That ’ s the hallmark of the record … these segue moments .
One of my favorite ones is “ We Praise You ”, which is obviously quite an up-tempo song I wrote with Phil Wickham , Brandon Lake and Brian Johnson . But we reimagined it as a very chill kind of almost ministry music , ministry prayer , ministry music style . Because I realized actually the lyric really lends itself to that . It breathes in a whole new way when you ’ re singing about anxiety and fear and faith in that way . And then we take it to the bridge of “ Do It Again ”, which again just felt like it fit so wonderfully theme wise and musically . And I was a part of writing that song “ Do It Again ” with Steven Furtick , Matt Brock and Chris Brown years ago , but I ’ ve never actually recorded it myself . So it was lovely to get to include a part of that . So that became the hallmark of the record . Let ’ s take these new songs and find a new 2024 sound for them , but nothing that ’ s trying too hard . The freshness maybe will come from these medley moments .
[ WM ] Well , “ Blessed Be Your Name ” was just gorgeous too . And the synth sounds , it starts out with such a rich sound … it ’ s beautiful .
Changing subjects , your wife and you have recently tackled some delicate subjects of pastoral abuse in a documentary . It was very well done . What the kind of response have you guys gotten since then ?
[ Matt ] Yeah , it ’ s very interesting because when you release music , whether it be a new song or a new album , there ’ s obviously a lot of excitement around that and it ’ s something you have really worked hard on . You can ’ t wait to lead people in this song or release the song in some way . But when we release this documentary , it ’ s a very different feeling . It ’ s about , like you say , sensitive subjects . It ’ s about an experience of spiritual abuse , which also included some psychological abuse and an element of physical abuse that we had experienced from a well-known church leader in England and is a very , very delicate topic to speak about . But the reason that we did so is because it felt like there ’ s this massive subject that had come to light , but no one was talking about it . And in particular , it felt like there was quite a silence from church leaders when actually perhaps people needed a bit more leadership and shepherding through this moment . And because we were there at the time , we knew what had happened , we ’ d experienced it ourselves . And because we have a bit of a voice through social media , we felt perhaps it was our responsibility to speak up . It ’ s not something we rushed into or took lightly . But also , even personality wise , it ’ s not really my natural response . I don ’ t want to be the guy wading into these massive issues and having to have all the words to say on that . It ’ s not
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