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"Jesus Is Just Alright" is pretty clear about its subject matter. Is it important for the guests on your album to be on the same wavelength, spiritually?

Randolph I've worked with so many other songwriters, some of us just wasn't in the same headspace. That's always important—to get somebody who does believe and who knows. Take a song like "Ain't Nothing Wrong with That." I worked on it with two producers, Drew & Shannon, who are from Nashville. We talked and talked about making this thing that's joyful, about pulling everybody in and just have it be a thing where you can have a good time. We wanted a great rock song that lasts forever without really trying to preach to somebody, saying, "You need to do this or do that." And it just so happened that, working with them, they were in the same headspace and believed in the same things that I believed in. And that was a huge part of this record.

Did the opposite ever happen?

Randolph Oh yeah, making this record we had a bunch of them. There were guys I've worked with that we just weren't on the same page [spiritually]. And it was just like a wasted couple of days. It's like, "No, do this" and "No, do that." And that goes on and on, and next thing you know, it's just wasted time. So there was a bunch of that in this rocky road of recording the record.

You mentioned not wanting to preach to people, yet your music still has a strong inspirational vibe. Does that get lost amidst the scorching musicianship or the lengthy pedal-steel solos of your live show?

Randolph Sometimes. But other times, some people do come to the shows and are spiritually uplifted. The message that we portray, and the thing that we're trying to do, is to really love life and enjoy life. If you don't love yourself, you really don't love nobody else.

For example, last night, I was in a restaurant and a guy walks up to me and says, "Hey, Robert, can I just give you a hug?" And I'm like, "Yeah." And he's hugging me like I'm his dad or something. So he started to tell a story of how he spent about eight months in jail. And when he got out, the first song he heard was a song from Unclassified called "Going in the Right Direction." And he said it instantly changed his life. A song like that talks about getting people to love themselves and love life and really enjoy being here.

I grew up in the inner city, in northern New Jersey, and all of the time I would see some of my friends say, "I don't care! So what?" A lot of people get into that mind frame, so you want to get them to love themselves and then get them to believe in God and everything else, you know.

Have you had other experiences like that?

Randolph Oh, yeah. We've gotten e-mails from people who have wanted to commit suicide but changed their minds after they came to a show. We'll get e-mails from kids who are on all kinds of drugs, and they'll say, "Once I heard your set, you made me happy and you made me want to love God and love myself." And I didn't necessarily say anything about loving God [during the concert]. You can write songs and get them to lead people in the right way.

You keep repeating the phrase "to love yourself." Not to get all theological on you, but doesn't that go against the concept of "denying yourself" that Jesus talked about?

Randolph You know, I'm not the biggest Scripture reader and stuff like that, and I'm sure I could probably get my mother or somebody who's a minister to give you a whole 'nother Scripture to go along with that. People have Scriptures for everything. How many Scriptures talk about this or talk about that? That's why you have Sunday school and you have Bible studies, because somebody read it and he thought one thing, and then somebody else read it and thought another thing.

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