Hymn.” So, what’ s next? Are you going to rewrite the National Anthem? What’ s next in your sights?( laughing)
[ Chris ] I find myself in these things that are like,“ Man, people are going to like … I’ m going to get crucified.” I felt like when we did Amazing Grace, you had so much … Obviously, you get so many haters, but I wasn’ t even trying to do that. Again, that story I’ ve told it many times, but that was not something I was looking for. And then this one, same thing. I just got to be a part of something. I wasn’ t like,“ Oh, let me go find the earliest hymn.” What I love about this too, it’ s been sitting for a long time. It’ s been in a vault in Oxford for a while, this scrap heap from the scrap heaps. And I love that John just had the heart and the passion to bring this back and find a way to bring this back to the church. And what an amazing thing.
And what I love about it is it’ s such a statement that this was before different denominations. This is‘ pre’ this is my team or that team, or this song comes from this stream, or this song comes from that stream. I love the purity of it. It pre-dates all that. And that’ s why I love it. I was like, if we could sing this again and sing something to think that... and I know you’ re a music guy … and what an amazing thing to realize that our heritage, and to think about this music that we’ re part of goes further back than any. This is way further than Country, way further than Hip Hop, way further than Jazz. There’ s nothing else like this that has this music of worship.
And we stand in a long line, a long line of people who’ ve come before us. And they weren’ t making the song for any commercial world. It was just to gather and to praise this Jesus. This One who they weren’ t that far removed from, a few generations down from, this Jesus who had risen from the dead. And there were some who were losing their life for this. There was persecution, and their lives were on the line for this worship. And that’ s an amazing thing to remember.
[ WM ] Yeah. Well, people know that you took“ Amazing Grace( My Chains are Gone)” seriously. I even thought that you and Ben rounded it out the First Hymn well. It’ s not like there’ s four verses you guys wrote and the one from history. It’ s basically you’ ve only added another equal part to it.
[ Chris ] A little piece of the verse. Yeah. Everything else, we tried to stay true to every line of that song, which was something important to us. We didn’ t want to just create our own song. We just were trying to create a melody that was natural to us and then use that lyric.
[ WM ] So then you went to Dark Horse Studio in Nashville to record it, and you’ ve got Daniel Carson on guitar. Who else was in the band there?
12 March 2026 Subscribe for Free...