A collective passion

Liberty Worship Collective introduces its first record, works with Phil Wickham

The Liberty Worship Collective will release its first self-titled record March 1 after three months of recording.

The Collective’s album will feature nine covers of popular worship songs along with an original song the band members wrote with contemporary Christian music (CCM) artist Phil Wickham.

According to Liberty Worship Collective Director Louis Fabrizi, this record is a stepping stone to eventually releasing records of original songs from the Collective.

“When you release your first record, it’s a snowball,” Fabrizi said. “You want it to pick up momentum, and you want to be releasing records at least once a year. So this is the start of that release cycle that I hope the Collective gets on.”

Fabrizi said the Collective hopes to release an EP of five original songs in the fall of 2017 funded by the sales from this record.

“This is not what a band typically wants to do,” Fabrizi said. “A band never wants to record other people’s songs. A band wants to record a record of (its) own original material, but you have to take the necessary steps to get there.”

Alana Rivera, a freshman worship leader on the Collective, was one of the members who contributed background vocals to the record. Although Rivera has recorded vocals for other artists, she said recording this worship album was a particularly meaningful experience for her.

“You’re focused on singing the words, but we were also worshipping while we were in the recording studio,” Rivera said. “We were all giving glory to God in that moment.”

However, not all of the Collective members had a part in recording the album like Rivera. Since they needed to record the album quickly, Fabrizi said they utilized CCM duo Shane & Shane to record the backing tracks to the songs.

“All the instrumentation is Shane & Shane and their musicians, and then all of our vocals are Collective worship leaders,” Fabrizi said.

“It’s not the model that you would typically use for a record, and we’ll never do that again probably. But it was the only way to get it done in that short amount of time.”

The album will include covers of songs like “Good, Good Father,” “No Longer Slaves,” “You Make Me Brave” and several other worship songs the Collective frequently plays.

The Collective’s debut will also feature an original song titled “Run” that several team members wrote with Phil Wickham.

In the fall of 2016, the Collective invited Wickham and his band to collaborate with the Collective members on an original worship song.

“We brought (Phil Wickham) in specifically to write with the Collective,” Fabrizi said.

“We took about 15 of our students into Snowflex, and we broke them up into five groups of three students all around the lodge.”

“Run” was one of a few songs that came out of the songwriting session with Wickham.

The Collective began introducing that song at Campus Community and Convocation in February.

Fabrizi wants to continue developing a culture of creativity in the Collective through songwriting.

As the Collective begins to record original music, he hopes all 45 members are able to take part in the writing process.

Rivera has already written a few worship songs recently that could potentially appear on future records.

She also is looking forward to combining her songwriting talents with other members of the Collective.

“There’s a lot of people that have good ideas, but when you put them together they sound amazing,” Rivera said.

“Collaboration is definitely a big part of songwriting.”

According to Fabrizi, another important part of the creative culture is incorporating different styles of music.

Fabrizi hopes future records can feature hip-hop, Gospel music, choirs and other diverse styles of music not always utilized in worship records.

Rivera, who grew up around Gospel music, has witnessed how the Collective has brought together many students from diverse backgrounds into one unified worship team.

“I’ve seen how the name of Jesus is something that’s unified people from every background  — not only around campus but also on our team,” Rivera said.

As the Collective continues to write music and produce records, Fabrizi said they are not trying to mimic other successful worship bands.

Instead, he hopes the Collective will continue to establish its own unique identity as Liberty’s worship band.

“We don’t want to be the next Passion,” Fabrizi said.

“We don’t want to be the next Elevation. We don’t want to be the next Hillsong.

We want to be the Liberty Worship Collective, and that’s going to be different from all three of those.”

On March 1, the Liberty Worship Collective’s self-titled album will be available for digital download on iTunes and hard copies will be sold at Campus Community.

Covey is a news reporter.