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While the collaboration between Elevation Worship, Brandon Lake, and Chandler Moore took the Christian music world by storm, the songwriters admit it was unexpected, except for one person.
“I don’t think anybody believed in 'Praise,' except for my wife,” Brandon Lake said in an interview with crosswalk.com.
The upbeat tune features Elevation Worship, as well as Lake and Chandler Moore and was recorded live at Elevation Church in North Carolina.
“I was super-excited about other songs [on the album],” Lake said. “And I remember us going into that live recording that night, I was like, ‘Hey, put 'Praise' at the very end of the night. Worst-case scenario, it tanks, you know, it bombs, and we at least had two hours of worship. No one’s going to care, it’s energetic, they won’t pay attention.”
Elevation Worship's, Chris Brown said it was originally recorded for fun, but the audience went crazy after hearing it for the first time. “We had no idea that it was going to be something that would actually resonate. We kind of did it being silly.”
“The whole place just goes bananas,” Lake said. “My wife was like, ‘I told you, there’s something about that song.’”
The success of the song has helped it stay on the Billboard's Hot Christian Songs chart for more than 60 weeks, including 23 at the top spot. The live version on YouTube has nearly 100 million views.
“We didn’t realize that we had something really special,” Lake said. “It just turned into this monster of a song. And it’s been really cool to watch it go global and hearing that song in Africa and churches all over the world. It’s been really beautiful.”