Matt Crocker has written some of the most recognizable worship songs of the last two decades. As a longtime member of Hillsong United, he’s helped shape the sound of modern worship music, co-writing anthems like “Oceans (Where Feet May Fail),” “This I Believe (The Creed)” and “I Surrender.” His voice and melodies have quietly become foundational to worship services around the globe—even if his name hasn’t always been front and center.
But this week, that changes.
With the release of his debut solo album Interlude, Crocker steps into a new season—one marked by creative freedom, vulnerability and a return to what first made him fall in love with music. The record doesn’t sound like a Hillsong album. That’s intentional. It’s more personal, more exploratory. Less written for the church stage and more for the train ride, the hospital room, the uncertain in-between.
“I wanted to feel like I did when I first started writing songs—like a teenager again,” Crocker says. “Not thinking about what’s expected, just making music because I love it.”
That rediscovery started, ironically, in a season when the world stood still. In the early days of the pandemic, Crocker found himself in Australia with time, space and no real agenda—just a desire to create again.
“What else do you do during COVID?” he says, laughing. “Make music.”
What began as a low-pressure creative outlet evolved into something bigger. He started writing with friends and younger artists, many of whom were discovering the joy of music for the first time. That energy rubbed off.
“There was a kid named Aaron, he was 20 when we started,” Crocker says. “He’d play me things I’d never heard—Fred again.., Turnstile, random indie projects. I started listening like I was 20 again too.”
The result is Interlude, a genre-blurring record inspired as much by Radiohead and the Beatles as it is by worship traditions.
“It’s all the music that’s ever imprinted on me,” he says. “Not in a calculated way, but in a natural, deeply personal way.”
He wrote more than 100 songs in the process.
“That sounds like one of those cliché things artists say, but it’s true,” Crocker says. “We had about 100 demos in our inbox. Not all finished, but enough to start noticing which ones rose to the surface.”
Eventually, he landed on a tracklist of 11 songs. Not because that number held any spiritual symbolism—though one song was originally meant to be a secret track—but because it felt right. The final product, he says, was curated with intention.
“I wanted it to be a full album, something you could listen to start to finish,” he says. “That’s how I’ve always loved music.”
The title Interlude captures that sense of in-between.
“It’s the space between what was and what’s next,” Crocker says. “This isn’t me abandoning the past or chasing some new version of myself. It’s just me in this moment—rediscovering what it means to create, to worship, to listen.”
Importantly, Interlude doesn’t try to reinvent worship music. It doesn’t need to. The songs are worship—just not always in the way you might expect. They’re not crafted for big Sunday morning choruses or conference arenas. They’re quieter, more inward-facing—meant for headphones and long walks. And yet, they’re unmistakably worship.
“I told myself: the sound can be whatever it wants to be. But the heart of it has to be worship,” Crocker says. “I’m not trying to be different just to be different. I’m trying to be honest.”
That honesty comes through in every detail, even the song titles. Some are stylized in all caps, others in lowercase, some a mix—each a reflection of Crocker’s own habits and quirks.
“I can’t type the name of God in lowercase,” he says. “Even in a text message, I’ll go back and fix it before I hit send. It’s a respect thing. A punctuation thing. And yeah, maybe a little obsessive.”
Crocker knows this solo project will surprise some people—not just in sound, but in timing. He’s nearly 40, launching a debut in an industry that often treats newness as currency. But that doesn’t bother him. If anything, it grounds him.
“There’s this pressure to move on when you’ve done something for a long time,” he says. “But I’m not done. I still love writing worship songs. I still lead worship on Sundays. This is just another part of me. I think there’s room for both.”
What’s next? He’s not entirely sure—and he likes it that way.
“I’m a nightmare for anyone trying to manage me,” he says, smiling. “No big tour plans. No strategy. I just want to play these songs in rooms with people and see what happens.”
If he had his way, those rooms would be small—living rooms, back rooms, theaters.
“I love the intimacy of it,” he says. “I’ve done the big stages, and they’re powerful in their own way. But there’s something about a room with 20 people and no lights. Just presence.”
The goal isn’t scale. It’s connection. Crocker tells a story about his barber—someone who doesn’t go to church, doesn’t really know what he does. He sent him a few songs. The next time he came in for a haircut, the barber told him the music had stayed with him.
“He didn’t have the language for it, but I could tell it hit him,” Crocker says. “That’s the dream, honestly. That the music gets into someone’s life uninvited—but in a way that’s welcome.”
At its core, Interlude is an invitation. Not just to worship, but to rediscover—to find joy again, to pay attention again, to remember the sound that once made you believe in something bigger.
“This was never about a solo career,” Crocker says. “It was about feeling something again. And if that resonates with someone else, then maybe that’s the whole point.”
