Zealand – United & Free

Zealand even became a band leading worship at youth summer camps. I got really excited about leading worship for teenagers again, so I started writing for that. However, I’ve always had a singer-songwriter side to what I do and I kept writing that stuff. That’s what Zealand is. It’s a mixture of corporate worship but also testimony type songs and encouraging tunes. It’s an amalgamation of everything I’ve been doing over the last 20 years.

CCM: We love that you used the word “correct.” It makes me think that you have experience with songs that are “incorrect” as well. Is that true? And what is the difference?
PJ: As you said, the EP came out in 2015. Now, it’s 2018 and our first full-length is coming out. We set about to write zealous declarations and proclamations. If they became corporate worship songs, then that’s great. That was a goal to make sure the songs could be sung and declared corporately. But that’s also easier said than done. Some people are called to write straightforward songs for the church.

Part of me wishes that’s what I was called to do, because in some ways, that puts it in a box. It gives you parameters to stay in with regards to writing. However, I’ve found it very, very hard to do that—not just because it’s not something I’m built for, but I also feel the Lord saying, “Yes. You guys are a worship band in everything you do, but I don’t necessarily want you to stay in those parameters to write corporate church worship.” I hit a bump in the road or a time when I felt the Lord saying that, so I caused a few kerfuffles because we had a whole bunch of songs written and recorded for this record that we ended up shelving. They were right theologically and melodically but they just weren’t right for us. Maybe someone else can use them.

We went back to the drawing board and cried out to God saying, “What do we need to be singing?” We went back and found certain songs that resonated with my heart early on. Maybe they weren’t in the corporate worship parameters but they felt really good and right. I brought them back into focus and reworked on some as well as wrote some new ones. To me, that’s the war of art, the struggle that has pushed us to get to the record we have right now. It’s a good feeling. We have the collection of tunes that say what we want to say. It feels cohesive. It’s also a little nerve-wracking because it’s a different collection of songs. It’s not straightforward [contemporary Christian] or corporate worship. It’s a mixture of all kinds of things.

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