Legendary actor Dennis Quaid is calling his new gospel album an “autobiographical” record, saying it tells the story of a man who was searching for purpose until he filled his “God-sized hole” through his Christian faith.
Fallen: A Gospel Record for Sinners is Quaid’s debut gospel album and includes seven hymns/classics and five original songs. He also recorded a television special that was filmed at the Gaither studios in Indiana and includes a sit-down interview with Bill Gaither. That special debuted on UPtv and is streaming on Gaither TV Plus.
The title track, Fallen, is one of several original songs that mirror his life story.
“It’s really kind of autobiographical -- I think autobiographical for a lot of people actually,” Quaid told ChristianHeadlines.
Quaid has found a home in the inspiring/faith film genre in recent years with such hits as I Can Only Imagine, The Hill, Blue Miracle and On a Wing and a Prayer. Still, he’s perhaps best known to the general public for his roles in dozens of other projects, including The Parent Trap, The Right Stuff and The Day After Tomorrow.
Music, not acting, was his first passion in life.
“Music is something as a kid you could do in your bedroom,” he said. “And I got a guitar when I was 12 and started writing songs pretty much immediately because I knew I was never going to be able to shred a guitar.”
Quaid credits his faith for helping him escape addiction to drugs in the 1980s when he was a rising star. It was during that time that he experimented with the world’s religions before he embraced Christ.
“I was always a seeker. I became disillusioned I think with churchianity,” Quaid told ChristianHeadlines. “...I dabbled in Eastern religion. I read all the texts, I read the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Dhammapada, all that.
“I got clean in 1990 of cocaine, and I read the Bible again. I'd read it as a kid, and I read it again. And this time, I was really struck by the red words of Jesus. And that's really what started, I think, what I've been looking for all along -- and which, you know, my mother told me and other people [told me], but I never really understood which is having a personal relationship with Jesus. And, of course, that has grown over the years. But I never really understood it until then.”
His faith, he said, has grown deeper as he’s grown older.
“I lean on God. I talk to Him every day,” Quaid said. “...I talk to God about problems. …And gratitude for the blessings that I have. …It’s having somebody to talk to.”
His new faith is filling the void in his life that drugs could not, he said.
“And everybody has that -- they try to fill that with relationships or with drugs or with money or with whatever it is, you know, our heart’s desire,” he said. “...What we're really looking for is to fill that …God-sized hole.”
His album’s unique title -- Fallen: A Gospel Record for Sinners -- had a purpose, he said.
“That's really what we all are,” he said. “I wanted it to kind of relate to people who didn't necessarily go to church or have a personal relationship with God. …I have been down there at the bottom and needed help and didn't even know I needed help. And you know [that’s] redemption, that's a universal thing.”
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Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.