Great Awakening| “Worship Through Experience”
Written By: Joanna Lugo

My dear sweet little musical connoisseurs, it is time for you to be greatly awakened by the wondrous soundscapes that make up the album Songs In Secret, a compilation of ten illustrious and soul nourishing songs. As lovers of all things music related, we often have a tendency to live vicariously through music and sounds. However, with the young and vivacious band Great Awakening, their music lives on in us. Great Awakening’s sophomore album produces a spiritual reverberation, a sweet melodious eruption, and a “thing” flashier than your average techno beats or auto-tuned vocals. This “thing” is an occurrence that takes place when we subsist in the heart of Jesus and are revived through His presence. Songs In Secret allows this thing to take place.

The title of this album is such an intriguing compilation of sweet and alluring words. What is the meaning and value behind Songs In Secret?

Zach Janicello: I think Songs In Secret communicates what we wanted this album to be.  When we listened back through the entire CD, it seemed to have this “sweetness” to it, and the intimacy the Lord had been showing us all really seemed to come out .

In one form or fashion all these songs started alone with just God and us.  There was also a dynamic on this record of really finding who we were musically.  It seemed to be this door we couldn’t really find, but we knew was there.  Musically I think this record has really started to define us, and that dynamic of finding that sound, combined with intimacy, seemed to fit with the secret motif.

As an entity of the Bride of Christ, it seems that you guys are really seeking and running after the heart of Jesus in your musical projects. In what ways have you experimented with the idea of praise through music?

ZJ: We just want our worship to be an extension of ourselves.  Romans 12 tells us to present our lives as worship, and so I think it’s fitting that we make our music an extension of us.  Practically we really tried to write exactly what came out, and we are still working on that.  Another thing….we’re young.  We’re just scratching the surface of God’s love and pleasure in us, and that’s been really good motivation to be confident and vulnerable in our songwriting.  He delights in us.  It changes how you see your own music.

Songs such as “Explore” and “Let Me Hear (Ravish Your Heart)” are the kind of songs that make me want to sing and dance for joy! What makes these songs, and several others on this album, so unique?

ZJ: I think it’s because they’re really genuine.  Part of what God has done in our band is give us the “OK” to be ourselves.  Musical influences aren’t bad, and aspiring to be like other bands in certain ways isn’t bad either.  But the songs on this CD really seemed to flow out of our hearts even more so this time around.  Musically they reflect what we like (whether it’s cool or not) and content-wise they reflect exactly what we were meditating on when we wrote them.

As sinners who desperately need a Savior, we often come across various ideas of worship and praise. Indeed there are several ways to offer up thanks to the One who loves and yearns for us, with music being a prominent outlet. What does worship personally mean to you?

ZJ: Worship is all about Him.  I always seem to come back to that.  When our hearts are set on God and his glory there is such a substantive ”thing” that happens.

I feel like some people may look at that too narrowly.  They may hear me say that “It’s all about God” and then look at some of our lyrics that may seem very personally focused and say: “Your content isn’t really about Him, it’s about you.”  But I think celebrating those personal encounters, thanking Him for his passionate love for me as an individual, only serves the greater purpose of focusing our hearts on Him, in thankfulness and joy. I think celebrating those personal encounters, thanking Him for his passionate love for me as an individual, only serves the greater purpose of focusing our hearts on Him, in thankfulness and joy.

Another thing the Lord constantly wrecks me with is that worship is an eternal calling for everyone!  One day evangelism will end, the great commission will be fulfilled,  but worship will go on forever.  God’s worth is beyond comprehension, and that calls for eternal devotion and lifestyles of worship.  Loving Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength….forever.  Period.

How has the Lord grown you as a band during the making of your sophomore album?

ZJ: Wow.  There has been so much.  The Lord seems to do so much in us even over a really short amount of time.  So much changed in between the two records.  One thing was we all went off to college.  Writing songs via internet, and finding that our relationships with each other were still just as personal and real, hundreds of miles away was one way the Lord grew us.

Also I think God really had work to do in us individually and for some reason I think we had to be separated for that to happen.  I know for all of us our paradigms in relation to worship, church, and even just our relationships with God himself were shaken, for good.  I feel like we are at a level now where we haven’t been before.

Creating compelling and found sounds through the use of vocals, instrumentation, and other tools seems to come easy for you all, making Songs In Secret an album of variety. How has your experimental and musical sound altered from the distant harmonies of Cities to the playful guitars in Songs In Secret?

ZJ: A lot of the credit really goes to Jacob Early and Elijah Mosely.  Those two guys have done some really incredible work, and we knew we wanted them involved in making this album.  They really challenged us, to not cop-out with a dotted eighth guitar part or a drum part that crashes the cymbals for 3.5 minutes. They really brought the best of who we are as musicians and writers out of us and played a big role in shaping us musically. Musically this album is a more laid back, less hype, and I think it’s more mature all around.

What does the general writing process for music and lyrics look like when it comes to creating a full-length album that seeks to engage in a more in-depth and spiritual level?

ZJ: For us I think it’s a little different.  We have two main songwriters in our band, and we’re still experimenting with how we can bring that together even more.  For us it usually looks like me or Cole getting some-kind of rough-idea in our own personal time with the Lord, and then we bring it to the group where we change it, shape it, improve it.  Sometimes we read each other’s lyrics and ask questions, search scriptures, and give suggestions; it really is a cool dynamic.  I learn a lot just from listening to suggestions from Cole, Tanner, and Ben.

Other times, Holy Spirit will drop in on our band practices and birth a song or a part just from worshiping together as a band. The chorus of “Let Me Hear (Ravish Your Heart)” and the bridge of “My Gold” came from band worship times like these.

What are some of the general themes you address in your lyrics? For instance, do you tend to focus on the incorporation of specific scripture, on the character of God, or perhaps even a discussion with Him?

ZJ: Our lyrics usually reflect what the Lord is doing in us at that moment.  I don’t want to answer too much for Cole, but I know a lot of the themes and concepts the Lord had him in were intimacy/Song of Solomon/Father’s heart type stuff, and I think that’s reflected in a lot of the songs (“Let Me Hear”, “Where Your Heart Is Prevailing”, etc) .  I was camping around in the book of John and thus some of the songs have elements of that book in it (“Lazarus”, “Come;Follow”).

So as for your question, we really do it all in different forms: topical, scriptural, hypothetical narrative, etc.  What’s really important to us is that it connects to our hearts.  We want to write out of the abundance of what God is doing in us at the present time…always!  I feel like it has more weight like that.

What’s next for Great Awakening? Where do you feel the Lord is leading you and what can we expect to see from you in the months ahead?

ZJ: This summer we’re going to do some touring, beyond that we have no real definite plans.  I think we would all love to take Great Awakening to the next level if the Lord allows, we aren’t sure what that really looks like, but it’s something we are always open and prayerful towards.