Russ Taff, 37 Years Strong, Talks New Album, Past Struggles
After 37 years in the music industry, Russ Taff still has much to say.
With one of gospel music’s most recognizable voices, Taff has returned with his newest solo project, Faroe Islands. In a recent BREATHEcast interview, Taff spoke about why he chose the Faroe Islands for this album and what he has learned through his many years in the industry that he wants to pass on to the next generation.
The five-time Grammy winner first traveled to the Faroe Islands to participate in a mainstream rock concert, with no intentions in mind to make an album there.
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“I was invited there, I guess about two years ago. There was a promoter that wanted me to sing at a rock festival. He grew up listening to me.”
Performing among many European rock bands, Taff found the message of his music had a different impact on the crowd.
“Its amazing how, when you sing your lyrics in front of Christians, it hits, and it hits hard, but when you sing your lyrics in front of people that don’t know Jesus, it goes to another level – I mean, the power of the anointing. And it was so good that every other summer I’ll go back and play the festival.”
Being very well received in the Faroe Islands community, Taff was honored by many performance invitations and gained favor with the people. With this favor came the opportunity to freely record his next project. Taff, seizing the opportunity, took the chance to work with new producers and return to the sound that is reminiscent of his eighties and nineties recordings.
“I was getting ready to make this new CD, which I started two years ago and two of the guys (the producers), they’re partners, one has a studio in the Faroe Islands and the other in Copenhagen, Denmark. And so, I was talking to them about maybe using they’re studios, because both of them have state of the art studios. So they said, ‘You can just have the studios if you want.’”
Leaving Nashville to record this album, Taff found relief in the change of scenery and the experience of working with new musicians.
“It was good to get out of Nashville and the way people do things here and to go to a place, to where, the musicians, they just go to a different place when they’re writing, and some of tracks have got sort of a nordic type of feel to them. It was just an incredible opportunity, and fun and exciting and anointed.”
Christianity Today refers to the project as “an amalgamation of his career’s genre-bending diversity...” that covers southern rock, alternative country, gospel, and “inspirational tearjerkers.”
Although this project was a pleasant experience for Taff, his journey in Christian artistry has not always been and he has learned much about being a Christian artist.
