[ WM ] My wife Judy and I met Mr. Eugene Peterson who published the paraphrased The Message. Did you ever meet him?
[ Brooke ] No, but he’ s one of my favorite humans.
[ WM ] He was finishing up the Old Testament. I said,“ Was there any difference between paraphrasing the New Testament versus the Old Testament?” And he said,“ No, the Old Testament just took longer.” What a humble answer.“ Just longer.”
[ Brooke ] That’ s incredible.
[ WM ] I have a question about some really unique instrumentation going on here with EAT. How did you capture the Church Organ recording wise? And then tell us about some of your instrumentation.
[ Brooke ] Yeah, so it was very much, again, as I was hearing the melodies rise from the pages, I would often hear the instrumentation as well. So, a song like“ In The Land of the Living,” which is the second of Psalm 27, which is kind of a piano ballad, I knew going into it that the sonic world felt like Joni Mitchell’ s“ The River”… that kind of world. And then I also really wanted to hear free jazz drums. And so, it was funny asking Dan( Daniel McMurray) to do that. And I sent him a reference I’ m thinking this for the drums, but I think we’ re also accustomed to doing rhythm. I was finally like,“ Okay, play like you’ ve fallen over on the drum kit.” I wanted it to feel very loose. And Cass( Cassie Campbell) playing the bass up high on the neck like she did … and all those cool things. I often had in mind a sonic world that the songs lived in just from the writing of them.
[ Bruce ] Okay. So how about the church’ s big pipe organ part? Did you go to a church and set up sample mics?
[ Brooke ] Yes. Because the end of that song,“ Even Death on a Cross” is so epic and it’ s almost otherworldly and what you are repeating of the scripture“ in heaven and on earth and under the earth”, it’ s like the realms. And so I was like,“ Oh, this should feel really interstellary.” It’ s very unashamedly a nod to Hans Zimmer’ s organ stuff on Interstellar. But this has to be a real organ. I don’ t want a sample. And so I have some new friends at Woodlands Methodist Church in Houston, TX and I knew that they had an organ there. And so I was texting David Funk, who’ s part of my team, and I was like,“ Hey, do you think that there’ s any way that Woodlands would let us come and have their organ player let us record the organ?” And he was like,“ Oh, actually I’ m there next week. Do you just want to come across and we’ ll do it?”
10 May 2026 Subscribe for Free...