Brandon Lake’s collaboration with Jelly Roll on his new album, “King of Hearts,” inspired him to set more boundaries in his own life.
“He had told me how he threw his phone in the river after his Bridgestone show in Nashville. I was like, ‘Tell me more about that,'” Lake told Fox News Digital. “He’s like, ‘I’m calling you from a flip phone right now.’ And literally, because of that, I got a new phone. It’s not a flip phone, but I needed to get a new number. I needed it to kind of focus in on my circle of people.”
Jelly Roll went viral last December when he threw his phone into a river, admitting that he felt overwhelmed at the time about all the calls and texts he was getting.
Lake told Fox News Digital that too many people had access to his old number as he got more successful.
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“And while I would love to be friends with everyone… the bigger things have gotten, the smaller I’ve had to go,” he explained. “And really make sure I have the right people around,” adding that he’s started setting boundaries.
He released his new album “King of Hearts” this month.
“I’ve been looking forward to this day for a long time,” he said of the album release. “Funny enough, I got this tattoo a while back on my finger, King of Hearts, and just as like a reminder. More than focusing on the products and the things that I’m making, that I exist to minister to people, to minister God, but also like, ministry’s about people, I’m here to reach people, love on people, serve people, and I wanna be a king of hearts, and shepherd people well, no matter what I’m doing.”
While Lake loves singing about his faith, there’s one thing he says he wouldn’t sing about when asked.
WATCH: Brandon Lake was inspired by Jelly Roll throwing his phone in a river to set his own boundaries
“I wouldn’t sing about drugs or, you know… I’m sure there’s plenty of things. I just can’t really think. I do know what I want to sing about and that’s my faith, that’s what my family does. I wanna sing about things that have changed my life and I know that can change other people’s lives.”
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Lake said Jelly Roll first heard his new song “Hard Fought Hallelujah” on TikTok before he decided to collaborate with him on it.
He said when he first wrote the song he wasn’t sure if “the world would hear it.”
“But when you live with it for a while, and you show a few friends, the way they respond to it kinda usually tells you a lot, and we knew it was special,” he continued. “And putting it out, I’ll tell you, I would never would have imagined that Jelly Roll would have said yes. And the coolest part of the story is that he heard that song on TikTok. Before I even asked him to jump on it and fell in love with the song, was waiting for it to come out.”
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By the time he reached out to ask Jelly Roll if he’d want to record it with him “because I just felt like the lyrics would really resonate with his story, he was like, ‘Oh, I know what song this is. I’m definitely, I would love to be a part of it.’ And then it’s just produced an amazing friendship, and he’s like a brother to me now.”
He and Jelly Roll have bonded over being husbands and fathers, and he said the country star has given him lots of encouragement in his career.
Lake said he began to have his first mental health struggles a few years ago after he finished his first tour.
He said his family thought they were doing the right thing, heading straight for a family vacation to Disney World, but he hadn’t had time to decompress after the tour, and he suffered his first panic attack.
“Well, a lot of people, Disney World’s like heaven. To me, it was hell on earth at that moment in my life,” he said. “I didn’t have enough time to just like process, right? Everything, all my dreams were coming true. I just wrote with all my heroes. Just came home from my first tour and I just crashed. And one thing I had to learn was just very physically, I had adrenaline fatigue. And when you are in adrenaline fatigue, your emotional management system is under attack. Even your immune system is under attack. You can get sick, all of that.”
WATCH: Brandon Lake explains inspiration behind his new ‘King of Hearts’ album
He said he began to have scary thoughts and every insecurity was amplified.
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“I isolated myself instead of running to community and running to my wife and saying, ‘Hey, I’m having some wild thoughts,’” he explained. “And I went into a full-blown panic attack, and it was just like the voice of the enemy was so overwhelming. Every lie and insecurity was so overwhelming.”
He added, “I had a friend send me a voice memo of him praying over me because I was too prideful to pick up the phone. I thought, I’m gonna fix this myself. And when he prayed over me and I listened to it, I broke. I broke. In a great way.”
Lake finally told his wife about what he’d been struggling with, “and then I kind of began my journey, met with, started going to counseling and just realizing the toll, that the pace of life I was in, like what it was having on me, negatively. And that, I needed to find tools to stay in a healthy place.”
Since then, Lake said he’s hired a health and performance coach who helps him “spiritually, emotionally, physically.” He’s changed his diet, and he wears an aura ring to monitor his sleep and HRV.
“Spiritually speaking, though, I was trying to fill this void and chase another excitement,” he explained. “And when I came home and I didn’t have another thing to be excited about, I would try to fill it with even good things, like time with my wife and other things.”
He said it got to the point where he was so “needy” that his wife told him “’Babe, I cannot fill. I can’t be for you what you need.’ And so my counselor said one of the most elementary but helpful things. And he said, ‘Brandon, you need to relearn how to go to God first and most.’ First and most, and I wasn’t taking these things to God, and my identity was wrapped up in the things I was doing over who he’s called me to be.”
He said living on a farm has also been therapeutic.
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“Even moving out to the country has been very healing, and I needed to do something opposite of tour and the big platform,” the Christian worship singer explained. “I need to get my hands dirty. I bought a tractor. I cut the grass. I moved some dirt, and it’s been very healing.”
He added, “We’ve got cows. We have many donkeys. Tomorrow — we had a storm come through — so tomorrow, I will go from New York City to back home in the sticks outside of Charleston, South Carolina, and we had a storm come through, and a bunch of trees fell. So, I will be chainsawing some trees and making firewood and doing just very normal, yeah, just some dirty work.”
Lake said that will “do more for my heart and my head than a lot of things out there. And it’s just crazy how simple. I mean, there’s doctors prescribing people with depression time in the woods instead of pills, like time in nature. And I think God made it that way for a reason, made us that way, for reasons where it’s, man, just being by the creek will revive you.”
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“No one has just encouraged me more than him and just being like, ‘Dude, you’ve got what it’s, what it takes.’ And I’ve stepped on some really scary stages in the past few months, and he’s just believed in me every step of the way. And it’s just been, it’s been incredible.”
“King of Hearts” is out now.
