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John Michael Talbot has been making music for a long, long time, and he's got an astonishing fifty-three albums to show for it—including the brand new Worship and Bow Down, which releases today. As the title suggests, the project includes worship music aplenty, covering a variety of styles—from light pop to liturgical chant.

John Michael Talbot

We recently caught up with Talbot—a Roman Catholic who lives in an integrated monastery in Arkansas—for a phone conversation about the new album … and a whole lot more. We talked about his "crossover" appeal to Protestants, his 1978 conversion to Catholicism (and how Keith Green condemned him for it), his days with Mason Profitt (and perhaps a missed opportunity to join The Eagles), his thoughts on "new monasticism," and even his reputation as a "techno-monk."

How would you describe this new album?

It's different from my previous albums because there's a new Roman Missal coming out this year, so there's a need for new liturgical settings. The old musical settings of the Mass no longer work. I did some new settings, and I took them to Oregon Catholic Press, the largest Catholic publisher of music in the world. They got excited about it, but they said they'd like some other great texts as well. They wanted a new setting of Psalm 95, and they wanted a good communion hymn. For the Catholic churches they wanted a good setting of the Hail Mary that really focused on the centrality of Jesus.

I also had some other tunes. One focuses on the use of the Jesus Prayer, which comes from the Christian East, and one comes from the use of the breath in Christian meditation, which goes back to Hesychios the Priest and Diodochus of Photice. And I wanted to do some texts that focus on the trouble that we're going through as a people, so I did a treatment based on the annunciation "Nothing Is Impossible." And I did a setting of Habakkuk, traditionally from Evening Prayer in the Vesper service: "Hinds Feet on High Places."

It all comes at a time in Catholic history in America where Catholics really need encouragement. We've been through some tough times with the sex scandals, and of course all Christians and all Americans are going through tough times with the recession and political polarization.

I also have two new books: The Universal Monk: The Way of the New Monastics just released, and another book coming out at Christmas called The Blessings of St. Benedict. So it's a very busy year for me, but an amazingly creative time. I'm fifty-six years old and I feel like I'm twenty again. I'm just having a blast.

You've long had "crossover appeal" among Catholics and Protestants. Do you often think of Protestants when you're writing lyrics?

I don't usually intentionally manipulate lyrics. Usually I let lyrics and songs just flow out of who I am. I was raised a Methodist, and I come from a long line of Methodist preachers. My daddy was a Presbyterian. My mother believed in free will. My daddy believed in predestination. And because moms usually have the say, I was raised in the Methodist church. My dad was cool with it; he thought it was all predestined anyway!

When I became a Catholic, my grandmother said, "Johnny, now that you're a Catholic you're a better Methodist than ever." When I go into non-Catholic churches, I feel at home—whether in a Methodist setting or a Lutheran setting or an Anglican setting or whatever. Probably the only places I probably don't feel greatly at home in are the big megachurches.

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