really establishing the new normal that 2020 was . We were able to hear from fans or from people who worship with us , and it was really encouraging to see people using the music to encourage themselves to stay close to God , to get perspective on faith and be trusting in God . So , that ’ s a really cool part of social media . The fact that we can hear those stories and that people have access to share what God is doing , even in the midst ’ s of something as horrible as this pandemic .
[ WM ] What has been the activity level of Hillsong United during the pandemic ? With touring halted , and much of traditional recording methods at a checkmate , what do you have in the pipeline for new releases and tour plans ?
[ Jad ] Most of us in Sydney are still kind of involved in church and so I run some teams in regard to our worship team in Sydney . While I ’ m home I ’ m kind of busy doing that . It ’ s been really interesting figuring out how to lead worship in church during this lockdown with the inability to get together in church in Australia . So , we ’ re all kind of working hard at home .
From the United front , what we decided to do was take some recordings that we ’ d done over the last few months , and some recordings that were done a while ago , and put them together . We created this project called , In the Meantime , which is basically just a series of EPs with different songs . We ’ ve got acoustic versions of “ None But Jesus ” and a song called “ Holy , Holy , Holy ”, “ There ’ s Another in the Fire ”, and “ I Surrender ”. There are songs like that which we kind of recorded differently and made them available for people and called it In the Meantime because it ’ s in between what we ’ ve done and what we ’ re doing . We ’ re writing new songs for a new album right now and trying to figure out how to get those recorded even though were in different cities .
[ WM ] I ’ ve got a quick question on songwriting and then we ’ ll move on to closing up . I noticed that quite few of your songs are not only collaborations , but also Spanish-speaking ,
German , and other language recordings . Please tell us about this ?
[ Jad ] We definitely have a crew , and we find that collaboration creates better products . I feel like it ’ s maybe just a greater message for everybody with regards to how healthy collaboration and consultation with others can really create a better product and help you to see what ’ s potentially there . We really welcome songwriting collaboration , we really welcome working together and everybody bringing their different strengths .
With regard to the different languages , we are fortunate enough to have followers and fans from a lot of the Latin American and Spanish speaking countries , so we wanted to make it inclusive enough for them . They make up a massive portion of people that love Hillsong United , so we wanted to bring them on the journey . We also have churches in Latin America , we have churches throughout Europe , we have different people who call Hillsong home and they speak a variety of different languages . So were really trying to make these songs available to these people . Because we have these global sites , some of our teams in different countries are translating the songs and getting the translations approved . We ’ re trying our best to sing songs in other languages . We don ’ t always do that great , but I always like going in to sing Spanish . We have a Spanish coach who is from Spain but lives in Argentina . His name is Tony , and he basically coaches us over Zoom . It ’ s a long and tedious process , but it ’ s fun .
[ WM ] That ’ s great ! Might I ask you about your gear ? Please tell us about your go-to acoustic and electric guitars . What does your current pedal board setup include and what in-ears do you currently use ?
[ Jad ] My go-to acoustic guitar is a 000-42 Martin . I really love the body shape and the neck shape , and I just love the sound of it . My actual favorite , I just got a 000-28 Eric Clapton , and I stopped traveling with it because it was getting all dented up , so I keep that at home now and I travel with the 000-42 , which I love . I ’ ve got an old ’ 52 Butterscotch Blonde Telecaster reissue , and I really love that . I ’ ve had it for years . A lot of people give me a hard time because I just play the same old guitar , but I really like it and I trust it so I ’ m just going to keep playing it . As for pedal boards , I keep a very simple pedal board setup . I run a Cusack Screamer overdrive and a basic TopHat Delay . It ’ s like a digital delay with knobs . It ’ s pretty simple , and it just dependable . For the Hillsong United events I have a rhythm guitar role and so I don ’ t do very much because I ’ m basically singing all the songs . The small things that I need to do are very simple with an electric guitar nowadays . For in-ears we use 64 Audio ’ s .
[ WM ] In closing , I would love for you to speak a word of encouragement over our songwriters and worship leaders . What advice would you offer them ?
[ Jad ] I ’ d love to encourage everybody to really keep things simple . Things can get really complicated really fast and sometimes we can really lose sight of our priorities . We can lose sight of where we should be putting our attention , and we lose sight of what ’ s important . My encouragement would be stay simple , and one thing I do to stay simple when it comes to prayer , when it comes to meditation , is to focus on just two things , and that ’ s giving and prayer . In Philippians , Paul opens his letter with thanksgiving and prayer , and I think it ’ s a great place to start . Thanksgiving is a position of humbling yourself , and I think that humility and thanksgiving inclines the ear of God . So , then we can pray . Keeping it simple is something that is so easy , but we can sometimes overcomplicate things for ourselves .
[ WM ] Jad , thank you so much for your insight shared and time spent with me !
[ Jad ] Thank you !