Michael Gungor isn't a big fan of labels, especially when it comes to his art. Yes, he's Christian. And yeah, his faith comes through in the music he writes. But that's not because Gungor is a “Christian band,” it's because the music is written from a place that's completely honest.

There was a time when we thought we'd never hear new music from Neutral Milk Hotel ever again. The critically acclaimed indie band disbanded shortly after the release of its successful album, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, which includes "Holland, 1945," No. 7 on Pitchfork's list of Top 200 Tracks from the 1990s.

Konrad Wert's first exposure to music was in the small Mennonite community where he grew up in southern Florida. The church setting taught him how to sing, and he later started picking up stringed instruments when his mother enrolled him in public school. Years later, it was a fellow student who inspired Wert to take music in a different direction.

While describing the influx of businessmen and record executives migrating from Los Angeles to his Nashville hometown, Justin Townes Earle emanates frustration. “It’s colonialism," he said. "The TV show 'Nashville'has made it sound like we are enjoying this new-found reputation. But if you ask me, we already had a pretty damn good one.”