Louder Than The Music

Louder Than The Music have had the oppertunity to be able to ask worship leader Simon Brading a few questions.

What was the inspiration behind the title track of the album Going Your Way?

Going Your Way is a song about following God and going His way. It talks about surrender, submission, following where God leads and living a life that honours Him. The idea for the chorus came from a Poker expression, 'all in'. When you play Poker, they say someone is 'all in' when they bet all their chips, not holding back, but giving all they have. This is what our worship to God should be like; not holding back but surrendering our all to Jesus, giving everything to Him; "We're all in, everything we have is Yours".

How long did your album take to make?

From the first day in studio to mastering was about 8 weeks.

What is your favourite track on your album and why?

My favourite track keeps changing, but it's probably You Reign. It was written out of a season that was very painful for our family, but since then as things have changed and God's proved Himself to us time and time again, this song is a big wake up call to the faithfulness of God for me.

How did you become a Christian?

I've had the enormous privilege of being brought up in a Christian family so I've always been in a climate of prayer and praise, whether it's at church or round the household. I actually responded to Jesus personally at the age of 8, sitting in my older brother's room doing Lego! We were talking about Jesus and I decided that I wanted Him to be Lord of my life so I called Dad in and he prayed with me.

How do you stay grounded in your faith when you are leading a busy life?

When you are in love with Jesus and truly make Him the number one priority in your life, everything else falls into perspective and slots into place. So pursuing intimacy with Jesus is the foundation on which the rest of my life is held together.

How did you get into song writing?

I used to play in a couple of rock bands in my early teenage years and wrote a few songs back then, but they weren't songs you'd ever sing in Church. One of the leaders at Church said I should start writing congregational songs, so I gave it a go. I quickly realised that writing songs for the Church was so much harder than I imagined and regularly wanted to give up, being convinced I was the worst song writer in the world. Yet deep inside God was growing a passion for the Church and stirring me to keep writing for the Church. I still found it hard and wanted to give up, but finally I finished a song I was half happy with. I only played it twice at a youth conference and didn't actually like it after that so never played it again. It took me over a year to write another song I was happy with and ever since then I've just been trying to write more and more...

What influences them?

One of my biggest influences musically are the Beatles. My Dad's a big Beatles fan and often played them at home, so I learned a lot of their songs from an early age. Lyrically, the great hymn writer Charles Wesley is a big influence. Writing over 6,000 hymns covering every doctrine I can think of, he uses incredible imagery to paint the most awesome pictures of God and what He's done.