get there, I think it was like 10 in the morning, and I’m there, I’m at my computer, I’ve got everything ready to go. And Chris, they open the doors, I fly through the thing as fast as I can, and I literally. It was a lot of money.

Chris Slaten:
Yes.

Marlin Miller:
The tickets are expensive.

Chris Slaten:
Yes.

Marlin Miller:
And I literally went, “Do I really want to spend this much money on it?” I said, “Screw it, done.” I hid it and I was too late and it was gone and they were sold out and it was like three minutes or something stupid. It was unbelievable. I say only that to say I would love to go at some point. I’m amazed at what Andrew and Pete have built with the whole Hutch Mu thing. It is unbelievable and I am not jealous at all that you get to go and experience it.

Chris Slaten:
It’s pretty great. I feel like every year that I get to go, it’s definitely something I feel like this is far beyond my power that I’m getting to be here because I don’t really know why I’m doing. I mean, this sounds like I’m trying to be humble, but literally I will, every time I’m giving a session, it’s like, “Why are they letting me do this again? How am I getting to be in the middle of this?” It’s really delightful.

Marlin Miller:
Amazing. You have opened my eyes to many, many awesome folks that I can’t wait to dig into. Have you ever heard of Over the Rhine?

Chris Slaten:
Yes. Yeah. It’s been a while since I’ve listened to them. I saw you had some vinyl up in your office.

Marlin Miller:
Dude.

Chris Slaten:
Big fan.

Marlin Miller:
I am a fan. And this last fall, a year ago, or coming up on a year ago, I was actually able to go to the Nowhere Else Festival for the first time. They put on a festival.

Chris Slaten:
They put it on?

Marlin Miller:
Yeah. It’s in Martinsville, Ohio, I don’t know, a couple three hours from here. And it’s a music festival, but they also put on songwriting workshops and things like that. And it is a wonderful time. It’s a wonderful time. That sounds delightful. It is not as maybe openly Christian as what Hutch Moot would be, but it’s still rooted and it’s just a wonderful time. I’ve made some great friends from being down there.

Chris Slaten:
There’s a lot of. I think some of it has to do with the influence of the rabbit room. I’m not saying that one does, but there are some that I know that are directly influenced by the rat room, really great faith, art, literature conferences. There’s one that we have in Cleveland, Tennessee is the Luminate Conference, Southern Adventist University puts it on, and it’s almost all speakers from Hutchmut, plus
A
Lot of other cool scholars that come in there and artists. It’s really neat. So I’ve done that for a few years now, which I love. Like Pete Peterson and those guys, they’ve been a part of that in the Square Halo Conference up in, is it Lancaster?

Marlin Miller:
That’s a Malcolm Geigt.

Chris Slaten:
He’s been a part of that. He’s a part of it. Yeah.

Marlin Miller:
Square

Chris Slaten:
Halo. I think so. Yeah.

Marlin Miller:
Yeah. I have a few other books.

Chris Slaten:
Ned Bustard. That’s right. Yes. Yeah. I think it’s his baby, which is pretty cool. Then there’s the Breath and Clay. One of my friends just did that. I think it might be in North Carolina. What a great name. Yeah. The

Marlin Miller:
Breath and Clay.

Chris Slaten:
I don’t know as much about it, but I hear really good things about it.

Marlin Miller:
Wow. Chris, the older I get, the more I think. I think life is in the arts in so many ways that I never knew before. And there’s just so much depth. I just love it. Mako’s art.

Chris Slaten:
Yes.

Marlin Miller:
Amazing. I long to stand in front of an original and be able to actually see into and through the layers. I just love it. Okay. Now we’re finally going to get to the lightning round. Okay. If you could chat with one biblical character over coffee, obviously not. Jesus is off the table. Sure.

Chris Slaten:
Okay.

Marlin Miller:
Who and why?

Chris Slaten:
I don’t know how productive it would be, but with doing this musical, Jacob would be great. Or Joseph. I’m particularly now with the musical interested in how Joseph is processing everything that he knows about, especially having to straddle Egyptian life and his family being Egyptian and that, and his heritage and what he’s bringing into it. So it actually might be Joseph that’d be the most interested in talking to. I don’t know if I would trust Jacob in a conversation. And then in the New Testament, it would be Paul.

Marlin Miller:
That was actually a question that I had written down as we were talking about the musical. Why Jacob?

Chris Slaten:
Well, I mentioned some of the. Part of it probably had to do with that reading the art of biblical narrative. He uses Jacob as an example, and he started kind of tipping me off into the motifs. And then I started noticing more as I read more commentaries and read that. So a lot of it has to do with the telling of the story itself and the patterns in it. And also it’s just one person. There’s such a huge scope of interesting things that could happen.

Marlin Miller:
Well, so number one, Moses wrote it, right? Supposedly. Moses wrote ball of the Pentateuch, I think. Jacob was almost a dastardly guy.

Chris Slaten:
Sure. Yeah.

Marlin Miller:
I mean, really conniving and really messed up.

Chris Slaten:
And his name means heel grabber. So he’s like the snake biting the heel, which is a pattern from earlier in the text.

Marlin Miller:
Oh my

Chris Slaten:
Goodness. Wow. So it’s like Esau is pulled out and he’s got a snake clinging to him. To the

Marlin Miller:
Heel.

Chris Slaten:
To the heel.

Marlin Miller:
I

Chris Slaten:
Love it. Yeah. And I would say to go back to earlier when we’re talking about that broad canvas, because of that, his character to me fits that exciting place for a Christian artist of depths and heights.

Marlin Miller:
All of the tensions.

Chris Slaten:
And all those tensions that are there. But then in spite of all that and through all of that, God’s faithfulness is somehow working through even Judah and Tamar’s story, which is wild.
Right.
And so I think that’s what appealed to me the most with him as a character is you see God’s faithfulness through, and you see him change and be humble. You see Judah also go through this arc of where he’s transformed through the depths of his experience before he finally gets back to Joseph. And that’s just really compelling.

Marlin Miller:
What was Jacob’s wife’s name? I’m blanking.

Chris Slaten:
Are you talking about Rachel and Leah? Yeah. So the two.

Marlin Miller:
That’s right.

Chris Slaten:
Well, that’s another exciting birth battle. There would be a great musical number. They’re birthing these babies in spite of each other, naming them things to try to get his attention, which is fun.

Marlin Miller:
That’s a fascinating thing. Okay. What’s the best kid cereal of all time? And then defend your answer.

Chris Slaten:
When I was a kid, it was Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I loved it. And so whenever I had it, it usually meant I was on vacation or at summer camp or something like that. Your folks didn’t just – They didn’t buy it often. It was like a special thing if we got it. So then it was that. But now as an adult, and with my kids, and I mean, we don’t really encourage a lot of sugary cereal eating. We try not to,
But
Lucky Charms is pretty cool. It’s pretty great.

Marlin Miller:
I concur.

Chris Slaten:
Doctor,

Marlin Miller:
Do you concur? I concur.

Chris Slaten:
Yeah. What an idea.

Marlin Miller:
If you were a farm animal, what would you be and why?

Chris Slaten:
I feel like I should know life on the farm better for this, but we actually went to a county fair in Warsaw, Indiana just a couple of days ago and got to walk through the whole 4-H, hundreds of stalls of looking the prized cows and pigs and everything. And I was really relating to the pigs. They seem pretty contemplative and they like to chill out, pretty high intelligence.

Marlin Miller:
They are. Yeah.

Chris Slaten:
Incredibly

Marlin Miller:
Intelligent.

Chris Slaten:
Right. So I see them as more the contemplative type and they know how to rest. But then also there’s a part of me that’s definitely a horse that just wants to go. That’s a

Marlin Miller:
Horse. Oh, to just take

Chris Slaten:
Off. Just wants to

Marlin Miller:
Go. Yeah. Got it. Got it. That’s a good answer. Give me one act of kindness that made a difference in you that you’re never going to forget.

Chris Slaten:
Wow. Okay.

Marlin Miller:
Somebody did something for you.

Chris Slaten:
I’m not going to be able to name a specific instance. If I had time to write and brainstorm a little bit, I’d be able to get down into that specific memory. But in general, being around people who anticipate your needs before,
My wife is really good at that. She can often tell what I’m needing before I say anything, whether it’s grabbing something for me before we head out the door or just being able to tell that I need something and I haven’t even though of it. But then I have friends that are all kinds of friends that are. I feel like I’m carried on a wave of that. One of my co-teachers, Anne Hartman, frequently can anticipate the needs of what we’re doing in the classroom before I can. I was working with another friend in leading worship a few weeks ago and it was like adjusting the music stand before I knew that I needed to have it adjusted, that kind of thing. Does that make sense?
Yeah.
And I think I’m really impressed with that in general because I can be pretty cerebral, which makes it so that I’m not seeing what’s around me. So the fact that someone could not only just be aware of another person, but then see that person needs this right now to me is a superpower.

Marlin Miller:
That’s cool. That’s cool. What advice would you give your 16 year old self? Your oldest son is 16 right now.

Chris Slaten:
Right. I love how you only are asking the big questions. We had sugar cereal for a minute and then now it’s like, golly. Okay.

Marlin Miller:
Which by the way, I love print. I love books and magazines. One of the coolest magazines is, it’s called Field Ethos. It’s on hunting and fishing and outdoors. It’s not entirely PG at times, but it’s really well done. It’s a beautiful magazine. And for every single contributor, they ask a list of questions about the story and about their own life and all that. And this last issue that just came a week ago, every single contributor writer had to answer the question, what’s your favorite cereal, your kid’s cereal, and defend your answer. I was reading it the other night and like, oh, dog gone. That’s going to go into my list because it’s just completely unexpected. That’s a good one. Totally out of the blue and I love it.

Chris Slaten:
Wait, what is your answer for that though?

Marlin Miller:
Probably Honey Bunches of Oats.

Chris Slaten:
Okay.

Marlin Miller:
Probably Honey Bunches of Oats.

Chris Slaten:
Yeah. That’s our family. Everyone can agree on that if we have to get a cereal.

Marlin Miller:
Yeah. I do like honeycomb,

Chris Slaten:
But

Marlin Miller:
Anyway, moving on.

Chris Slaten:
Yeah. One of my friends like to ask, he likes to ask lightning rounds of like, you have to say this or this, Marvel or DC or infants or elderly, which is one of his funniest. That’s a pretty great one. I love that.

Marlin Miller:
That’s a good one. Can I steal it? I’m going to steal

Chris Slaten:
It. That’s an awesome

Marlin Miller:
One. I love it.

Chris Slaten:
I don’t know where he got that. Okay. So 16 year old self, I think that it would come back to guilt and shame from that era of my life. It always felt like there were certain things in my life that’s like, that sin is so big that if I can just get over that, I’m going to kind of be in the clear. And the funny thing about that is that what that assumes about yourself is that there aren’t all of these other ways that you’re broken that you’re going to discover later. And so what you end up doing is hyper-focusing on this one thing that then often it makes it so that you can’t break out of it because you have this shame and you’re trying to measure up with this particular thing. And it seems like it is everything. So if you fail in that area, now it’s like everything.
Now I’m now in a pattern of avoidance and that kind of thing. So just knowing that God is the grace that we have in Jesus. I mean, Tim Keller has that, I think I’m going to paraphrase it, but that we’re far worst off than we ever imagined, far more love than we ever dear dream. So don’t think that trying to break through this thing is going to be what brings you the blessing of God and that you’ll finally be in there because you’re getting that in spite of it anyways. And once you do learn God’s grace and his blessing in this and that profound love is transforming for you with this particular sin in this particular area and you do start to heal from it because with that grace, there’s going to be so many more ways that you were broken and all of those are opportunities for growing in God’s grace every time you step into a new one.
So being able to rest in that and know that that’s the way out, not the, how can I discipline myself to finally get to a place of blessing.

Marlin Miller:
And not do that one sin.

Chris Slaten:
And not do that one thing. Yeah, because that also leads to self-righteousness is like the times that you do start, you do have some success in that area. You now are looking at other people who are struggling in a different way and typically that’s – Not

Marlin Miller:
Very holy.

Chris Slaten:
Yeah. Yeah. And he came for the sick, not for the well. And there’s so many other ways that you’re sick other than that. And it’s the same thing with how we talk about other traditions too, like denominations. I think every denomination has its ways of being profoundly broken and profoundly contributing something to the body of Christ. And when you hyper-focus on this kind of one area that you’re trying to be good, if you’re acing it in one area, it means you are probably failing somewhere else. Dude,

Marlin Miller:
The only thing that I can think of, two things actually, first of all is Ben Franklin, right? He has his 12 list of virtues. And then he’s like,

Chris Slaten:
Oh,

Marlin Miller:
Shoot, I should probably add humility to this, shouldn’t I?

Chris Slaten:
Yes.

Marlin Miller:
He was so arrogant. I mean, at least he saw it, right? At least he saw it to add humility to the list. The other thing is the older I get, the more I realize how disgustingly sinful I am, and yet I’m even conflicted in saying it that way because I also realize that I cannot know how truly sinful I am. And so it’s this both and. I mean, yes, I am horribly disgustingly sinful and I think I understand how sinful I am, but I really, I can’t because it’s even worse than that. It’s even worse than that. I mean, C.S. Lewis said you cannot slander human nature. It is worse than words can describe. That is me. That is us. That’s all of us.

Chris Slaten:
And it’s not because the tension there, I think some people would say, isn’t this a low view? Worm. Yeah, the worm. Yeah. The worm. Yeah. The kind of stereotype of Puritans is like the, oh, I’m focusing so heavily on sin that I don’t understand grace, but there’s actually profound opportunity there. The more that you understand your inability, the more you understand his ability and your profound belonging and value and dignity being made in his image and those things that only grows, it’s like the depths as you, the more, well actually this is in, do you know the Puritan collection, the Valley of Vision?

Marlin Miller:
I have heard of it. I don’t have it. No, I don’t.

Chris Slaten:
Something in the title prayer from that says something like in the valley there is vision. In the depths, I see thee in the heights. And that’s the kind of paradox and beauty and big world and big love that we’re a part of, which is pretty cool.

Marlin Miller:
That goes directly to what a good friend of mine, Mike, who’s almost 80 now, he has taught me, he has pummeled it into my brain that it’s the people who have genuinely suffered. And in his words, they got road burned, who A, understand grace and B, appreciate grace and C, you can’t appreciate what he saves us from until you really see the depths of the depravity and the pain that that depravity brings. It’s amazing. Anyway, last question and then we’ll get out of here. Okay. If you enjoy the conversations that we have on the Plain Values podcast, you are going to adore Plain Values in print for a couple reasons. One, you don’t have to look at my mug and B, you don’t have to listen to me talk. Head over to plainvalues.com and subscribe today. Chris, how can we pray for you guys, for you and Lindsay and your kids and your work?

Chris Slaten:
Well, the thing that I said earlier about what I long, if we’re talking about my family, that’s what I long for my children. So pray for that, please, if you think of us. Early on in this, when I started doing the Son of Laughter thing, one of my co-teachers, Andrew Novinson quoted Mother Teresa. I’m going to paraphrase because I don’t remember exactly what she said, but it’s something like, God calls us to be faithful, not successful because we don’t have the ability to measure success. And I guess just for me, prayer for when it comes to my music, I would love prayer to be faithful with the writing and collaborating with others and the sharing of it.
And then as I’m finishing up the album that I’m working on now, which has been too long and it’s probably going to still take too long, probably be 2028 before it comes out, that we would just. Then I’m going to move into, I’m going to try to work on this musical even more faithfully. And I would love for that time to just be a rich process of making collaboratively with other people. It’s going to take a lot of friends. This is going to be a different experience than the studio’s collaborative and you’ll hear that when you listen to the recordings, but this is going to be very different. I’m going to be way out of my territory with working on it and would love prayer for fruitfulness and direction and creating this thing and that it would be able to serve people even if it’s like two or three shows that we put on and that’s it.
Whatever happens of it, just that it would be a rich God honoring experience.

Marlin Miller:
I think I lied. I’m going to ask you one more. Early on, we talked about how you write songs.

Chris Slaten:
Okay.

Marlin Miller:
Can you grab the guitar and show me a little bit more of. So here’s the bigger question, okay? Do you write the lyric and then put music to it or are you. I’m going to guess, knowing you this little bit, I’m going to guess that you’re making the melodies first and then writing the lyrics to go with it, or are you like, I got this ready and I got this and I will now shut up. I’m sorry.

Chris Slaten:
No, yeah. No, that’s great. Okay. So the quick answer to that is it depends on the song. So Voting Day came with. I did the Write a Poem a Day challenge in November and that came out in one day. It’s the fastest thing that I’ve written.

Marlin Miller:
It’s a great song.

Chris Slaten:
Oh, cool. Thank you. It’s

Marlin Miller:
A great song,

Chris Slaten:
Man. So that one was very quick. It was just like a little exercise. And I combined it with another song that had just been sitting and grabbed some lines from it and stuck it in there. Little Sheep, the great one, those songs were written with concepts and with teaching and reading stuff that was stirring around. And so lyrics first. And you can tell when I play a show which ones were lyrics first and which ones were music first because the guitar parts aren’t nearly as interesting with the lyrics first ones. So it’s usually me strumming, playing some basic chords and doing that stuff. I might have eventually, when I allow myself to work out some type of instrumental hook or something, but typically the guitar parts are just a little more standard.
Okay.
When it’s instrumental first, I’ve been doing that thing I mentioned earlier where I just. I’ll show you.

Marlin Miller:
By the way, Little Sheep is like my favorite song. Oh,

Chris Slaten:
Cool.

Marlin Miller:
You asked me a while back about –

Chris Slaten:
Oh, what songs to play? Yeah.
Yeah.

Marlin Miller:
I’m sorry. I’m freezing up here. I would love it if you would play Voting Day and No Story Is Over and Little Sheep and all those things. Anyway,

Chris Slaten:
Sorry. Yeah. Those three are all on tap for now. Awesome. Awesome. I don’t know how in tune I am here, but so here’s just an example of when I was a freshman in high school, I had a band. No, I performed with my friend Greg and we called ourselves strep throat for this one show, I think because one of us had it. And then eventually we added a third person and called ourselves pants. We had shirts that said pants on them.

Marlin Miller:
Pants.

Chris Slaten:
Yep.

Marlin Miller:
Beautiful.

Chris Slaten:
It’s

Marlin Miller:
A good branding.

Chris Slaten:
Yes, that’s right.

Marlin Miller:
We wear pants.

Chris Slaten:
That’s right. That’s right. And I was writing instrumental things. I was comfortable with that. So one of those I had was this song I called The Notting Song and I’ll just play a little lick from it. It had this kind of. And so I loved the sounds of those things and that’s been sitting there for who knows how long.

Marlin Miller:
You’ve not

Chris Slaten:
Recorded

Marlin Miller:
That?

Chris Slaten:
Well, it’s going to be on the new album because now that. I mean, I wrote that when I was like 14. And so now in my 40s, I’ve finally gotten to a place where when I have a melody like that, that’s been sitting around a guitar part, I start asking the question of really it’s like what kind of vibe is this? And then I try to think concretely like, “All right, what’s the situation? What’s the topic going to be?” So I’ve tried out so many different types of lines on that. And eventually when my son got into bird watching, this line of.
I tell you now how life’s not fair. There’s too much beauty. There’s too much goodness everywhere. It’s taken me so long to learn. I’m always paid more than I earned. I’m always paid more than I earned.
This is all super rocky, but the point is I started then just throwing images and lines and concepts, and in this case, the feeling of we’re getting so much more out of life than we ever deserve was coming through being overwhelmed with the beauty in my backyard, watching birds with him. So once I had the images and the next part is, “See the beautiful Bablo sitting on a tree? He’s a tireless traveler and he sings for free.” Talking about a bird, not a tree. And the imagery, it’s like I paired the imagery with that, with another one that I’ll play tonight.
I had this melody and it felt like a city. It was moving, but then also there was this serenity to it, especially in this part. So that to me felt like a lake and it was called Lake for a while. And then it was a story of a guy who was searching for his father’s blessing from a CEO, and it was like moving up an elevator. And so I had these images and then eventually I heard about the Washington Post doing this experiment where they put Joshua Bell in a subway station at rush hour and wanted to see if people would recognize that the world’s greatest violinist was playing and people were too busy to pay attention to him.
I spent a year writing that song. I probably had 50 pages of notes. I would go to the library on Saturdays and check out books about the architecture of the place where it happened, strativarious violins, all of that. I would just write down images. I just wanted to have as much as possible. And then eventually, once I understood what I was talking about, I was able to use some of that concrete imagery to explore the idea of there being a fiddler that steps into our reality every day. So that song’s called The Fiddler, and I’ll play that one tonight. So the music was creating this soundscape that made me think of some kind of story. I’m like, “How do I pair a concrete image with this that’s going to really work? What is this specific story being told here?” I’ve done that. That’s when it’s music first and then lyrics.

Marlin Miller:
Chris, you have no idea. By the way, by the way, our kids are stinking so fired up. It’s ridiculous. Last night, I have slowly, over the last year, I have a friend who has a friend who has hundreds of guitars and he deals in guitars and he buys and sells. I have slowly picked up cheap little guitars, real guitars for the kids. There are many a day where Adelaide’s pink guitar is down on the couch and Benny’s little guitar is in the basement and they’re just wailing on it and just having a blast. I love music and I love good songwriting and it’s so stinking cool to watch our kids make a joyful noise to the very best of their ability. I just hope you know how much we love the fact that you’re here, that we’re able to come and be with us and we are just a little excited about tonight.
Awesome. Thank you. Thank you for this. Yeah. We are also going to do a short little time here after the show.

Chris Slaten:
Okay. Yeah,

Marlin Miller:
That’s right. That we can then talk more. Yeah.

Chris Slaten:
Perfect.

Marlin Miller:
Man, this has been so wonderful. Thank you.

Chris Slaten:
Same. Same. Great conversation. Thank you so much.