This past summer, Nancy Beach, one of the authors and creative pillars of Willow Creek’s resourceful and resourced movement in American churches, was the unofficial hostess of their annual Arts Conference.
It was the second session. Hillsong United had just led the attendants in worship, and now Joel Houston (their rhythm guitarist and lead worshiper) and Darlene Zschech (worship pastor emeritus of Hillsong Church) were the featured interviewees. Joel sat there on his bar stool, casually, with a winter hat, claiming to have had a bad hair day, as Nancy Beach asked Joel and Darlene questions about worship and service production.
Then came the turn for questions from one of Willow Creek’s worship leaders. Once this young man had the microphone, the audience could tell that this was a prepared and pressing question for Joel: “How did you guys [Hillsong United] come up with your sound?”
No doubt the sound separates Hillsong United from others. They’re comfortably in the heavier side of pop rock. The band that’s currently traveling is armed with a pair of electric guitars, one acoustic (Joel Houston), two instrument-less singers, drums, bass and keyboards. The acoustic guitarist, one of the electric guitarists, and the two instrument-less singers take turns leading songs.
Joel Houston, who admitted his felt mere adequacy in singing, leads many songs with a commanding voice, both taking the stage inserting his gentle acoustic guitar input with grace. Jonathan (an instrument-less singer) and Jadwin (an electric guitarist) with their slightly more substantive voices, lead with energy, while the versatile Brooke Fraser (an instrument-less singer) sings with both the gentle agility of Sarah McLachlan and the loud passion of Pink.
The instrumental sound gives many nods to the foundational pop rock structure of U2, but they use their additional instruments and resources to take it another step with further involvement of distortion guitar and diverse synthesizer input, thereby adding touches of alternative and modern electric rock. Hillsong United’s chord progressions are often unpredictable and their melodies often walk the line of sing-a-bility, setting them more apart from the rest in the worship music genre.
To return to the opening story, Joel honestly answered that their sound somewhat evolved from their compilations of ideas, seemingly that the “end product” sound that many worship leaders admire was more and better than what they had in mind. Hillsong’s sound is not encompassing. It doesn’t expand into nods of different era, genre or ethnomusicology and wouldn’t fit well into a service of strict “blended service” preferring congregants. The main aspect of Hillsong United’s sound alone, though, that helps them live toward the second part of their own name, as I’ve said, is their professionalism.
But their music is just one pillar. Their lyrics are another . . .
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