Speaking to People magazine in an interview, Christian artist Anne Wilson spoke about releasing her new album, “Rebel,” which she said combines her country music career and Christian roots. She said she aims to use that album to help push country music back toward Christianity and to show who she is as a person as she advances in her career.
In her discussion with PEOPLE, Wilson said that she focused on not changing as a person for her career, but rather emphasizing who she is and what she believes, saying, “I didn’t change who I was. I stuck to who I am and what I believe, and it’s really cool to see how it’s all come together.”
Continuing, she described how she came to do the new album and who in her live helped her make it what it is, saying, “I was hesitant at first. I said, ‘I’m not gonna change who I am to do country music.’ And [Nashville recording exec Cindy Mabe] said, ‘We want you to be exactly who you are. We don’t want you to change a thing, and we need you to bring God back into country music.’”
Wilson also commented on the beginning of her career and how she made it to releasing her first album, “My Jesus,” at just 22-years-old. Even more impressively, the album was so good that it received a Grammy nomination.
Speaking about that, she noted that she never envisioned herself as a singer as a young woman because she thought she was “horrible” at singing, so singing as a career didn’t cross her mind. Speaking on that, she said, “I thought I was horrible singing. I thought I was so bad. I never believed in myself that I could be a singer. It’s just not something that crossed my brain, which is crazy now.”
Continuing, she went on to add that she decided to try to become a singer as a career when, as a result of her faith, she decided to try it out and do what she thought God was leading her to. She said, “It was ultimately a surrender to God, and to say I’m gonna lay down my desire to be an astronaut and all the other things I want to do with my life just to go follow you.”
Wilson then went on to add that her career has been a crazy one, saying, “And the ride God has taken me on has been crazy. Some days, I’m like, ‘OK, God, you can slow it down’ or ‘Let’s take a break for just a second, so I can breathe.’ And it has not stopped.”
In another interview about “Rebel,” Wilson said, “Having faith in the world that we live in today makes me feel a little bit like a rebel. It’s like when we have faith, we’re the odd ones out. But yet the world can go talk about all these horrible subjects, and it’s welcomed and invited.”
She continued, “But when we talk about our faith, it’s like, somehow, we’re like the ones in the wrong. And it just felt like an inspiration to go, ‘You know, I’m going to write a record that is so steeped in faith.’ …Being a follower of Jesus in the world that we live in today makes you a rebel, because Jesus was a rebel. And so if you’re trying to be like Him, you’re going to end up being a rebel. And so all those different things came into one big idea and we wrote the song.”
Featured image credit: By FotoPhest – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=136585062