Hillsong UNITED – Right In Step

CCM Magazine: Musically, we were struck with how much of a celebratory and energetic timbre Wonder immediately embodies. What’s behind the current sounds you’re producing?
Joel Houston: To be honest, it was a very natural thing, and it’s been the journey. I’ve always hoped that whatever we’re doing is honest, true, and particular to maybe where we’re at, where the world is, or where things are in life. When we sat down and really started thinking about the album, it was at the end of last year, and obviously you didn’t have to look too far or think too hard to see that the world has been, and is now, in a very interesting place. There’s a lot of tension, animosity, and confusion, I guess, and a lot of it just comes from different world views—different perspectives.

I think, in that kind of atmosphere, the challenge for us was asking, “What’s the God-perspective in this,” and, “What is the role of art, music and, in particular, worship?” Songs are designed, I guess, purely to create and help that communion between soul and spirit with the God who created it—in a way that’s true and honest. So, there was also a lot of asking, “What’s the story of Jesus? What’s the message we have as Christians, here and now? And why is it…?” Sometimes I feel like we get surprised by what’s happening in the world, as if it doesn’t line up with what Jesus or what God promised, and yet the Word of God in the gospel is full of end times, so it was from those places we began to write the songs.

It was all very natural, the songs kind-of wrote themselves in a way that just seemed right, and we went back to music that we loved. Rather than getting too swept up in, “What’s the new sound,” or, “How is this going to be different,” we started by going back to the places where we fell in love with music—and why we fell in love with God. Coming back to that kind-of, to be honest, childlike trust and wonder in who He is, what He says, and what He’s doing, and it manifested itself in such a way that it has. It was something that flowed from a more organic place of just pressing into our own relationships with God.

Taya Smith: I’m coming from the perspective of one of the worship leaders, I didn’t write any [of these] songs, but like you said, straight-away as soon as you listen to the songs they do sound happy and upbeat—there is a victorious feeling running throughout this whole album. I, for one, am so stoked about that.

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