Born to Worship is the third installment of the Praise Baby Collection, a compilation of music and video focused at leading little minds in worship. The collection is aimed at infants and toddlers through age three, but at the same time, it is a pleasure for parents too. Each product has included many classic worship songs and a handful of new worship songs that are sweeping through today’s churches. It is the familiarity of the songs that give the parents, and children, something to enjoy together.

The Born to Worship DVD differs from the previous two releases partly because of the use of more adult faces, and in large part due to the new set of songs selected. Worship songs included on this project include “Here I am to Worship,” “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” and “We Bow Down.” These songs are provided in two formats on the DVD, with child voices or a female singer. On the CD there is a mix of both.

As you will read, the Praise Baby Collection is a highly developed project that has not been simply slung together. The amount of work that goes into each release is amazing and the end product is equally amazing.

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to discuss this awesome product with Big House Kids Vice President and General Manager, Troy Vest. Troy is the architect behind the series and I believe you will find our conversation to be very informative in regards to the Praise Baby Collection, and the future of Big House Kids.

- Ken W.

Interview - Troy Vest
Vice President and General Manager of Big House Kids
(and Flicker Records - what a head shaker that is)

Ken – Could you share some of the history and background of the Big House Kids label and the connection with Flicker Records?

Troy – Personally, I spent ten years at EMI music in the label group and the distribution side. I had been talking to the Audio Adrenaline guys for several years about coming over and helping them with Flicker. It was an artist run label and they needed some administrative, marketing, and sales help and it was time for me to move on from EMI. They graciously let me go to come help the Audio Adrenaline guys out.

Part of that [move] was that I had a real desire to start a children’s imprint. So one of our agreements when I came over was that they would allow me to run Flicker Records, and help them out on the Flicker side, but also I wanted to start a children’s imprint.

Primarily I looked at the landscape out there and there is a lot of amazing children’s products on the mainstream side, but there was very few high-quality, music-based products coming from a Christian world view. You had things like “Hermie” and “Veggie Tales” that were creating great content for little guys, but no body was really approaching it and doing a good job of creating high-quality music content for children.

Between the four of us – between the three Audio Adrenaline guys and myself – we have eight kids. So it’s just a natural extension for us to continue to be able to focus on helping new developing artist, and also do something that we had a passion about, and that is providing great faith based content, music and video, for children. We came into the Praise Baby collection and these three releases, focusing on the need for worship music, and fun interactive video that provides a nurturing environment for a baby’s spirit and mind.

That’s kind of the history of where we started. At the time, I had a toddler when we started this thing. We absolutely loved what the “Baby Einstein” company was doing for infants and toddlers and we thought, you know what, there really needs to be something out there that focuses on leading children into a lifestyle of worship. Not just providing them with music and an experience for their minds, but also something for their spirits.

Ken – Will you be diversifying into other aspects or videos?

Troy – We don’t have any video properties in the hopper right now, but we do have some other audio things. We’re not quite ready to announce them because we don’t have final titles, artist, or song lists. I will say though, that the next project we will probably be a various artists project that will focus on parents singing about their children. Some of my favorite artists that will sing songs too and about their children.

Ken – There has been a lot of research that has gone into producing these videos, can you describe that? Like how do you go about selecting songs?

Troy – On the song side, we have been very purposeful from the beginning. A lot of the children’s music out there, kids love, but it is annoying to parents. So we knew that if we brought the right music producers and the right team around us, we could create something that makes sense both for baby and for mom. Something that mom and dad could say, this is really great stuff, and my child loves it too! It was something that [parent and child] can experience and have fun together with.

We start every project with looking at what are the most popular songs, and what are some of the best songs that are sung in churches today. [Songs] that make sense for children, and mom and dad. We bring in the familiarity of what mom and dad are singing in church already, and then we create it in such a way – we take that specific song, some of the biggest praise and worship songs out there, and we create it in such a way that it will allow us to create something that mom and dad will love, something they are familiar with, and they can sing with and interact along with their children with, and the baby will love it as well. From there, after we picked the first five or six songs that are big, we spend a lot of time looking at new praise and worship songs, or even some different writers that will give us something that philosophically fits for where a child is in their spiritual journey.

Ken – You have not featured any artist on the collection yet. Is that an option for the future?

Troy – I don’t think so, because we really want it to be all about the experience of the song itself. I really want this to be about the songs and not necessarily about the vocalist and who that person is.

Ken – Coming up this season you’re putting all three releases in a set. Is there more to come with the series after this?

Troy – Absolutely! We will continue to release one or two a year until we feel like it has run its course.

Ken – How do you plan to continue to make the Praise Baby Collection viable? With the content that you’re working with it has to be difficult to be fresh.

Troy –I think for this third one, we were very purposeful in bringing a new early childhood development specialist on board to help us bring fresh ideas to the table, Dr. Joan Walker, who was not involved in the first two.

We worked early on in the first few years before we got into developing our product with a lady named Dr. Mary Van Simon, who is seen as the leading early childhood development [specialist] in the Christian world. We resourced her and she really worked with us to make sure I was doing the right things for mom and babies as it related to what we were creating with the Praise Baby collection as a whole.

[Dr. Joan Walker] is a part of Vanderbilt University, and just a wonderful lady. She has a key specialty in understanding media and infants and toddlers. She brought a ton of fresh ideas to the table. You will see some differences on “Born to Worship” if you look closely. What we do from a pacing standpoint, to adult faces for the first time, which we didn’t have in one and two. So we’ll continue to work at if from that way, but really what makes these things fresh and new, are the songs that are going to be used.

On the next DVD, we will be doing something different than before. It will have a little more of a global perspective. The plan is to send a video crew and our director to several places on the planet to film infants and toddlers in completely different settings than the U.S. Whether it is Haiti, Europe, or Asia, or wherever, it’s a really cool thing we have in store. That will keep it fresh, and give it a new perspective to an infant and toddler so they can see that the United States is not the only place in the world.

Ken – What do you see as far as the response from the general market?

Troy – From the first year of the brand [with Praises and Smiles] in January of 2004, we really focused on the Christian sub-culture. I would say since January 2005, we have received a ton of opportunities outside of what you would believe to be standard media read by Christians. We had a huge feature in the Philadelphia Inquirer, which is their big daily newspaper, the Parents magazine and monthly magazines all across the nation. We are in Wal-Mart for the first time; we actually purposely held the Praise Baby collection out of mainstream retail in fact for the first year, just to ensure that we knew what we were doing in the Christian market place prior to launching it outside of that.

Ken - Your last connection here with Audio Adrenaline is the Hands and Feet Project. Is this the first time you have partnered with them with the Praise Baby collection?

Troy – That is new, and that is because Hands and Feet is a brand new non-profit organization formed by Flicker Records and Audio Adrenaline last year. We have actually purchased property and have an orphanage that is about 85% built. Mark Stewart, who is the lead singer for Audio Adrenaline, his parents are former missionaries from Haiti. They have moved back to Haiti to run this orphanage for the Hands and Feet project. The goal is to get this thing up and running and then look at other opportunities to build orphanages all over the world. The goal for the Hands and Feet organization is to really take care of these little guys and girls, specifically for now in Haiti, who do not have a home, and to rise up leaders for those specific countries. I think they already have two babies, even though the orphanage is not built, that have been dropped off at their doorstep. It’s interesting because we have had several people contact us and ask if they could adopt these children, but for now the goal is to raise up Christian leaders that would stay, and become leaders in those specific countries.

Ken – Is there anything that we didn’t cover that you would like to share about the Praise Baby collection?

Troy – I may have covered this, but to sum it up, the Praise Baby collection is really about helping parents to lead infants and toddlers in a lifestyle of worship. It is created in such a way that mom, dad, and baby can enjoy and experience this thing together. I’ve got such a heart for worship and helping children understand truly what worship is.