New Song Video’s

All these songs are in demo or acoustic live form and will sound incredible when they appear on the album with our beautiful backing of violin, viola and cello.

100% OF ALBUM SALE PROFITS TO CHARITY

We are not making this album in order to make money. If we get enough pledged to make the album, then we will give loads of copies away, but when we start selling copies, all the money will go to two charities that are very loved by us and Jay… Help Hoima, and Every Life are both charities that work in Uganda. When Jay was bring prayed for at Soul Survivor one year, he saw in image of an African child waling towards him… he didn’t know what that meant at the time, but a growing partnership with both these charities has seen him go to Uganda twice already, with another trip now planned. So the goal after the album is made will be to raise awareness for each charity and raise money to that will help families in Uganda live life better!

WHAT . WHEN . WHERE . HOW . WHY

WHAT. This project is all about us documenting the journey of worship at St John’s, and capturing the sound of St John’s as true as possible to what we sound like on a Sunday morning, whilst also making the best album possible. We have a whole bunch of songs ready to record and we will chose our best 9 to put forward for an album. Over the last few years Jay and the team have been writing and crafting songs, many of which we use in our times of sung worship at Sunday gatherings and at youth meetings and prayer & worship gatherings. We want to produce an album that sounds as good as possible that we are really happy with. It will be produced in online download and CD form. So the Kickstarter campaign is our way of encouraging you to back us and give money so that we can pay for a brilliant recording.

WHEN. The Kickstarter campaign is live now and ends on 25th September. If we reach our funding goal of £7,500 by then, we will receive the funds from all those who have pledged money, and we will be able to start recording soon after that. If we don’t reach our goal this time round then no money will change hands, and we will try again! We will look to record over the winter and New Year then look to release the album towards next summer.

WHERE. We will be doing lots of the recording at St John’s. We will be working with a brilliant producer who will bring all the gear in needed to capture the sound of us playing in our home church environment. We will also do some sections in a studio environment. We wanted to capture as much as possible of the organic and real sound of worship at St John’s, and add in those bits that will make it as good as it can be! The mix will then be mastered in the USA before being ready for release.

HOW. We are working with a brilliant producer who has worked with lots of Christian artists before. He comes with a wealth of expertise and knowledge and totally gets how we want to record and the sound we want to make. We have an amazing bunch of musicians serving at St John’s and we have been planning the recording together with a few of them, but will also use the skills of a couple of hired musicians from the production company in order to get the best sound possible. We will record most of the album in the church… we are excited to do this so that we might capture more of the sound of our worship than we would if we were in a studio. We love how our sung worship sounds, with brilliant drummers, beautiful keys and strings, and more… so we want to capture that as best as possible, so that the album really reflects the sound of St John’s.

WHY. This is obviously the most important question. Firstly, we write songs at St John’s because we feel called to do so. Creativity is a big part of who God is, and we have felt over the last 4 or 5 years that we have a calling in worship to creativity in the writing of and the playing of songs… BUT why record?… Our Worship Pastor Jay has two big dreams in his life… 1. BE A DAD… 2. MAKE AN ALBUM. In a strange way, the pursuit of the first dream has led to the hard work of making the second dream a reality. Jay and his wife have not yet been able to have children, but the times of worship and songwriting that Jay has engaged in during the more difficult times have kept him very close to God. He would say that these are some of the best songs he has ever written and much like Tailor Swift – with each bad relationship ending… with each trial Jay has gone through, the songs have got better (here ends the TS analogy), more Spirit led, more mature and more helpful to him and others in worship. We really believe as a result that it’s time to be brave and document these songs in the best way possible, and we believe God is saying that this recording will be just as helpful to others going through hard times. The title of the Album is BE STILL… and this really encompasses the purpose of it all… that those listening would bring the heavy burdens of life to the place of worship and hear God saying ‘I’m here, be still and experience my love for you’.

ALBUM TRACK LIST

We will aim to record 9 songs on this album, so not all of these songs will make it onto the album. We will chose the best from this list so we would love your feedback on your favourite songs as we release a few acoustic video’s over the next month…

1. Miracle God

2. Endless Praise

3. Breakthrough

4. Be Still

5. My First Love

6. Good to Know You

7. Abba Father

8. Wave After Wave

9. If My People

10. The More I See

11. Your Mercy

12. Who Do We Say You Are

COST BREAKDOWN

Making an album is an expensive process. The price that we have agreed with the producer is very average for this kind of recording, but we know it seems like a lot… so here’s what’s involved:

1. 4-5 days of tracking, playing and arranging as we go so we get a feel of how its working
This will include, layering up keys, synths extra strings etc.
2. 3-4 days of vocals. lead and maybe some group vocals to give the feeling of community.
3. 3-4 days of editing and tuning strings and voices etc.
4. 5-6 days 9 track mix
5. Mastering is 1 day done remotely
£750 – Extra musicians: bass, extra synths for colour £250 / day – 3 days
£5780 – 17 days, producing, mobile studio set up/recording, engineering, editing, mixing.
£550 Mastering (third party. including VAT)
£? – something for expenses, food etc
£7000-7300
You will be able to see that this we are very much working through this project organically and the producer is committed to capturing the sound of St John’s!

Thank you so much for taking the time to check out all the information. If you still have some more questions then please get in touch with Jay.
If you are sufficiently informed then please consider pledging to help make this album a reality and head over to the campaign page…