Songwriter Steve Siler: Faith Set to Music

Steve Siler has written hundreds of songs , nine of them were #1 Christian Contemporary songs and 45 of them top 10. His songs have been recorded by some of the countries biggest stars...Kenny Loggins, Smokey Robinson, Patty Labelle, the Oak Ridge boys and others. To say the very least his song wrting skills are a true gift from God.

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Born out of his love of music at a very early age, combined with finding his way to Jesus as a teen was the fertile ground for what turned out to be his life's work.

Although he loved writing Christian hits, he found his special niche in writing songs that address the challenges of our current culture:  eating disorders, body imaging, pornography, anxiety, additions, alzheimers, cancer and much more. 

You'll hear how music has a unique way of breaking through to help heal wounds and bridge the challenges that so many face.  It was hearing his first hit song played on the radio that changed his musical direction and ultimately launched "Music for the Soul", Steve's non-profit organization that has been doing this amazing work for the past two decades.  In this episode you'll get to hear a brief sample of a couple of his most powerful and well known songs that will help you understand his mission and passion. 

Find out more, listen to his healing music and help support his mission at www.musicforthesoul.org.

STEVE SILER AT A GLANCE

Songwriter • Producer • Founder, Music for the Soul • Christian Testimony

Topics: Christian faith • Music • Songwriting • Healing • Trauma • Anxiety • Child abuse • Pornography addiction • Grief • Hope • Ministry • Faith in action

His Faith Journey: Christian upbringing → Accepts Christ at 16 → Pursues a career as a pop-rock songwriter → Success leaves him empty → Surrenders his music to God → A chance assignment on childhood sexual abuse changes his direction → Creates Music for the Soul → Uses music to bring hope and healing

This Episode Explores:

• Why Steve left mainstream songwriting to create Music for the Soul

• The unexpected phone call that redirected his music career

• How “Innocent Child” revealed the healing power of music

• His work addressing abuse, pornography, anxiety, grief and other difficult subjects

• The story behind Somebody’s Daughter and his fight against pornography addiction

• Choosing excellence and trusting God to get the ministry where it needs to go

Questions Answered:

• What is Steve Siler’s Christian testimony?

• How did he become a Christian?

• Why did he start Music for the Soul?

• How can music help people process trauma?

• What is Somebody’s Daughter?

• What is What Hope Says?

• How does Steve use music to bring healing and hope?

Podcast Transcript: Steve Siler on Music, Faith, Healing & Hope

Hi there. This is Ric Hansen on Amazing Greats, and I'm talking with Steve Siler from Music for the Soul. He's a songwriter who's devoted most of his life to writing and producing songs that do God's work in healing those who struggle with pain and anxiety in life. His personal story and his life's work are truly amazing. And we're going to hear from him right now. We are so lucky to have a new friend of mine, Steve Siler, who is with us. Are you in Nashville now or Kentucky or where are you hanging out?

Steve:Yeah, I'm hanging out in Nashville today.

Ric:Okay. But you have places in both locations, as I understand.

Steve:Yes, I do. I have a I have an office up in Kentucky where there's very little traffic, more horses than people. It's an it's a nice little, you know, Nashville, as you know, has grown so much in the last couple of years. So it's it's a nice transition to be able to have a little peace.

Ric:Yeah. So here, but here you are in the heart of music worldwide, Nashville, Tennessee. and that's so cool that we're able to speak to you today and know, get to know your story. But let me introduce to our audience a little bit about who you are and what you're all about, just so they have a feel if they haven't heard from you before. But Steve Siler, my friends, is the guy who created over 30 years ago a company called Music for the Soul. you are a prolific songwriter. I mean, you've written song after song after song. Your library is huge, and not just in Christian music, which we're going to talk about today, but also in secular stuff. You've written songs that have been performed by Kenny Loggins and the Pointer Sisters and Smokey Rob, not the Pointer Sisters, Pat L Patty LaBelle, I guess. Rob Yes, Patty LaBelle. Smokey Robinson, Kenny Rogers, the Oak Ridge boys, and the list goes on. And so that is what you are and who you who you are and what you do right now is you are a composer, a songwriter. And we're going to talk about what your current projects are and all of that in just a couple of minutes here. But first, in the contemporary music, Christian music field, you've won a dub award for a song we've written. you had one number one song and 45 top 10 songs in contemporary Christian music.

Steve:I actually had nine number one songs, but who's counting?

Ric:Well, I am. That's great to know. So I got faulty information. That's great. So, Music for the Soul. it's been around for 23 years, and it is all about addressing some of the challenging subjects of our day musically. Can you tell me about that idea?

Steve:Well, I was working in the contemporary Christian music industry as a staff writer. And I was continually frustrated that we weren't dealing with the really challenging issues that I knew from my life experience that were out there, you know, things like child abuse and pornography and abortion remorse and just all these issues. And it isn't that I didn't like what I was doing in CCM because I was writing songs about grace and peace and mercy and hope and all those beautiful things that we love to sing about and hear about. But I knew there were people out there who were struggling with things like eating disorders. you know, and that was really the first thing that caught my eye was I saw this young artist at the Dove Awards, and she was dressed in an all-leather outfit and she was shaking her groove thing. And I thought, what about this? says to the young woman out there who's struggling with body image, hey, you don't have to follow the culture. And so that really kind of lit a fire under me, and I felt like, you know what, we need to do this on purpose, and I understand why it's not gonna sell in the current marketplace. So I'm gonna have to jump off a cliff and start a nonprofit.

Ric:-huh. And that's what soul is the nonprofit. Are you correct? Is that right? Yes, yes, yeah, yeah. Yes. So, in that, so that's started 23 years ago. in just in that niche, how many songs would you say you've written?

Steve:we just updated our website. So I know that we have recorded for the ministry 164 songs, and then we have an additional 60 some spoken word pieces like testimonies, poetry, things like that sometimes go in between the songs to kind of either set it up, follow it up, you know. Yeah. And then we've got some videos and we've got some books and we got some discussion guides. I mean, you once you start something like this, it's like, watch out. You don't know what you're getting yourself into.

Ric:Yeah. And you found a niche that I think was not being serviced by anyone else, which is a great niche to find. and it's probably because there's not a lot of money in it, right?

Steve:So this is not just not like you say, not a big seller, but you know what's interesting about that, Rick, is just you know, I'll use the issue of child abuse as an example. one third of American women experience childhood sexual abuse.

Ric:Whoa.

Steve:So what what is one third of the American female population? What is that, 50 million or more?

Ric:Yeah.

Steve:So I don't think it's that it couldn't make money if it was designed to do that. I mean, if somebody set up set up, you know, set out to make a for-profit company and really advertise it and get it into the culture. I don't think it's that it couldn't make money. I think it's that's not nobody grows up wanting to be that guy. Like I remember being introduced as the pornography guy at a men's conference. It's like, yeah, that really was not, that was really not my dream growing up. But if you need to think I'm the pornography guy in order to stop using it, well, go right ahead.

Ric:Yeah, you know. Well, we're gonna get into that a whole lot more, all of that. but I do want to, now that we kind of have established who Steve is, just to find out a little bit about how you got to where you are. And that starts with your childhood. you grew up in the Los Angeles area, right? Yes, that's correct. And loving parents, tell us a little bit about what it was like as growing up.

Steve:Oh my gosh. I had the parents you would order off a menu. They were ultimately married 61 years. They got together when they were 10 years old and never broke up. They wanted me and they loved me unconditionally. So I, you know, I just have no room for complaint about the childhood. I had wonderful friends growing up, started out writing songs with a friend of mine named Sean Sutton. we called ourselves, you know, the Beatles Jr. We were sort of the Lennon McCartney of our elementary school, you know, Dixie Canyon. So rock on. And then there was a battle of the bands in middle school. I was in three of the four bands. the guy, all the guys, or most of the guys from Toto went to my high school. So it was a musical hotbed. and I think all of that inspired me. I wound up playing in the high school orchestra for three years, played the upright bass. That was a blast. So it was just music all the time, basically, and just a lot of support from family and friends.

Ric:And that was one of my questions, and then you've answered it well. And that is, where did the music come into your life? And it sounded like, you know, were you like five or six or something like that?

Steve:When you Oh, I was little. I remember my parents playing it was a it was a Broadway record. Do you remember the song Have an Egg roll, Mr. Goldstone? No, probably not. Well, my parents were, I think it was on the Gypsy Rose Lee record, but my parents would wear those old Broadway records out, and so I was listening to amazing songwriters. And then, of course, Mary Poppins came out. I went to the movie in the theater nine times, but it was the songs that got my attention. And then, of course, the Beatles happened, and after that, I mean, every every person my age in America wanted to be a musician at that point.

Ric:Yeah. and so was it what is it? Was it a Christian home? did you go to church?

Steve:Well, it's interesting. My my parents, when I was a little, little guy, like three, they did go to church. When they moved to California, they stopped going to church. There was prayer every day in the home. My mom talked about God all the time. But there was a period where we didn't go to church. And I can actually remember one Easter morning asking my dad if he would take me to church. Now, as they got older, they they came back to the church and became about like all church all the time. So they had like three seasons of that. But yeah, I was definitely had the opportunity to grow up understanding Christianity in the Christian life.

Ric:Yeah. And in everybody's life, I always like to ask this question because everybody approaches it in a different way and it happens in a different way, it seems like, with everybody. And that is where you actually create had this moment, if it was, if there was one, that Jesus became real, that concept of Christian life became real.

Steve:Try not to laugh, but I was I was led to Jesus because I had a girlfriend with 30 inches of blonde hair, and she asked me if I'd like to go to church with her. And of course, the answer was yes, I'll go anywhere you go. And after about three months of that, one day I was in church and the pastor was preaching, and I got this funny feeling on the side, and the next thing you know, I was standing up at the front, you know. So I have to give Robin credit for she's the one who led me to the church where I accepted Christ.

Ric:And so that was like an altar call at that point. That's you Yeah, yeah. And I was I was 16. Wow. And do you still keep in touch with her these many years later?

Steve:Yes. As a matter of fact, yes, I do. It's great. We're able to be good friends all these years later.

Ric:Very cool. And your parents lived to a ripe old age. I think your dad just passed away recently, right?

Steve:Yeah, a couple years ago. He was 93, and mom passed at 81. the last several years of her life, he was her caregiver. So they they had a yeah, there was a storybook romance.

Ric:A songwriter with over 500 songs to his credit. Steve Siler is our guest on Amazing Greats. So, where in this sequence of events did your wife come in to play?

Steve:let's see, I had been fired from my job at Pizza Man. and the Inglorious Days. And I had a friend, Rich, who was working at the May Company, which was a department store, and he said, Hey, I can get you on over here. And so I was in the training class at the May Company, and there was one seat left when the class began, and my wife, who is never late, was late, and she walked in, and we talk about this a lot. I was wearing white shoes, and it was this is my Pat Boone imitation days, right? And white shoes. I had a white shirt with the silhouettes of women with baskets on their heads and white pants. Can you picture it? I mean, this is a guy you want to get as far away from as you possibly can, right? I'm like a Saturday Night Live character before Saturday Night Live. So, anyway, she she comes in and I turn and I go to offer her a pencil and I stabbed her with it. And such are great relationships born.

Ric:That's great. That's great. So back in the day, back in those days, because music was such a part of your life, but at that point you were a rock and roller. Yeah, I mean, that's you're a top 40 guy, I guess, would be.

Steve:I I like to say that at that point, I wanted to be the second coming of Peter Frampton, basically. You know, I wanted to be I wanted to be a frontman pop rock star.

Ric:Yeah.

Steve:Yeah. And and God just it took about 12 years of him saying, no son, that's not it. No, no son, no, that's not it.

Ric:Yeah. Okay.

Steve:Yeah.

Ric:But you ignored it for 12 years.

Steve:Oh, yeah. I ignored it with everything I had. Yeah. It actually was when I had my first hit that God used that to really change me. Because I had my first hit song on the radio. It was a song called The World Just Keeps on Turning by Candy and the Backbeat. This is going to be 1989, I think. And I'd waited my whole life to hear one of my songs on the radio, Rick.

Ric:Yeah.

Steve:And the song comes on the radio and I listen to it, and you know, I think to myself, I'm supposed to be really excited. I don't feel anything. And I realized that there was nothing of me in that song. I was just aping the culture. Here's what I think you want. This sort of a polar Abdulish kind of thing. And so I went into the church. Our our church in California was the Little Brown Brown Church of the Valley, and it was open 24-7. And I went in the middle of the night and I sat there by myself and I said, Lord, I know you gave me this gift of music, and I also know this is not what I'm supposed to be doing with it. So show me something, anything that matters. I'll even leave music if that's not what you want me to do, but I can't pursue this anymore. And you know, God is it's amazing once you get it right how quickly he responds because it was less than two weeks later I got a phone call from a total stranger. He had heard me sing at church. I had written three Christian lyric songs in my life, and he heard me sing one of them at church, and he called me up and he said, Hey, I just licensed a book by two Christian authors on the topic of childhood sexual abuse, and I'm gonna make it into a musical. I'm starring in Les Misérables at the Schubert Theater, but I'm gonna do this on the side, and I think you're the guy who's supposed to write the songs.

Ric:Whoa, wow, talk about handing it over, you know, putting it in the pathway, yes.

Steve:Right. So I'm looking, I literally I'm I'm going, I'm looking down at the phone and I'm looking up the ceiling going, wow, that's really specific, right? I mean, come on. So I met with the guy, he put the book on the table. I looked into the little girl's eyes on the cover and I said, I have no idea why you called me, but if you think I can do it, I will give it my best. And I went home and I wrote a song called Innocent Child out of that book. I followed the book because I didn't know anything about the issue. I actually wrote four songs. I took them to the only therapist I knew on a Friday afternoon. I gave her the songs. I said, Would you listen to these and tell me if I've done anything that could be helpful? Yeah. And she called me Monday morning and she said, Steve, I hope you won't be angry with me. But I used your songs with clients over the weekend. Wow. And I was like, You can do that. Music can be used that way. You mean it's not just like it's a good beat and you can dance to it? You know, it was like this window opening and just oxygen coming in, you know? And then I wound up playing that song at an incest survivor conference several months later when my my partner, who was a singer, couldn't go to this conference. And so they had me sing in a room with 300 survivors all sitting in a circle and they told me all weekend long, don't hug any of these women because they don't like to be hugged by strange men. It makes total sense. So I started to play this song, and I only got like one or two lines in, and I could hear the sobbing starting around the room. And I had to slow the song way down, and I had trouble breathing. And when it was over, I just burst into tears and buried my face in my hands because the pain was so heavy in the room. And when I finally pulled myself together and looked up, there was a line of women waiting to hug me.

Ric:Oh man.

Steve:Yeah, and one of them said to me, People have been telling me I was an innocent child my whole life. I never believed it until I heard you sing it today. And I thought, in that moment, I thought, I'm supposed to do something about that, and I don't have any idea what it is. So music for the soul is me doing something about that. It took me a while to finally figure it out, another 10 years or so, but I finally got the memo.

Ric:And there's something, and I've seen you describe it before in other areas that there's something about the human anatomy that makes music and suffering palatable. And tell us tell us how all that works.

Steve:Well, it's it's the way God designed our brains, actually, we process language primarily in the left hemisphere of our brain. We process music and melody primarily in the right hemisphere of our brain. Well, the right hemisphere of our brain is where we hold our trauma. So when I talk to you, I'm hitting this wall. If I don't want to hear it, I'm just not listening. I can tune you out. But if I sing it to you, I'm in. There's there's cracks in the walls of defense, it just goes through the wall or under the door or whatever. But I'm you know that feeling of hearing a song in your transport. It's like a time machine. You're back in high school or you're driving down the road with the top down and the wind in your head. I mean, you're it just can take you right now. And then when you add the memory piece, Meli is a memory device. So you add the memory piece. Now I'm singing to you. So I'm putting that message in that place where the trauma's held, and I'm doing it with a way for you to remember it. So if I sing to you that you're an innocent child, I'm laying it in an open heart. I'm not banging on the door.

Ric:So good, Steve. That's great. and so that was your first introduction to how powerful this could be. Yes. And then can and you've already kind of done it, but what are the other areas? You so child abuse is one, obviously.

Steve:Yeah, we've done 20 full-length projects and a bunch of single songs as well. But we've done abortion remorse, eating disorders, pornography addiction, caregiving, which is the fastest growing demographic in America, is caregivers, and it's just such a difficult job. we've done suicide grief, miscarriage. gosh, so many. On our homepage, there's a there's a list of all the topics. I think it's something like 44 of them now, but you know, people can click on whatever they're interested in. But I have a hard time keeping track, which is a good problem, I guess. Yeah. What's the at least we're getting work done?

Ric:Well, yeah. Well, we're talking about the website. Tell us the just what's the what's the way we can find what's the URL for the website?

Steve:It's music for the soul, all spelled out dot or g.

Ric:Okay.

Steve:Musicfor the soul.org.

Ric:Yeah. And how do you how do you expose this important stuff to the world? Is it just through the website? Do you have other options or available ways to do that?

Steve:Well, you know, it's sort of a any way we can. You know, I would say definitely word of mouth has been huge for us because, you know, I'll give you one example. A therapist that loved our somebody's daughter project, I called her one time because I was trying to put some numbers together for a fundraising thing. And I said, Marty, can you tell me how many clients you've you've shared that project with? You know, just a rough idea. And she goes, Oh, I can do better than that. I can tell you exactly how many I've used it with because I use it for every person who comes to the door. And the answer was like 7,500 and something. It's like it was amazing. That's one therapist. Yeah, yeah. So building building relationships with therapists is one way that we do that. As a matter of fact, we've just created a special therapist page at our website where they can have access to the entire catalog for a gift of any amount because we want this stuff to be out there doing the work it's supposed to do. It doesn't do us any good being in a digital file somewhere, right? Yeah. I've had therapists call this a treasure trove of healing. Well, for it to do the healing, it has to be known about. So getting it in the hands of therapists for sure. We do radio interviews, we do TV interviews, we do podcasts like this one. We're so excited to be on today. And we do live events. we get called into churches, we'll do a weekend of healing where we sing some of the songs, show some of the videos, maybe do some classes on how to write songs like this. So basically, we're just always trying to come up with a new way to share it. the difficult part is I made a commitment when we started this ministry that the content was, if we're gonna say this is of God, it has to be excellent, which means it has to be written excellently, it has to be thoroughly researched and vetted. We always have our pro our stuff vetted before we record any songs by professional therapists and by the people who've lived through the issue. And then I bring in the finest musicians in the world because you know they're where they are is right here in Nashville. And it's expensive to hire an orchestra, Rick. You might not know that.

Ric:Yeah. Steve Siler is a songwriter, producer, and shares how his music makes a difference.

Steve:But we bring in A-list people and they you know they make our records sound great, but this kind of stuff isn't cheap. The somebody's daughter video that we did, the DVD, it won seven awards and all, and it's been great, and it's been on TV, but it costs $200,000 to make. So what I'm saying, this is a long way of saying I've spent virtually no money on advertising because I'm always spending it on making the resources worthwhile and hopefully creating content that will last for years and years.

Ric:And then trust in God to get it out there too. Yeah.

Steve:Right. Exactly right. I feel like it's scatter the seed and then you can't mess this up, son. I've got this. Because I because obviously I didn't go to business school. I don't there are I wear all sorts of hats I shouldn't wear. I tell my wife I should have a bus in the backyard so I could go and sit in different seats all day long. I'm constantly out of position, but I don't mind doing it if it means we get to do this ministry.

Ric:Somebody's daughter. Tell us a little bit about that project. that song, and there was a documentary. Tell us about somebody's daughter.

Steve:Somebody's daughter, the subtitle is A Journey to Freedom from Pornography. I had a dear friend call me in the middle of the night one night and say, if I don't tell somebody my secret, I'm gonna lose everything. And his secret was that even though he was writing number one singles for Christian radio, he was struggling with a porn addiction. So we went to a we went to a sex addicts meeting together, and then we wrote this song, Somebody's Daughter, and it was just our way of saying, we're gonna plant this flag and saying, from this day forward, every woman you look at has a mom and a dad and is God's child. And I'm and I had kids as well, so I'm gonna say the same thing. We're gonna make that commitment to each other. And then I started Talking with a few friends, I was in a men's prayer group, and I knew a lot of Christian artists and songwriters, and I found out it was like a pandemic amongst my circle. And then I did some research and found out four out of every seven pastors were struggling with it. And so what I realized really fast, it's kind of like you know, when when there's old paint on a wall and you chip a little corner of it, and pretty soon the whole wall comes off in your hands. That's what it felt like. I thought, this is huge, and nobody is talking about it. So at that point, one song's not enough. Now we've got to write an album's worth. We were we spend, gosh, five years on it, I think. We finally release it. And the first question I get when the album comes out is where's the video?

Ric:Yeah.

Steve:Right? So we started work on it, and God, you know, pulled pulled together the funding for us, brought the right people together. And so somebody's daughter is a DVD and CD, and it's out there on the streaming services, it's available out there.

Ric:So we're gonna wait, we're gonna take just a second here and play just a piece of that right now on the on the two. That's spectacular. So at this point, age-wise, where are you? Are you like in your 30s, your forties? Where where are you hitting with all this going on?

Steve:No one said there would be math, Rick. let's see here. I was 44 in 2000. So I guess I started I started this 2001, just a couple months after 9-11 was when we incorporated. So 45. I started when I was 45.

Ric:Okay, all right. So back, let's jump back in the day. You were happily married, Meredith, your wife, and you had a daughter at the time. but then some challenges came along that you were certainly not expecting. Can you walk us through that?

Steve:yes, during during our second pregnancy, during a routine out ultrasound, we learned that our son was gonna be born with spina bifida. And obviously that was a fright-frightening thing to find out. The first thing that I asked the technician was what sex the child was, because I knew right away that we wanted to name him. And so we named him Henry and we got people praying for him. but you know, I wouldn't wish this experience on anybody. we were told that he was gonna be very sick, that we should consider abortion, and if we were gonna do that, we should we had to do it within the next two weeks because of how far along we were in the pregnancy and we'd have to go to I forget the states, but they had a couple three states on a list where we'd have to go to do it. And you might think as Christians that we would automatically say, oh no, we're not gonna do that. But when it becomes your own flesh and blood, you I we both felt this is worth praying about, this is worth not doing anything quickly. And so that's what we did, and we decided we were gonna pray separately. We decided that we didn't want to pressure each other. We were already getting pressure from everybody else. Two of the parents in our family, one on each side was saying they wanted us to abort, and one on each side was saying that we shouldn't. So we realized right away this this could be a horribly divisive thing for our family. So we just told everybody to hold their thoughts. We're gonna pray for a week and we'll let you know what we decide. And during that time, some really interesting things happened. I remember getting up and because I wasn't sleeping very well, getting up and going downstairs to the front window, and in Nashua we have these beautiful dogwood trees, and I remember looking out the front window and the sun was coming up, and a bird came and landed in this dogwood tree. And I thought to myself, well, he'll be able to see that sunrise. He'll be able to hear that bird sing. And suddenly I started making a list of the things that he would be able to do instead of what they were saying he wouldn't be able to do. And then I thought, and if my daughter stepped off the curb and got hit by a car, I wouldn't tell them, Well, just put her to sleep then. And basically what had happened was my son had stepped off a curb in utero. So in that moment, I felt like, okay, I have my answer. You know, he we have to stand with him, we have to be there for him. And my wife had come to the same decision, so we moved forward. And Henry is 30 right now, and believe it or not. So and do it well, he's a high school teacher.

Ric:And he's a high school teacher. That blew me away. I mean, that does blow me away that he is an educator and is he is he is very obviously verbal and he's obviously is he is he walk a walk?

Steve:Yeah, yes, he does walk. we did very, very we were very, very fortunate that this could have been worse physically for him. you know, so it's there's a range, there's a spectrum, and Henry is doing thankfully very well. He he has some issues with his ankles, so he has supports in his shoes. But if you were to see him, you know, teaching his class, you wouldn't be any the wiser. So we've been very, very blessed. And he is he's funny, he's smart, he's you know, he's a good kid.

Ric:He's a great kid. Yeah, I love that. I love that. I do some with our local church here in in Gig Harbor, Washington, we do a thing called Night to Shine, and I'm the organizer of that. And so it's an are you familiar with Night to Shine? It's a prom night for I'm not telling me about it's a prom night held for people with special needs. so they it's just a night of celebration and fun. we have everything from a hair salon to start the night out for them. We have bouton mirrors and prom pictures and dancing and karaoke limo rides. and so that's awesome. Every year we have an opportunity to meet and see how joyous our our our guests are, and we crown them all kings and queens of the prom. so everybody walks out with a crown and a gift bag, and it's just you know, at that point you talk about tearing up because you see how how totally excited they are and loving, and it's just a great night. So anyway, I wanted to get the Henry story because it's it's spectacular. I mean, the the the fact that the reality of making some decisions like that is so difficult, and you guys walked through that and obviously made the right decision. so thank you for sharing that. I yeah, it's it's it's a great story and a great testimony. so let's talk about your recent project. The name of the project is What What Hope Says, and what is that all about? Tell me a little bit about the project and what's what's involved.

Steve:Well, it's a project on anxiety, which is all the therapists were telling me that this is the number one issue we're hearing in all of our counseling sessions. And of course, trauma is a great creator of anxiety. There's all kinds of anxiety. There's the kind of anxiety you have when you're in a traffic jam and you're late, and I would call that little tea trauma. And then there's the kind of story we just heard about Henry, that's big T trauma, right? So there's a whole range of it, but all of it is anxiety producing. And so I really felt like with with the pandemic and all the anxiety it created, with social media and all the anxiety that's creating with our and with our kids and also with adults, with the political polarization we've been experiencing as a country and the rising suicide rates we're seeing, it just really felt like okay, this we need to tackle this one. We need to give people a way to look beyond that momentary anxiety or even something that has been life-changing and know that they can still have hope and they can still be free.

Ric:So some of the song titles, you have them off the top of your head, or maybe not?

Steve:There's only 12. yeah. I won't read them, I won't read them all off. The first song is called Prayer for the Anxious. Ah, it's it's just a very honest prayer that you know basically, God, I know you I know you say you're there for me. sometimes that's hard to believe. it's it's just a straight up plea for for God to be there for us.

Ric:Yeah.

Steve:and then the second song, I have a soft spot for this one. It's called No Wonder. And it's in songs called No Wonder We're Losing Our Minds. And it's basically a laundry list, right? And when you hear it, you go, Well, yeah, of course we're a mess. This is this is a difficult life we're living here. but then we move into, I think, one of the really important songs, and the therapists have already told me it's going to be great for for trauma. It's called You Are Not What Happened to You. Because so often there's a there's a life event, and by not being able to move past it, we let it define our life today and our life into the future. You know, well, nothing good could ever happen to me because this thing happened 20 years ago, right? And so the idea of knowing that our identity is in Christ, our identity is not in some violent, horrible thing that was done to us that we had no choice in. You know, so stuff like that.

Ric:A songwriter with over 500 songs to his credit, Steve Siler is our guest on Amazing Greats.

Steve:There's another song on there called Imagine God's Best. That's actually where we close. And the thing that I love about Imagine God's Best is I actually got the song title from a phone machine. When you're a songwriter, you got to be, you know, on the lookout, right? Have the antenna up. But one of my friends who has a woman's ministry, she closes out her phone message with, and have a great day today. Imagine God's best for your life. And I thought, well, yeah.

Ric:I like it.

Steve:Yeah. So we wrote, we wrote that. And another really important one I think on the record is tell yourself the truth. and that's a song about negative self-talk. You know how often you do something and you think and you say to yourself either out loud or quiet. I usually say it out loud, Steve, you're such a moron, right? You're such an idiot. Why did you do that? And I literally have taken, after writing this song, I've taken to saying, You're such a no, you're not an idiot. You did a silly thing. That wasn't a great thing you just did, but you're a good guy. Yeah. Right? You know, so this idea of being aware how often we talk to ourselves in ways we would never talk to anybody else. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Just talk to just talk to yourself the way you would talk to anybody that you love and care about, right? Talk to talk to yourself the way God would talk to you. You know, a precious beloved child, you know. So those are some of the songs. But you know, there are lots of them. The title tracks called Hope Says There's a Way, because I think that's the thing that you know is as important as air and food is hope. We can't live without.

Ric:And so you mentioned the record, but it's it's not in a record, it's not on vinyl, is it?

Steve:Only in my mind. Oh yeah.

Ric:Yeah. So how do we how do we get a hold of these songs and this album?

Steve:It's available digitally at our website. And just like I said earlier, it's available for if somebody wants to download it, they can get it for a donation of any amount. And if they want to stream it, they can do it there or anywhere else where songs are streamed.

Ric:And this could be a gift, you could gift it to someone else. Yes, you can.

Steve:Absolutely, you can. Absolutely you can.

Ric:Because we all are, you know, we have fr we and we all have friends who are suffering from anxiety. I mean, we all are in varying degrees, right?

Steve:And I can tell people also that it each song on the record has its own page at our website. If somebody doesn't want to download 12 songs and they only they only want one or three or whatever, you can you can make your own decisions. We try to make it as flexible for people as possible because we want these things to get used.

Ric:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you and you've never had a record label per se. No, musical is self-published.

Steve:It's not a record label, it's a company, but you know, we don't support artist tours and we don't try and get into rotation on radio stations. We don't do a lot of the things that a a record company normally would do. So, you know, we're a nonprofit ministry. I think of all of our songs as little individual missionaries, yeah, and they go all around the world. I mean, I get emails from, you know, Romania and New Zealand, and in the middle of the night, you never know who you're gonna hear from. And it's so well, you know, there are a lot of things about the internet that drive me crazy, but one of the good things about the internet is that somebody in deep pain, halfway around the world, can have and listen to this song right when they need it. Yeah. And we've gotten the testimonies that songs that have been life gig, life-giving, have prevented suicide, have turned people's lives around. That's why you do it.

Ric:And for we we praise the internet for what we're doing here today. to help share your story and to sh to pass along all this great information. So you are a song writer now. Do you do any performing? Occasionally.

Steve:yeah, I enjoy doing writers' nights. Those are always fun. I love hearing other songwriters' great songs. I do what I call an evening of songs and stories, which is basically an evening of healing songs, usually in somebody's living room, occasionally in a chapel, but I do home concerts where I can tell the story behind the song and I can share some of the healing that's happened because of the song. So I'm very comfortable in that environment. But, you know, when there's somebody named Larnell Harris in the world, nobody needs to hear Steve Siler sing. You know, that's how I feel about it. yeah, there's some people who think I have a nice voice, and there's some people who think I should keep quiet. So I'll let your lip I'll let your listeners judge for themselves. I've done two solo projects for the ministry only because we weren't doing full-length albums, and I felt the songs themselves needed to be available. And I've heard some wonderful testimonies about the work those songs have done. So, you know, I'll sing if I have to, but but it's not my not my favorite place to be. I love to be at the writing desk or in the room with other writers or in the studio bringing these songs to life.

Ric:So we're not going to hear you sing on what hope says, right?

Steve:Oh no, no, sir. No, you are not.

Audio:Okay.

Steve:You want to hear me sing, you have to listen to the two CDs are Broken to Bless and Celebration Table.

Ric:And those are your performances. Okay, cool. Yeah. So there was a song that you wrote after Henry's birth and A Hole in the Sight of God, which I is just a spectacular song in and of itself. And I think what we want to do is kind of close with a bit of that.

Audio:Becky sits in the darkness, imagining the sky, finding her rainbows in the blessings of life without crazy.

Ric:The performer is Scott Krippayne. Scott Krippayne. Yes, well known, and he he does a lot of your projects, correct?

Steve:Yes, he's sung 33 songs for us because I know if if somebody needs to feel the heart, they need to hear Scott sing.

Ric:Yeah. And boy, the heart is felt in that song for sure. So thank you so much, Steve, for sharing your story, for sharing what you're doing in the world. and I hope that everybody that's you know listening to our podcast today will take an opportunity to go to your website, listen to the songs, donate some money, listen to the songs. And like you say, the whole idea is to get it out there.

Steve:And I tell people if you download a song and you don't have to call me up and ask me if it's okay if you share it with somebody, sharing it is the point. We want people healed and well and blessed and free. Cool, cool, cool.

Ric:Well, thank you so much. I'll get you to go back to the writer's desk. Steve. Have a great day. God bless. God bless you, Steve Sailer. If you want to find out more and hear and share Steve's library of great works for yourself or a friend or a family member, go to musicfortesoul.org. Ric Hansen here on Amazing Greats. Have a great day.