There’s evidence that everyone else feels otherwise—he has sold three million records, charted nineteen No. 1 hits, GRAMMY-nominated and won several major Dove Awards—but Jeremy Camp is tired of himself. Not in any self-deprecating way, but in that positive spiritual sense to which we should all aspire. You can hear him working this out on his sixth recording, We Cry Out: The Worship Project.

“It’s common to say, ‘It’s not about me, God. It’s about You.’ Yet I’m really at that point right now,” Jeremy admits. “The Lord says in Jeremiah 29:13, ‘You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.’ But we live in such a distracted society; we let the world’s noise divide our focus and our hearts. Our generation is in desperate need of crying out to God.”

Jeremy celebrated his birthday last week (January 12), and so here at NRT, we’re marking the occasion by spending some quality time with him. NRT’s Bill Lurwick catches up with Jeremy, talking about the latest project and about his developing perspectives on worship.

So Jeremy, the new album is We Cry Out: The Worship Project. I remember a few years back talking with you about your last worship album, Carried Me. You said it was sort of an in-between project--that you didn’t really want to do a worship project, but the label wanted it. So now, years later, we see a second worship project from Jeremy Camp.

It’s funny. This time it was the complete opposite. I wanted to do a worship record.

The tables have turned, really. What’s going on there?

I loved Carried Me and I still love it, but it was kind of a weird timing because it was just a one-time thing. I just really wanted to do a worship record again. That’s my heart right now. I’ve really started doing all these different worship songs live in our set, and even though the songs aren’t mine, I’m just so excited and entering in worship. I’m more excited now than I ever have been I think about doing music and I’m more refreshed than I ever have been. This is just a different season. I feel like I’ve grown up a lot and I feel like these past two years I went through a growth spurt in my life.


What do you attribute that to?

Having kids, seeing them grow up and instructing them, as well as these years of doing music--you have battles and things you deal with that make you grow. For some reason there’s just been a little more of a growth spurt these past few years. I’m more hungry for God’s word. I always read and always stood by the Lord, but it’s different. There’s more of an urgency in my heart for that. There’s more of a hunger. I don’t know. It’s just been a really good season. So, this album to me is just reflective of that.

“Jesus Saves,” your first single, is written by Tim Hughes, right?

Yes. This is the first single I’ve put out there that’s not my song. I do have songs on the record that I’m going to put out as singles, but I just didn’t put them out first because I don’t care anymore. If it’s a song that I love and that ministered to me and I know it’s going to minister to somebody and I have an opportunity to sing it and get it out, then I want to do it and that was one of those songs. “Overcome” and “Jesus Saves” are songs that had already been out there, but when I sing them live, I feel refreshed. I believe it. I feel it. This really continues where God led in my heart about just really proclaiming your faith and not ashamed of the Gospel. It was another one of those songs that was just in your face. Standing boldly. This is my life.

You guys did a lot of live tracking for this project too, didn’t you?

Yeah. We all sat in the room and played together. I ended up doing vocals later just because I wanted to be able to sit and focus. It was just really an extraordinary experience because we’d be playing and I’d say to keep going as we’re playing because I felt like we should keep going. The great thing about it was there was no formula.

So this wasn’t recording as usual. Some real worship was taking place.

Oh my goodness. “Overcome.” So, I’m in there and I’m singing the part where it says we will overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony, and I started getting really emotional. So, finally I was signing it and I’m going off and I just broke down. I just stopped, but before I did that I looked up and my producer was raising up his hands. My dad was sitting down had just stood up and when I stopped. I just said, “Do you guys feel that?” We’re like, “Yeah.” So, it was God’s hand all over that.

There are a lot of familiar songs on here mixed in with some new ones. When you’re recording a familiar worship song like “Mighty to Save,” “Everlasting God” or “You Never Let Go,” is there added pressure knowing that the song has been done by many folks many times?

Yeah, I think a little bit for sure, but I didn’t over think it. We didn’t try to listen to everybody else’s and think about how we could make it different. We just basically thought about how we feel when we sing it. How does it react to us and how do we want to play it? So, there was a thought there, but we just kind of tried to get rid of it.

I’ve got to tell you that I talked to your wife, Adie, before the release of her latest album and she said that you didn’t do any background vocals for her. She did some for you--what’s up with that?

I feel like she’s a better background singer than me! So, I was like "honey, I don’t want to ruin it when you can sing it and do better than me." She sings better than me on background vocals. I feel like I would have made it worse singing on her record!