A Conversation with Andrew Peterson About the Music of Rich Mullins

On September 24, 2017, at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee, Andrew Peterson and friends gathered before a sold-out crowd of more than 2,000 people to perform a live, note-for-note rendition of Rich Mullins’s 1993 classic A Liturgy, a Legacy, & a Ragamuffin Band.

More than eight years later, the office at Bragg Management is preparing to ship vinyl records this week, along with all the other surprises associated with the Kickstarter campaign that funded the re-recording of a string section, as well as the mixing, mastering, and pressing of a very special limited run. The 31-track album became available on October 21, 2025, and can now be streamed on Apple Music here and Spotify here.

I was excited to talk with Andrew Peterson about his experience both performing and releasing the live recording honoring one of my favorite albums of all time—a sentiment he shares, by the way. What follows is a lightly edited conversation between two guys nerding out over a shared love for the songs of Rich Mullins.

Shane Hull: Hey, thanks for taking the time to talk to me.

Andrew Peterson: Of course, of course.

Shane Hull: So how was it having all the metal heads show up to your annual Christmas show: Behold the Lamb of God looking for a Lamb of God show?

Andrew Peterson: Oh my gosh, I forgot about that. What a funny question to start this thing with. No, that’s great.

I actually didn’t—somebody brought it to my attention. A Lamb of God fan sent me a message on Instagram saying, “Hey, just so you know, I just bought tickets for this and I’m trying to get a refund.”

So I forwarded that immediately to Christy, my manager, and said, “Hey, I think there may be some confusion happening.” This was about a month before the show.

Then I kind of forgot about it.

The day of the show I thought, “Oh wait, this was that show where there was some confusion.” I heard from somebody on the tour—the tour manager—that, like, “Oh yeah, it’s been a thing.” Then I promptly forgot about it again until afterward, when I started seeing all the stuff online.

I just thought it was delightful. I would love it if one of those folks decided to just stick around and hear the show.

Shane Hull: I got a kick out of that myself. That was pretty funny.

Andrew Peterson: Yeah, it’s pretty funny. In the current news cycle, I was surprised it merited much attention. I thought there were much bigger fish to fry than this Lamb of God concert confusion. But whatever.

Shane Hull: The live performance, A Liturgy, a Legacy, and the Songs of Rich Mullins—you guys released it on Rich’s 70th birthday, or what would have been his 70th birthday.

Andrew Peterson: I think so, yeah. That sounds right.

Shane Hull: That’s a princely birthday gift, man.

Andrew Peterson: Well, man, thank you for saying that. I can’t imagine a seventy-year-old Rich Mullins. You know what I mean? He’ll always be, in all of our memories, the kind of curmudgeonly forty-something that he was—in the best way.

I so often wish I could have known what it would have been like to know him now. What would he be doing? Would he be on Instagram? No—he absolutely wouldn’t.

There’s a big part of me that thinks he probably would have just been off the map at this point. Like he’d be living on the reservation in New Mexico, just doing his thing, and we wouldn’t hear much from him. And that makes me really happy to imagine.

Shane Hull: Do you miss him?

Andrew Peterson: Do I miss him? Well, I never really knew him. I only met him a couple of times.

But I miss the idea of Rich being out there in the world. I would love to hear what kind of songs he’d be writing now. I’d love to know what he thought about the state of the world.

Yeah, I guess I do. But to say I miss him would imply that we were friends.

Shane Hull: What he offered the world, I guess, is what I was thinking.

Andrew Peterson: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because we weren’t friends, that’s why the record is what it is. All we really had were his songs. And boy, do I still love them.

Shane Hull: You shared a little bit of this in the concert, but I was wondering if you could go over it for our readers—the first time you heard Rich Mullins’ music and how you reacted to it.

Andrew Peterson: Well, my guess is the first time I heard his music was probably as a youth group kid singing Our God Is an Awesome God. But I didn’t connect it with the writer. It was just a song that I heard.

I do remember being intrigued by it. There was something different about it. But I didn’t know who he was. I was into hair metal and Pink Floyd and whatever else, so I wasn’t really listening to Christian music through high school.

So I think it wasn’t until after high school that I heard him again. I was in a band—just a really lame rock band playing cover songs—and I was about as lost as I could be.

Then I heard If I Stand. That was the first song.

After that it was that whole record, and then I heard The World as Best as I Remember It right after that, which has Calling Out Your Name, Jacob and Two Women, The Howling, and all of these songs that are still some of my very favorites.

I think part of it was that I didn’t know you were allowed to write songs like that and be a Christian artist. They were mysterious—just poetic enough that I didn’t fully understand them.

And I loved that. I loved that there wasn’t an obvious, really clear explanation. They were like a good poem that you have to read twenty times before it reveals itself to you.

That was something really intriguing that drew me in.

Shane Hull: “Her sky was just a bandit swing at the end of a hangman’s noose, because he stole the moon and must be made to pay for it.”

Andrew Peterson: Yeah—what does that mean? I still listen to that song and think, I don’t know what he’s talking about, but I love it so much.

I think part of that is just a temperament thing. I tend to be drawn to art and music that is a little obscure. I like it when the needle isn’t pushed too far in either direction. I don’t like it when something is so obscure that I’m completely mystified—like really abstract art. I’m not saying that’s the art’s fault, but I’m just not wired to respond to it very well.

I need something to hang my hat on in a work of art. And Rich’s music had that. It had just enough earthy, gritty imagery.

Shane Hull: He took a story we’ve heard a million times in Sunday school and breathed fresh life into it.

Andrew Peterson: Totally. Totally.

I had my bearings because I knew the story of Jacob and Rachel and Leah. But there’s all this mystery wrapped up in it, and that mystery kept me coming back.

Shane Hull: When was the first time you heard A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band?

Andrew Peterson: Oh man—yeah.

Shane Hull: Do you remember that clearly?

Andrew Peterson: I do. I remember going to the local Christian bookstore in the Orlando–Kissimmee area when I was in Bible college. I had heard that Rich had a new album out, so I drove to the store, bought the CD, and my roommates and I came home and popped it in.

I remember not loving it at first. I felt a little drowned by it. I thought, I don’t really understand this. Looking back, I’m surprised that I didn’t love it immediately. But I loved him enough to keep listening, and it didn’t take long for it to become one of my all-time favorite records.

I was just talking to my kids—who are growing up in the Spotify age—about how sad it is that music has become something that’s so easy to graze on instead of feast on. They were lamenting how easy it is now to look at how many listens a song gets, but the assumption is that most of those listens are just background music.

Back when we were growing up, we’d buy a CD from an artist we loved and listen to it again and again and again. We’d give it time to simmer. You know what I mean?

Shane Hull: And pore over the liner notes.

Andrew Peterson: Exactly. We’d learn to love a song.

Something like that happened recently. I’ve been drawing and trying to learn how to paint. After the Christmas tour this year I had some time at home, so every day I’d go up to my little writing shed and practice drawing and painting. It’s a great time to listen to music.

So I decided I was going to go all analog. I thought, Well, I’m drawing with a pen on real paper—that’s such a wonderfully tactile thing—so I’m only going to listen to vinyl while I’m out here.

I’ve got a bunch of records—some from when I was a kid: Journey, Def Leppard, that kind of stuff—along with James Taylor, Jim Croce, Van Morrison, Emmylou Harris, and a bunch of newer bands that release vinyl. And I decided I was going to listen to them all in order—Side A and Side B—no matter what mood I was in.

Instead of the streaming thing where you just pick whatever song you feel like hearing, I thought, I’m going to let the vinyl dictate the mood.

I had the best time doing that. I can’t tell you how many times I’d pull out a record and think, I don’t really feel like listening to this. But I’d play it anyway, and three songs in I was so glad that I had.

I just think limitations are good. They give art time to do its work on us. And these days we’re not used to that.

So I’m really grateful that I didn’t just Spotify one Rich Mullins song, decide I didn’t like it, and never listen to it again. You know what I mean?

Shane Hull: Yeah—art consists in drawing the line somewhere, like morality.

Andrew Peterson: That’s so good.

Shane Hull: As far as the performance itself—the recording—that happened much earlier, correct?

Andrew Peterson: Yeah. It was eight years before we released the recording.

Shane Hull: Wow.

Andrew Peterson: Yeah, it took a long time. Partly because life is busy, and partly because we weren’t sure it was even salvageable. You know what I mean? We had a board mix of it, and it had been multi-track recorded because Harold Rubens—who has been the sound guy on the Christmas tour for years and years—is a dear friend. He just thought, I’m going to record it, because that’s what he usually does, and he pushed record.

It wasn’t until, I don’t know, two months later that he texted me and said, “Oh, by the way, I recorded that show. Here’s the board mix of it.” And I was like, Oh, I’m so glad, because then I could relive it and send it to my friends who were in the band. And you know, the board mix isn’t ideal, because it has all the—

Shane Hull: You’re mixing for the room. You’re not mixing for recording.

Andrew Peterson: Exactly. So it was fun to relive it. But the main thing I remember being so blown away by when I listened to the board mix was the energy of the crowd. The crowd’s excitement to be there was so moving to me that I would cry listening to the thing.

Then we just kind of forgot about it. And about seven years later, Ben Shive—bless his heart—on a wild hair decided to see if he could take the multitrack stems and mix them into something really good.

He sent me “Creed” out of the blue one day, and I was deeply moved by it. I texted him back, “Oh my gosh, this is amazing.” Then every day or two he’d send me another mix, and we realized, We have to share this stuff. We have to release it.

Shane Hull: The original performance just seems like one of those things that might never have happened at all. How did that come together in the first place?

Andrew Peterson: Yeah. Well, for many years I had wanted to record some kind of tribute album. There had been a few false starts over the years where I thought I had time to do it, but then one thing or another would happen and it just wouldn’t come together.

But there’s this community of artists, by God’s grace, I fell into in Nashville when I first moved there. You know, the usual suspects who are on my Christmas tour and who are all over the Rich Mullins record: Jeremy Casella, the Gullahorns—Jill Phillips and Andy Gullahorn—and Ben Shive. All of us loved Rich’s music.

For many of us, his songs were one of the reasons we came to know Jesus—or at least one of the reasons we moved to Nashville to try to make a career writing songs that were, in some way, tapping into what Rich was tapping into.

So we’d talk about it sometimes—Man, wouldn’t it be fun to record our favorite Rich songs? Partly because we just loved them and it would be really fun, but also because some of the records sound a little dated.

Now, I don’t think A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band sounds dated at all. I think that record still sounds like magic. But some of the others…

Shane Hull: That probably has something to do with the fact that it was recorded live in the studio with acoustic instruments.

Andrew Peterson: Yeah, exactly. And it’s a band record. It’s the kind of record that you get the feeling Rich was always going to make someday—it just took him a while to grow into it.

And Reed Arvin too—the producer. He was slowly figuring out the best way to produce Rich’s songs. When you talk to Reed about those early days, he’ll tell you that when they first started making music together neither of them really knew what they were doing.

It was the late ’80s, early ’90s, and music just sounded different. The Christian music scene was different. The production was good in its own way, but when I imagine a twenty-year-old today discovering Rich Mullins, they’d have to be pretty committed to dive into some of those older recordings and find the brilliance of the songs underneath the production.

We thought, Man, I wish we could re-record some of these songs and make them a little easier for a new listener to receive.

So we had dreamed about it. I really wanted to do it. There had been a few Rich Mullins tribute albums over the years, but—this might be arrogance, I don’t know—none of them quite did the thing I was hoping they would do. None of them scratched the itch I had to produce the songs in a particular way.

Then the twentieth anniversary of Rich’s passing was approaching, and we thought, Now is as good a time as any.

What if we did a concert and performed that specific record—note for note?

Ben Shive, the bandleader, took it on. I’ve heard the band say they’ve never worked harder on a show before. It was incredibly difficult to reproduce those really complex arrangements. It was more intensive than anything they had done before.

Shane Hull: The arrangements on the original recording—speaking as a musician myself—when you listen closely to all the details… there’s a bass line in “Creed” where the piano follows it, and—

Andrew Peterson: Yeah.

Shane Hull: It’s just like—oh my goodness. And for you guys to care so much about every little detail, to perform that in fidelity to the original recording—it was special. It was moving.

Andrew Peterson: They really were special. And it was a fan thing too. We were such big fans of that record, and of his songs in general.

One of the things I’ve noticed over the years at some Rich Mullins events—tributes, memorials, gatherings like that—is that they were usually done by Rich’s friends, which is totally understandable. These were people who knew him and toured with him.

But what I noticed was that if you knew Rich personally—if you were in his circle—he was such a fascinating and interesting personality that the tribute concerts often ended up being about Rich.

Shane Hull: Instead of about the songs.

Andrew Peterson: Exactly. And the songs almost became secondary. People would forget the words, and I’d be in the audience thinking, How can you forget the words to that? That’s one of the greatest lyrics ever written.

So it kind of required fans of the music—not just friends of Rich—to pull off a show like we did. That was really the heart behind it. I wanted to honor Rich by honoring his music, and by doing that, honor the God that Rich was singing about.

That was the hope.

Shane Hull: You mentioned Reed Arvin earlier. He played piano on “Creed.” Were there any other people from the original recording who joined in?

Andrew Peterson: Yes—the only other person who had been on the original recording was Matt Pierson, the bass player.

Matt has played on quite a few of my records, and from the first time I met him I was kind of starstruck. I remember thinking, Can we just talk for a second about the fact that you played bass on Liturgy, Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band?

I’d get stories from him about those sessions. And the bass work he played on “Creed” is just crazy.

We were actually talking about that on the Christmas tour recently. Eric Koveney, who’s a really virtuosic bass player—a younger guy—was playing “Creed,” and he said that when he listens to the original recording it sounds like the producer just gave the musicians a really long leash and said, Just play.

Sometimes in the studio nobody wants to show off, so good players tend to hold back. They’re tasteful. They don’t step out too often. But it almost felt like Reed Arvin gave these guys permission to really lean into their musicianship and surprise him.

Matt was definitely one of those players.

But aside from Matt, no—it was all just friends of ours playing.

Shane Hull: That’s awesome. Were there any songs from the original performance that had to be cut from the record?

Andrew Peterson: Yeah, there were a few from the first half that didn’t quite fit. The show was something like thirty songs, so we had to trim it in a few places. Some songs communicated better in the room than they did on the recording, so we focused on the ones that translated well to the album.

Shane Hull: Before you sang “I Believe” you told a story that was really moving. It’s a song of yours, not a Rich Mullins song, but the moment felt like you were honoring Rich, honoring your own father, and honoring God all at once.

It almost felt like an embodiment of the Fifth Commandment—honor your father and your mother. The whole night kind of had that feeling. I was wondering whether that was intentional or if it happened naturally.

Andrew Peterson: Wow.

Shane Hull: Whether that was something you planned, or if it just emerged during the performance.

Andrew Peterson: Man… I don’t know that it was intentional. It sounds like maybe that’s what God had in mind for the night.

Honestly, we were so stressed about whether the show was even going to work. We didn’t know if we were going to be able to pull off those songs, or if the audience would respond to them. But right when I walked on stage at the beginning of the show, I had this moment where I thought, Oh man, we’re going to have a blast tonight.

It’s funny though—someone asked me recently if I remember the details of my wedding day. And you remember the big moments, but the rest of it is kind of a fog because you’re thinking about so many other things. That’s kind of what this felt like. The thrill of being there was so intense that I was basically flying by the seat of my pants the whole time. So it’s really nice to hear that’s what you heard in it.

The song is called “The Good Confession (I Believe).” I did write that as a nod to my own dad—a song of gratitude for his faithfulness. So I love that you heard that in it.

Shane Hull: For me, one of the things Rich did—beyond giving me incredible songs—was introduce me to Orthodoxy and to G. K. Chesterton.

I’m originally from Indiana. My family moved down to central Florida when I was in kindergarten, and we grew up in a Pentecostal tradition. Chesterton ended up being kind of a gateway drug for me that led me down all the seedy back alleys of Christendom…

Andrew Peterson: Sure—yeah, yeah.

Shane Hull: So aside from the music, what else has Rich done in terms of influencing your life?

Andrew Peterson: Wow. What a fun question.

First of all, I’ll say that I also read Orthodoxy because of Rich. That book is one of my favorites. Like Rich’s music, though, I’m mystified by so much of it. It has an effect on me that I can’t always articulate.

Chesterton was such a virtuoso with language. He’s like this waterfall of thoughts and paradoxes and love of God that rushes at you in that book. When I finished it, I remember thinking, I don’t know how to explain what just happened to me, but something just happened to me. In that sense, Rich was a lot like G. K. Chesterton. He was a wit—with a capital W. He had this wonderful way of putting things that was very Chestertonian.

And I have to tell you a side note—one of the great treasures of my life is that I have Rich’s copy of Orthodoxy.

Shane Hull: Oh my goodness.

Andrew Peterson: Yeah.

Shane Hull: My goodness—I’m getting chills.

Andrew Peterson: Yeah, man. If you’re ever in Nashville—or if it ever works out—I’d be happy to show it to you. The story is that Rich gave it to Steven Curtis Chapman. Steven had quoted Chesterton during an acceptance speech at the Dove Awards. Rich heard that and liked Steven, so when they met he said, “Hey, I wanted to give you this book because you mentioned Chesterton. I think you’d love it.”

I was friends with Steven and heard that he had Rich’s copy. So I texted him and said, “Dude, there are few people in the world who would love that book more than I would. I’ll dip into my retirement to buy it.”

I bugged him for about three years. Then one day around Christmas I saw Steven, and he slipped the book to me and said, “Merry Christmas.”

Shane Hull: Wow.

Andrew Peterson: Yeah—it’s amazing. The coolest thing about it is that it’s full of Rich’s highlights. He used a yellow highlighter.

On the first page he highlighted the line, “I did not make it. No, it is making me.”

Shane Hull: Yeah. He was such a thief when it came to Chesterton.

Andrew Peterson: Yes! And I immediately flipped to the end of the book and saw the part about how we have sinned and grown old, but God is younger than we are—which is where Rich’s song “Growing Young” comes from.

So I kind of nerd out about having the copy that gave us those songs.

But to answer your question about the gifts Rich gave me—first and foremost, it's Jesus.

Shane Hull: Yeah.

Andrew Peterson: I don’t think I understood that Jesus loved me until I heard Rich Mullins sing about the love of Jesus. The line “the reckless raging fury they call the love of God” was so scandalous to me as a pastor’s kid with a very conservative upbringing. I just assumed God was always mad at me. I still struggle with that sometimes.

But Rich—and Chesterton—had a way of writing about God that was full of wonder. It sounded like they actually knew Him as a person.

And it made me think: If Rich knows Jesus as a person, then it must be possible for me to know Him as a person.

When I finally met Him, it was this astonishing realization that Jesus is kind—and that He actually wanted me. I just needed to hear the good news of the gospel, and Rich was the one God used to convince me of it.

Beyond that, there were all the books Rich loved. At some point I found a list of his favorite books—things like Lonesome Dove and A Prayer for Owen Meany.

Shane Hull: Yeah—I read through that list in CCM Magazine.

Andrew Peterson: It’s an amazing list.

Shane Hull: I read through all those books when I was a senior in college.

Andrew Peterson: Yeah—and if you remember, he had Augustine’s Confessions on the list.

Shane Hull: Yeah.

Andrew Peterson: And one of the books by Pope John Paul II, I think. He was already pretty outside the box in the CCM world—reading fiction broadly, reading Catholic writers, reading people like Frederick Buechner. So I kind of tapped into that. I thought, If Rich loves these books, I want to know them too.

And through that I discovered some of my favorite writers.

Another huge influence was community. One of the biggest changes in my life came when Caedmon’s Call invited me on tour in 1997. They were friends with Rich and had kind of caught his spirit.

Rich’s concerts were always full of these wonderful characters—the Ragamuffins, Beaker, all these interesting people he surrounded himself with. When you saw a Rich Mullins concert, it wasn’t just about Rich. It was about this whole community.

Caedmon’s Call followed that model. They were always touring with independent artists and introducing audiences to writers they loved—lifting up the little guy.

I got the grace of being one of those people. Then later I got the grace of doing the same thing—inviting my friends along on tour.

That eventually led to things like The Rabbit Room and Behold the Lamb of God. All of that can be traced back to Rich.

It’s downstream from the way he loved Jesus and loved his community.

Shane Hull: So are there any plans to take A Liturgy, a Legacy, and the Songs of Rich Mullins on the road?

Andrew Peterson: Oh man. Man! I think it would just kill the band. You know, it was like running a super marathon that night. We were all so exhausted. And I also really love the fact that it was a one-off. We had a really special night, and no matter what, if we tried to do it again, it wouldn’t be as special as that night. The fact that it was a one-time, miraculous concert is part of what I love so much about it.

I remember right after the tour was over, a lot of people who were there that night said, “You have to bring this on the road.” And without even thinking about it, my answer was: nope. Lightning doesn’t strike twice. This was the one time we were doing this, and that’s a way of preserving the sacredness of that night.

Shane Hull: No need to commodify it.

Andrew Peterson: Nope, nope. And, you know, with the release of the album, we didn’t want to put it out on a label or anything. We just wanted to make it available, put it out in the world. Also as a one-time thing—the Rich Mullins tribute album I always wanted to make.

Shane Hull: Alright. I’ve got a couple of rapid-fire questions for you.

Andrew Peterson: Sure.

Shane Hull: To wrap things up here. You ready?

Andrew Peterson: Yeah.

Shane Hull: 1. Clean-cut Rich or long-haired hippie Rich?

Andrew Peterson: Uh… probably long-haired.

Shane Hull: 2. If Rich were a one-hit wonder—which is impossible, I know—which song would it have to be?

Andrew Peterson: Ooh…

Shane Hull: Quick answers, man. You’re on the clock.

Andrew Peterson: Um… it would be a toss-up between Calling Out Your Name and The Color Green.

Shane Hull: 3. A line of Rich’s you wish you’d written yourself.

Andrew Peterson: Oh man. Uh… “From the place where morning gathers, you can look sometimes forever till you see what time may never know. How the Lord takes by its corners this old world and shakes us forward and shakes us free. To run wild with the hope that this thirst will not last long, but it will soon drown in a song not sung in vain.”

Shane Hull: 4. Which of his songs hits you differently now than it did 20 or 30 years ago?

Andrew Peterson: Hold Me Jesus. When I first heard it, it was kind of a prayer song, worshipful, confessional. But the more I listen—well, it’s not just listening to the song, but understanding why he wrote it. I don’t know if you’ve seen that YouTube video…

Shane Hull: You’re talking about the subway conversation with Beaker in Amsterdam, yeah?

Andrew Peterson: Yep, yep. And the explicitness of their sin… the night he wrote the song, he was waiting for Beaker to start snoring so he could go out to the red-light district. But Beaker never started snoring. So Rich was left there, just burning with lust and his own sinfulness.

When I listen to the song through that lens, I realize it’s not just a song asking Jesus for comfort. It’s also a song of restraint.

Shane Hull: Wow.

Andrew Peterson: …Jesus, would you hold me back? You know what I mean? Hold Me Jesus doesn’t just mean comfort me—it means save me from myself.

Shane Hull: That’s awesome.

Andrew Peterson: Isn’t that amazing? I love when a song unfolds itself to you over time like that.

Shane Hull: 5. For someone who’s never heard Rich before, what’s the first song you play for them?

Andrew Peterson: Oh wow… well, it depends on the person. That might be impossible to answer. Some people, it might be Homeless Man; for someone else, it might be The Color Green or Creed.

I don’t know. I really don’t know how to answer that one.

Shane Hull: 6. Dulcimer or piano?

Andrew Peterson: Piano—because I can’t play dulcimer.

Shane Hull: 7. Volume 1 or Volume 2 of The World As Best As I Can Remember It?

Andrew Peterson: Ooh… volume two.

Shane Hull: Yeah?

Andrew Peterson: Which I think is the blue one, right?

Shane Hull: That’s Volume 1.

Andrew Peterson: Is Volume 1 the one that has Calling Out Your Name?

You: Yep, that’s Volume 1.

Andrew Peterson: And The Howling. Okay then—Volume 1. Yep.

Shane Hull: Right—that was the correct answer, by the way.

8. How many times did you listen to The River before writing Is He Worthy?

Andrew Peterson: Oh, that’s so funny. I love that you picked up on that. So, when I wrote Is He Worthy, I just had blocky quarter-note chords. It wasn’t until we were in the studio with Ben Shive—the only other person I know who knows Rich’s songs as well as I do—that we found a more interesting piano part than the one I’d played. He started playing, and we looked at each other like, “Ooh, that’s a cool idea.” It was a little nod to The River.

The fun part? Reed Arvin texted us the day he heard the song and said, “I see what you did there.”

Shane Hull: Expecting the check at some point.

Andrew Peterson: Oh yeah, exactly. But man, I love that you picked up on that. That makes me so happy.

Shane Hull: 9. And Finally, what do you hope people discover about Rich 50 years from now?

Andrew Peterson: Hmm… well, the easy answer: I hope they discover who Jesus is through his music the way I did. I think Rich would want the same.

But I also want people to know that Rich was so much more than the crusty, iconoclastic, barefoot, rebellious figure people sometimes make him out to be. So many stories paint him as the “bad boy of Christian music,” but that’s not accurate.

I’ve heard stories from people who knew him—about him sitting on the front steps of a church after a concert, talking to a high school kid for two hours. About him spending time at youth camps, playing kickball, leading songs around a campfire. He really, really loved Jesus.

He was imperfect—he struggled like anyone else—but his life was marked by genuine love for and encounter with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

To me, the most rebellious thing about Rich was that he actually read his Bible. It’s inspiring. It makes me want to know Scripture better and follow Jesus more fully.

And because Rich was caught up in God’s grace—so much of what he wrote is about grace—it elevates my love for Scripture, my love for the church, and my appreciation for simple faith.

It washes away a lot of the legalistic baggage I grew up with and shows me the good, wonderful parts of church and Scripture.

One last thing: one of the best emails we got was from a guy who became a Christian through Rich’s music in youth group. His youth pastor was later arrested for abusing kids, and this guy lost his faith completely. He avoided Rich’s music for years because of that pain.

When this album came out, he listened. He couldn’t stop crying—listening restored the Jesus he discovered through Rich’s music and redeemed it from the pain he had associated with it. I remember crying when I read that email and sent it to Ben Shive, saying, This is why we made this record.

Shane Hull: Thank you so much for doing this with me. I really appreciate it.

Andrew Peterson: Yeah, man—thank you. It was good to talk to you.