CCLI
HOW HILLSONG YOUNG & FREE REWROTE THE SOUND OF WORSHIP MUSIC W / ALEXANDER PAPPAS | Matt McCoy
Worship leader, songwriter, and a founding member of Hillsong Young & Free, Alexander Pappas, joins CCLI President Matt McCoy to talk about how Hillsong Young & Free started, shaped a generation of worship music, and how young people today approach faith.
THE START OF HILLSONG YOUNG & FREE [ Matt ] When you went to Hillsong College, how did you get started with Young & Free?
[ Alexander ] I grew up with Hillsong UNITED. They were the reason that I started leading worship at my home church in Idaho. When I got to Hillsong, I started serving in the youth ministry. I started playing bass in the youth band. UNITED was the youth band, but over the first three years I was in Australia they became the band we know and love today. They were in their mid-to-late thirties, and they wanted to write different songs.
Then I started leading worship, but we hadn’ t had new songs in our ministry in a few years. There was a night of youth where we sang“ Take It All” for the thousandth time to end the night, and the song ended and it was fine. Then“ Party in the U. S. A.” came on after, and the room erupted. I was devastated by
their reaction to the worship versus the nonworship. I talked with Aodhán King about it after, and we talked about how we needed to write something for kids right now. We started writing and then started Young & Free.
THE EARLY DAYS OF USING TRACKS IN WORSHIP [ Matt ] When the album Alive dropped, I was just getting Loop Community off the ground. I was going around to churches to show how they could use Ableton Live, and how tracks could add sounds that they couldn’ t play live. Then Alive came out and changed everything. The sounds are hard to play live, and for most churches to pull it off, they need to use tracks. Then for a decade after that, worship music all tried to follow that trend.
[ Alexander ] When we first did Alive, we figured out how to play it from a computer and a track later, but the first month our drummer would fire the click and track with his SPD drum pad at the same time. We were just guessing and hoping we stayed on track.
[ Matt ] I don’ t believe Loop Community would be what it is today without it. It helped give the church a vision of how you could use electronic music in worship.“ Alive” is the number one alltime downloaded song on LoopCommunity. com.
GEN Z AND FAITH [ Matt ] What do you think is happening right now with youth( Gen Z) and faith?
[ Alexander ] There is a beautiful, simple love for truth in young people. You don’ t need to figure out a way to impress them. I find they are impressed by the Gospel. The beauty of the Kingdom of Heaven is that it’ s the same thing, but it’ s completely unique to your relationship with God. We as believers all have something to say. So, when songwriting, I remind myself that I don’ t need to water down the Gospel or expand upon it. The word of God is sharper than any double-edged sword, and it’ s not if I keep it in the sheath or try to use the handle of it.
CLICK HERE to watch the full interview.
Be sure to listen to Alexander’ s new EP SUNDAY wherever you stream music.
Matt McCoy Matt is the President of CCLI and the Founder of LoopCommunity. com. He’ s also a worship leader and passionate about building simple, powerful, and affordable technology for churches and worship teams. www. ccli. com 68 June 2026 Subscribe for Free...