• Artistic: In The 100 Greatest Albums in Christian Music (CCM Books), dc Talk scored two Top 20 picks — Free at Last (No. 9) and Jesus Freak (No. 14).

• Commercial: Three gold albums, one platinum, and one double platinum (Jesus Freak), with overall sales of more than 5 million. Fourteen No. 1 Christian hits, including “Between You and Me” (a Top 40 Billboard hit).

• Awards: Three Grammys (Free at Last, Jesus Freak, and Welcome to the Freak Show — Live in Concert), along with multiple Dove and Billboard awards.

• Press: The roll call includes Billboard, Entertainment Weekly, Spin, Rolling Stone, Details, US Magazine, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Washington Post.

• Spiritual: dc Talk has performed at 15 Billy Graham crusades and formed the E.R.A.C.E. Foundation to foster racial reconciliation.

And if those milestones don’t impress you, consider this: millions of fans know the band members by their first names alone — Toby, Kevin, and Michael.

Yet for all this fruit, Michael Tait, at 34, feels like he’s just getting to the root of things, both as a creative artist and child of God. This last year has meant renewal and rebirth for this dc Talker who exudes energy, enthusiasm, and ten-kilowatt charisma. For the first time, Tait (he’s just “Tait” to his friends) has embarked on a solo album outside the friendly confines of dc Talk. And going from an accomplished veteran to a scrappy newcomer has put the spark back in his artistic stride, he says.

Name the emotion — fear, surprise, faith, joy, confusion — and chances are Tait experienced it roller coaster-style while recording his disc (which at press time bore the working title Empty). “I think it’s a lot of the above, but it was [also] an excitement that stayed with me the entire time,” Tait says. “A lot of my friends who were with me said that I looked like a 17-year-old kid who just got a record deal or a bulldog! I’ve been timid at times, though. I’ve been on the big ship for a long time. Now I’ve gotten off and I have to get in the canoe and ride alongside the big ship. I have to paddle hard.”

And, he’s quick to add, pray harder.

“I found myself through this project and for the last few years of my life — vanity of vanities — chasing the wind,” he says. “As a Christian, I’ve struggled with trying to find fulfillment in things outside of Christ and always feeling empty. Even worse off than the unsaved are the people who know Christ, and yet like Jonah, run from Nineveh. I always found myself unfulfilled because I was trying to get it outside of Christ.

“The only peace that passes understanding, the only fulfillment of heart and soul, comes from God. It won’t come from your career, your bank account, your girlfriend, or narcotics.”

Indeed, this yearning to fill the emptiness with God, rather than earthly substitutes, not only courses through Tait’s album; it flows through his life history.

Though his fans see him running onstage like a rocket, charming them with effortless ease, Tait says that is far from the whole person. A bruised and broken person is more like it.

“Can I tell you what I’m not?” he asks. “Michael Tait, contrary to what everybody thinks, is not a Cosby kid, living a ‘Mom, can I have some milk and cookies, everything is great’ lifestyle. People ask what it’s like to be Tait.”

He pauses.

“If you only knew, it would blow your mind,” he declares. “And I tell them [he switches to a monster movie voice], ‘Noooo! You don’t want to go inside!’”

Faith, Frustration, and Family
To know Michael Tait beyond his dc Talk persona is to start with his upbringing. There is no way around the subject; Michael Tait was raised in a loving but chaotic home.

The baby of nine kids, Tait grew up in the Washington, D.C., area. “My father was a cab driver and a part-time preacher. My mother was a government worker. And I’d like to believe that I am still very much in touch with what’s going on in the world around me — and that compassion still runs deep in my veins. Mostly it’s because of the way my father raised me, to judge every human being based on their character, not their color.”

Though his parents worked hard to exert a positive influence, his siblings were often embroiled in trouble. “Three were involved with drugs,” Tait says. “One sister died in ’97 of AIDS, and she was a Christian, but she heavily abused herself. I have to believe that even though she died of AIDS, she had abused herself so much that she also died of a broken heart.”

How did Tait handle all this? Not always with the kind of grace you might expect. “I grew up with that through high school and college, having my sister — and this is how shallow I was — be a complete embarrassment to me,” he says.

But wait, the story gets better, right? Tait grows up, gets God, gains fame, and everyone pulls together, and it’s one big happy family again.

Not exactly.

“My dad died in 1998 of cancer,” Tait says. “And a brother dropped dead behind the pulpit in 1999 — and that was a complete shock. And during that time, I lost two uncles. It was kind of crazy.”

“I never thought our lives would be like that. But through all that, and everything my dad taught me, I got through somehow.”

Tait admits the private facts sharply contrast the public persona. “In dc Talk, I’m the flamboyant one, the Cosmic Kid, nothing can go wrong,” he says. “I enjoy life, and hopefully what people see is the Christ in me. But all of this family stuff keeps me grounded. I have this great life; I’ve sold millions of records, people think I’m cute. But when I go on that big half-million dollar tour bus with cell phones and DVDs, suddenly I’m on the phone talking to my mom about my brother in jail for drug trafficking or another sister strung out on crack and pregnant.”

He adds: “My family will be [upset] at this, but it’s dysfunctional. It will help people to realize that Michael Tait does not have this fairy-tale lifestyle. I find it very difficult to enjoy life when I have those [family crisis] moments on the tour bus, when I could be on a beach in Hawaii or touring castles in Portugal with my friends.”
Yet even as his family has been a source of heartbreak, it has also been a wellspring of strength. Again and again, Tait comes back to the grounding influence of his father.

“Sometimes I say I don’t deserve the things that I have because I see my family and what they’re going through,” Tait says. “But my dad told me, ‘We make choices in life.’ I’ve had to work hard to say, ‘Life goes on. Go out and enjoy yourself. This person made decisions and this is their plight.’”

Different Paths
With all of the turmoil he’s grown up with, how did Tait find faith? Though he’d love to tell of some epiphany he had as a kid, Tait relates a more down-to-earth story of heading off (or being dragged) to a Christian high school.

Ask him how he found God, and Tait replies, “I can tell you the exact time. My dad sent us to Riverdale Baptist High School, and I was in seventh or eighth grade, and we fought and fought and fought. My brother, who’s in jail now, he went, and an older sister went.”

The fighting soon subsided, however, when Tait discovered an outlet and a calling. “I got involved in Christian music, and from there I went to Liberty University, because if you went to Riverdale Baptist High School, you went to Liberty,” he said.

Run by Rev. Jerry Falwell, Liberty was also where Tait met Toby McKeehan and Kevin Max Smith, and where the three started a rap trio that changed Christian music history. “Riverdale and Liberty, which were choices very influenced by my dad, brought me on the path that I am on now,” Tait says. “And if I hadn’t gone down that path, my life would be very different from what it is now. And I am forever indebted to him. This route has been very rocky for me at times, but I still know that this is where I belong. And I do believe that where God leads, He will provide.”

Part of that provision, Tait hopes, is that the three dc Talkers will reunite at some point to produce another studio album. He sets the record straight in light of conflicting press reports; the band is not broken up, but merely taking a break. “We’ll refresh ourselves, see where God leads us, and when the time is right, we’ll come out with a new album and it will be a dc Talk album,” Tait says.

With all three members releasing solo efforts, Tait expects a band reunion will bring change. “It’ll be definitely different on all fronts,” he says. “When you’ve been out on your own and tasted success or something like it, you can find yourself compromising even more when you enter the circle of three. But you can’t just say, ‘Well, on my record, this is how I did it.’ You have to pause for the other person’s opinion. When our three personalities are more defined as a result of this experience, hopefully we’ll come back and make an even stronger record.”

But first, he’ll snowboard.

Snowboarding perfectly illustrates Tait’s manic side; it’s a passion he’s had for years. “I didn’t get to go last year,” he says. “But the year before that I went to Switzerland and snowboarded the Matterhorn. And God willing, when the [solo] record’s done, I’m going to take some friends to Colorado, get a cabin, and just relax.”

Call him Mr. Adrenaline if you will; Tait admits the tag fits. “I’m definitely very, very driven by excitement,” he says. “I need a challenge.”

Running on Empty
That same philosophy seems to have influenced the new album. If the rough mixes of Empty are any indication, it could impress dc Talk lovers as much as George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass did Beatles fans. Emerging from the shadow of his bandmates, Tait shows a musical suppleness and keen sense of melody that reflects a strong mix of rock, pop, and soul influences. The songs recall Jesus Freak cuts like “Between You and Me” and “Into the Light.” And yet, it’s more — the sound of Michael Tait testing his wings, trying his own flight pattern.

Tait laughs when asked the inevitable “won’t people be surprised” question. “People have asked me, ‘Did Toby produce your record, did he write the songs?’” he says. “And for a minute I get offended. If we weren’t best friends, I’d be bitter ... I had a hand on everything on this record!”

Indeed, Tait has used time off from dc Talk to hone his producing chops. His first effort, on Pete Stewart’s solo disc, resulted in a most welcome payback. Stewart co-produced Empty, an album that finds its footing in the title cut.

“Empty is emblematic,” Tait says, quoting the lyric: “‘If I play the game and I win the fame, will I be the man I dreamed of?/ And if I woo the crowd and their screams are loud, is it really me that they love?’ Even if they think you’re the bomb, what does it profit? I have to ask that question over and over again.”

Taking it to the personal nitty-gritty, Tait describes his spiritual struggle as this: “At the beginning of the day, I’m empty, and I can take this cup and ask God to fill it, and He fills it ... or I can wake up with a cup empty before the Lord, and say to God, ‘Oh, I’m too busy to talk to You right now.’ And we look for things everywhere else to fill it — a chick, a new pair of jeans, gossip, porn.”

When it comes to plugging the God-sized hole with man-sized things, Tait says he’s been there, done that. Fame is an intoxicant, he’s quick to point out. “I pray every day, ‘Christ, just come up and fill me. I want people to see You in me everywhere I go,’” he says.