Zach Williams
Zach Williams knows what it’s like to fail. But he also knows how it feels to be rescued.
Prior to the success of 2017 breakout hit “Chain Breaker”, the Grammy Award-winning artist spent the better part of two decades toiling in musical obscurity. Real and honest in his failings, Williams had a “come to Jesus” moment in 2012 that completely altered and shifted his life. Through God’s abundant grace, He had found his true calling.
His latest album Rescue Story serves as a reflection of where his life was 20 years ago to now. He hopes his story will speak to the hearts of those who are struggling to get through each day.
I recently spoke to Williams about his road to deliverance, the pressure to keep recording hit songs, and how God can use anything to write your ‘rescue story.’
I grew up in a very Christian home. My dad led worship and my mom sang on the worship team with him. We were in church every Sunday and every Wednesday. My parents really planted that seed and that foundation in me at an early age in my life. I hear people talk about it all the time, train your child up in the ways of the Lord. And that was it. Had it not been for their relationship with God and just serving as the example that they were to myself and to others, just the example for Christ that they were, I wouldn’t be here and wouldn’t have these opportunities.
I wouldn’t have known that there was a God or anything to come back home to. But like most kids, we’ve all got to find our way. We think we know more than our parents. And that was the case for me. When I turned 15 or 16 years old, everything that I’d been taught, everything I knew about who God was, the world kind of creeps into everything. I started experimenting with drugs and alcohol. I started running around with the wrong crowd. By my senior year of high school, I was making some really bad decisions. I lost a basketball scholarship and I found myself jumping out of high school the last semester of my senior year. I got a GED and I went to work for my dad’s construction company.
I thought, well, here it is, my life’s over. What am I going to do now? I just remember that my parents never judged me. There were never ultimatums from them. They always supported and prayed for me. I can look back and say, man, how hard was that for my dad and mom to see me live this other life. How can they stay strong in their faith? They continued to pray for me, and they knew God had a plan for my life.
They used to pray Jeremiah 29:11 over me. And I remember, trying to understand what that actually meant. Just recently, I really discovered that they spoke this over me as I was growing up. So, in my late twenties and early thirties, here I am, I’ve been trying to be this rock star and live this new lifestyle that I had created for myself. All I’ve ever done is fail, stumble, fall and hit dead end road after dead end road. Here I was, 30 years old, walking through some of my darkest times because I was trying to figure out what was I doing with my life. I just found myself at the end of my rope.
I was asking God to just come and save me from this life I had created. I just remember feeling this immediate relief and for the first time, not feeling like I had somebody sitting on my chest. It was like this breath that I could breathe. God started revealing Himself to me and showing me this plan that He has had for my life all along. Part of that was I’m going to live through some dark days and I’m going to see some things that a lot of people don’t see.
Your first faith-based album was a resounding success as it won a Grammy Award. That’s a tough act to follow. In fact, many artists struggle from the pressure of trying to follow up a highly successful debut.
For my second album, “Rescue Story’, I think if it would have been up to me, I would have probably put so much pressure on myself that I would have totally messed this whole thing up. But I remember very early in the process the guy who produced my first record, Jonathan Smith, he produced this second record as well. We became really good friends. He really gets me and understands who I am as an artist, especially the sound that I want to have. I remember the very beginning of the writing process for this record. I had all these expectations that I put on myself and felt that we have to do this, we have to do that. And I remember just talking with Jonathan one day and he was saying, ‘Here’s the deal man. Just come in here every day and write the best songs for that day, what’s on your heart. What God’s sharing with you? What is God doing in your life? This season that you’re in, if we do that enough times, you’re going to have enough songs for this next record.’
That took a lot of pressure off of me and I stopped trying to make something that I had made before. And I remember I was really in a season of reflecting on what God had done in my life.
All these songs are stories, situations that I have lived through. I tried to write songs that are just as raw and honest as I am. I just want to be on a real level with people, where everybody knows that I’m not a perfect person. I struggle just like the next person and it’s only through God that I am where I’m at today.
For me, Rescue Story is a concept album in that each song works together as if it’s a chapter from a book. There’s a bunch more that I still feel like are pretty solid. But these 10 that we chose felt, like you just said, they felt like they belonged. This is a season of life that I wanted to share and talk about. These all feel like they could book end off of each other. There were some others that I felt were pretty good songs, but it just didn’t feel like you fit with the 10 that we chose. Hopefully, I’ll save the ones that didn’t make the record and maybe put on another some day.
When asked if there any one song on Rescue Story that he felt was the cornerstone or the key song on the album he replied, “There Was Jesus,” the one that I did the duet with Dolly Parton. I felt like that song was strong before it had her voice on it. I feel like her voice just added something that felt almost like a heartstrings part to her voice. I think we can all relate to that song because everybody has been at some place in their life where they’re looking back on a moment that they didn’t see God in, but there was somebody out there praying for them.
In general, my message for people that come to my show is the freedom that there is in Christ. The freedom to be who you are and who God made you to be.
