Mike Rimmer interviewed Christian rock singer of the '80s and '90s STEVE TAYLOR

Steve: Well, in the filmmaking side of things, it's less control; I mean there's part of that, but it's more that when you don't have a lot of money you can't throw money at a problem so you end up having to take on multiple roles. If I don't have $50,000 to buy a screenplay, I am going to need to figure out a way to write my own or work with some friends who don't need to be paid a lot of money in order to write the screenplay. If I don't have a lot of money to hire big shot producers, I've got to work with friends and be one of the producers myself, and so that's part of it. If you work with say, a Hollywood studio, essentially you're giving them the opportunity to fire you or to re-cut your movie or. . . I wouldn't want to do something like that. In that case, you could say that's more of a control issue; otherwise, it's just, you do what you have to do to get a movie made.

Mike: In view of all the things that have gone on in your career, are there a lot of people in the industry who hate you?

Steve: It sounds like I've made a lot of enemies over the years, but I haven't actually made that many enemies. Part of it is that there have not been that many recording artists that have aged gracefully, not that that never happens, it's just that it's rare. Modern music tends to be a young person's game now. You always get the exceptions like David Byrne, Brian Eno or maybe Bowie, although he's not been making very good music for a while now, sadly, either. It's back to that Randy Newman thing. If you can't keep making better music, you definitely don't want to make way worse music. I'm just talking in circles right now.

Mike: I think when it comes to Christian music though, your music has aged better than just about anybody else, if you think about some of your contemporaries. I mean, your albums sound better than, say, oh I don't know, Carman?

Steve: Well, yeah, but that's setting a pretty low bar isn't it. (chuckles)