Modern Church Leader
Hear pastors share what's working in their churches. Welcome to Modern Church Leader, a show for church leaders to learn business strategies, leadership skills, church tech tips, and generosity. Tune in for powerful interviews to help you grow your church to be more effective, efficient, and powerful for the kingdom of God. For more information, visit https://www.mclconference.com/
Modern Church Leader
How to Release Your Own Christian Music with Stephen Brewster
Join us as we sit down with Stephen Brewster, a veteran in the Christian music industry from Franklin, Tennessee. Stephen shares his journey through the industry and shares insider tips on how to help churches across the nation release and distribute their music.
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Follow Stephen Brewster at @b_rewster
Check out https://theharmony.group for more information
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Hey guys, frank here with another episode of Modern Church Leader man. I'm here talking about releasing Christian music to the world with my new bud, stephen. Stephen, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thanks, man. I'm so excited to get to be with you guys today. It's going to be awesome.
Speaker 1:And you're in Nashville still, or have you moved?
Speaker 2:Yeah, just outside of Nashville, franklin, franklin, tennessee, so franklin very cool. It's kind of like a little bit of a christian bubble where we live, we so yeah, I've had many a uh franklin nashville guests on the podcast, like people I'm sure you have like that area.
Speaker 1:Uh, I think probably win uh with total number of of guests and where they're from.
Speaker 2:You would have to If you've talked to anyone in basically the Christian output world. I think they live here or have at some point. Yeah.
Speaker 1:They're Dallas. It's crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Dallas has a lot too. Dallas has got a lot.
Speaker 1:Well, man, you've spent quite some time in the music business, a place that I know nothing about. I literally I listen to music, don't know anything about it other than songs I like.
Speaker 2:Okay, so what's a song you like?
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, what's a song.
Speaker 2:It doesn't have to be Christian.
Speaker 1:This is sad. I'm like this with movies too, like telling you a movie I like or like yeah, an actor I never can remember names of anything, but I'm gonna tell you one that my kids asked me to put on.
Speaker 1:I have middle school boys, I've tripled middle school boys and uh, they one of my boys like dad, what kind of music did you listen to growing up? And I didn't grow up in a christian household, any christian. I had a little bit of christian influence, not a lot, um. So I grew up listening to rap, completely like everything, all rap, all day long exactly the same like you know, un unfiltered, like the whole thing.
Speaker 2:That's what I grew up listening to.
Speaker 1:So my kids are asking like dad, would you listen to? So I'm like telling them, I'm like, but you know like we don't go there anymore right it's not our jam, uh, you know, like there's, there's levels here, right? So one of my sons is like well, I want to hear some of the og rap songs that you used to listen to, and so like I'm like, okay, what, what are some that like, are like somewhat okay and that have edited versions, right, like?
Speaker 1:clean radio versions kind of thing. So you know, I'm finding stuff, and so Eminem was definitely one of my guys right Later on. That was kind of like tail end of that, and so the song that was on in the car yesterday was Eminem's brand new release, houdini Houdini. One of my sons found the clean version on YouTube, like it hadn't put one like on Spotify or Apple Music yet we're Apple Music folks but we found a clean version on YouTube and so he played that. I'm like, okay, let's listen to it and see what it's like.
Speaker 2:So that was a Props on your parenting. Okay, like you're doing a great job working hard inside. So I mean but it is hard it is hard as a as a fellow fan of hip-hop music, that it's difficult to find music that you can play for your kids, that you grew up on or that you like now, if you like hip hop still so there's some stuff that's like good, sure, but it's harder, um but there's no, there's less angst in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My kids love to say, oh, this is just some guy, uh, like this, he's like an angsty teen, or like he's just, he's just, uh, venting on his song, like that's all he's doing. That's like a common way that they describe uh, rap songs hilarious, who's it? We just got, we went to a concert or like a worship festival thing. Uh, what's the new? And then we got tickets because she's performing, um, ann wilson. We just went to a show that she put on and and some other folks Toby Mac was there and uh, but and Wilson like kills it man.
Speaker 1:So she's performing in San Diego in like September or something like that. So we got tickets to that. So my kids, you know they listen to a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she crushes me and she's. She's really really talented.
Speaker 1:Yeah, incredibly talented, yeah, incredibly talented, like it was a great show.
Speaker 2:That's awesome.
Speaker 1:She doesn't rap a lot, but she is very, very talented you know I got married and when I was dating my wife she was a big country fan so I got super into country. So you know I went from rap to country to Christian music.
Speaker 2:That was kind of the journey, and now those three are kind of the same thing.
Speaker 1:They're all blending. They're all blending together, they all live in the same jambalaya now. So tell us your story. How did you get into music? Go back to the early days.
Speaker 2:I loved music when I was a kid. My parents were missionaries, so I kind of grew up around the world and had exposure to some different stuff. My first favorite artist was Prince Nice. So when I heard Prince, I was like this is so, like this is just ridiculously cool. How how is this so cool? And so, from that point forward, just love music and hip hop.
Speaker 2:Same way Like I grew, loved music and hip-hop, same way I grew up listening to hip-hop music. And then when I went to college I was like man, I'd love to be around music all the time, but I don't play or sing, and at that point there wasn't a lot of M&Ms in the world. And so I found out there was a business side to music. And so I found out there was a business side to music and so I started studying it. I didn't know anything about a university degree in music business or anything like that I don't even think there was anything like that back then.
Speaker 2:But I got asked to host a radio show at one of the colleges that I went to, and it was the only urban music radio show on the channel, and so I got to interview all the artists that were of that genre when they came into town and friends with this group called out of Eden back in the day and uh ended up coming to town and lived with their road manager and uh, god was very kind and allowed me to have a career where I actually like, had jobs that paid money to do music and to be part of the music business. So I did that for for a long time for 10 years and then, um, really felt God calling me into church and vocational ministry and so uh got hired to be the creative arts pastor at a church. That became an executive role and then, about seven years ago, we started doing what we're doing now, which is helping churches all over the country release music and help them get their music as far away from where they are as possible.
Speaker 1:It's pretty cool. Tell us I think you said you spent somewhere around 10 years as the you know executive pastor over the creative side of the church. Yep, like, tell us about that role, like what are all the things that that kind of role does at a church?
Speaker 2:Well, my favorite job ever, you know you're. You're over production and worship. Obviously you're over communications design, video marketing, social media, environments, um, sometimes guest experience, depending on the organization. No-transcript. No-transcript.