[ Crowder ] Absolutely . I hope so . I haven ’ t mentioned this , but the Return album came at the same time as The EXILE . Oh , it was the most confusing thing I ’ ve ever been a part of doing because as I said , I ’ ve always had these outlines and I feel like I ’ m in control sometimes . And I ’ m not at all . And so when the faucet ’ s on , I usually have been really great at being able to edit and be like , “ Ah , that ’ s not for this .” So , I don ’ t have a lot of songs at the end of a period of time that we just didn ’ t put on the album . I don ’ t have the 18 usually if I ’ ve got an 11-track album , it ’ s because I came up with 11 songs . The rest of them didn ’ t even make it through the process . But these songs we would be writing and there ’ d be a song like “ Somebody Prayed .”
It ’ d be like , “ Ah , this is perfect . This is for The EXILE .” And then the next time I ’ m in a room , there was no way I would stop the song because I ’ m like , this is an incredible song . This song is blowing my mind , but this doesn ’ t fit The EXILE . And I was just like , this has never happened . I don ’ t know what ’ s going on here . It would be like , “ Well , I guess I just don ’ t know .” That was fun . It ’ s an incredible song . Maybe sometime down the road . It did not dawn on me till way too late that it was like , “ Crowder . the Return is coming at the same time as The EXILE , bro .” And then I figured , “ Oh , every one of these songs that were confusing to me , they all go on the Return .” And so , it was really a fun moment . I don ’ t know how long it took but it took a long time for me to figure that out . ( laughing )
And when I did , it was a mind blow . I was like , “ Of course . Of course . I ’ m not in charge of any of this . I ’ m barely here .” That ’ s right . And so it ’ s really fun when you have those moments where you definitely get the discovery , somebody else might get the discovery . It dawned on me in a way that I hope it dawns on other people and how fitting it is because , I said from Ezekiel earlier , but in the middle of Exile , He ’ s already given me songs to sing is really a beautiful image that I didn ’ t see coming . And of course He would . Of course He would . Yeah , that ’ s right . Of course .
[ WM ] Of course He would ! Well listen , thank you so much for this time . And truly everything is going to be all right for us on the other side of exile .
[ Crowder ] That ’ s awesome , bro . And you ’ re going to love this when you see the album cover , or you ’ ve seen the cover on the cover even backwards , the backdrop , the background of exile is return backwards , it ’ s written Return backwards . So then the next cover will be from the perspective looking back at the return . So literally on the other side of exile is the return . Very cool . It ’ ll be pretty fun .
God bless you . Much love .
[ WM ] Thank you .
The EXILE 12 June 2024 Subscribe for Free ...