A Life Full of Music, with Charlie Peacock

"Listening is everything. Without listening, there’s no music, no art, no understanding—just noise.” (Charlie Peacock, from the episode)

Acclaimed musician, producer, podcaster, and author Charlie Peacock joins Mark Labberton to reflect on music, art, attention, listening, faith, and spirituality. From his groundbreaking work in pop music production (e.g., Amy Grant, Switchfoot, the Civil Wars), to his deep engagement with faith and mentorship, Charlie explores how attention shapes creativity, why making space for beauty is a spiritual discipline, and how a life of music can be an act of service. Through stories of artistic risk, collaboration, and calling, this conversation explores the rhythms of a flourishing life.

In this episode, they discuss:

Charlie’s new memoir, Roots and Rhythm: A Life In Music

The communal nature of making and producing music

The unsung music heroes from Charlie’s life

Non-neutrality and the interdependence of all things

Hearing and visualizing music

The intersection of creativity, spirituality, and paying attention,

How listening transforms both art and relationships,

Life lessons from jazz, pop, and worship music production,

And the role of both sound and silence in artistic and spiritual life.

About Charlie Peacock

Charlie Peacock is a six-time Grammy Award–winning musician and producer, having produced Amy Grant, Switchfoot, the Civil Wars, and many more artists. A three-time recipient of the Gospel Music Association’s Producer of the Year Award, he’s named by Billboard’s Encyclopedia of Record Producers as one of the five hundred most important producers in popular music history. His latest book is Roots and Rhythm: A Life In Music, and you can listen to his podcast, Music & Meaning. For more information visit charliepeacock.com.

Episode Highlights

"If you’re not paying attention, you’re missing the song that’s already being sung around you."

"A mentor doesn’t hand you a map; they help you learn how to navigate."

"Faith and art are both about trust—trusting the unseen, the unfinished, and the uncertain."

"The hardest and best lesson for any artist: keep showing up and doing the work."

"Music isn’t just a product—it’s a means of connection, healing, and worship."

Show Notes

• Charlie Peacock, Roots & Rhythm
• Music and community
• The unsung music heroes from Charlie’s life
• Non-neutrality and the interdependence of all things
• Hearing and visualizing music
• Michael Polanyi tacit understandings
• Re-creation of the old into the dramatically new—e.g., Notre Dame Cathedral
• The joy of generational community
• Jazz: spirit, skill, and ability
• “That’s what I love about jazz improvisation. There was nothing and then there was something. Over and over again. … When you have those people in a room making music … it’s hard to go to sleep at night.”
• “I have been pursued by a loving Creator … God-haunted since I was a little boy.”
• “I wanted to know everything. … how, why, what, when … everything.”
• “Never once was there a moment when I was out of God’s grip.”
• Charlie Peacock’s Secret of Time: “God gives you time to be saved.”
• John Coltrane’s spiritual journey
• “250 people a night…”
• “I took the F-word out of two songs, and stopped taking 10% from the bar tab.”
• Hans Rookmaaker
• Inklings
• Time in England and the Netherlands, including time at L’Abri (run by Francis and Edith Schaeffer)
• “An artist and a follower of Jesus, and how those two could be congruent …”
• “Our death is life to life. The kingdom has already begun. We have been living it. And we will continue to live it.”
• “Playing with the entire history of music in your brain.”
• The Civil Wars: “We re-presented hyper-dynamics. … A lot of people have never heard that before. … It invites you in and lets you sit back.” (e.g., pianissimo to forte)
• Over-compressed music.
• “That lean in to the music is a part of your participation. … I’m committed to this music.”
• “I produced music in the ‘80s. I know how to ruin a record. … Big hair and big snare. … But really it had to do with technology.”
• Music in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s
• Neil Postman: “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
• “When I use this tool I have to make sure it doesn’t use me.”
• “My subtext is that this is a book about epistemology. … To say, ‘This is how I know what I know.’ It came through God, people, and place.”
• A worker-bee in the music business
• “Like a house with a party going on”
• Vocation, epistemology, and how an artists become who they are

Production Credits

Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.