“First of all,” Jelly Roll admitted, “I’ve got so much wrong. I can’t tell anybody how to get anything right. We’ll start there, but I think patience. And that’s what I feel around Brandon, that’s what I feel around his team, that’s what I feel around good Christian people.”
“The understanding of that it’s not always a Damascus Road experience,” he continued. “It’s not always Saul to Paul. Like, I’m in an active relationship here…if you knew how I was talking in interviews five years ago, and it’s all over the internet, go look it up, and then you see how I’m talking today. Imagine what God can do with me in five years?”
Jelly Roll encouraged Christians to give “grace” to those walking into the church. “Meet them where they are,” he said, “because that’s what the Word does. The Word meets us exactly where we are. All we got to do is open it [and] he’s going to do the rest.”
Because of the impact “Hard Fought Hallelujah” has had on his life, Jelly Roll shared that he’s been singing it at his shows, even though it’s not his song. “I’m ripping it like it’s my song,” he said.
Lake said he’s seen Instagram videos of Jelly Roll fans holding up a beer in one hand and raising the other hand in worship as “Hard Fought Hallelujah” is being sung.
“I have got asked about this song in the streets,” Jelly Roll said. “The last time I got asked about a song like this was song I called, ‘Need a Favor.’” That song was a huge hit for Jelly Roll and won him multiple CMT Music Awards in 2024. “Everywhere I go, [‘Hard Fought Hallelujah’] is the song people are talking about right now,” Jelly Roll said. “It’s really cool.”
Jelly Roll explained that he loves the “conversation” the song is creating. Whether the conversations are good or bad, he said, “I think it’s our jobs…to push that envelope anyways—like those conversations needed to be created.”
“But I can tell you what’s also happening is millions of people like me are finding a safe place right now in God,” Jelly Roll added. “Because I’m getting the messages that are like, ‘Yo, I’m like, a fence-riding Christian too. Like, I kind of believe. I grew up with some core values, but kind of got away from it, and you make me feel safe being talking about God again.’”
“To me, if nothing else came with this song, if it didn’t end up being the hit that it is becoming,” he said, “that if it would have just brought a few more people to [God] and the idea of somebody drinking a beer at a Jelly Roll show, and like singing this song with conviction, is the exact thing I prayed for when I got on the song.”
Nevertheless, not everyone has been pleased that Lake invited someone with Jelly Roll’s history and lifestyle to be on “Hard Fought Hallelujah.”
