Jadon Lavik

Jadon Lavik requires balance. As a father to one youngster and another on the way (any day as of press time), there’s the call to be present at home and yet attend to his job. As a worship leader in the local church setting as well as being signed to a label (BEC Recordings), there’s a need to tour and yet be around for the church.

And even artistically, his upcoming album, Art & Soul, finds the California resident balancing all-out worship tracks with life-driven pop numbers. Soul-Audio caught up with Lavik on a Friday morning to discuss the upcoming work, his latest acoustic album and how he keeps it all in balance.

Soul-Audio: Are you still affiliated with Saddleback at all?

Jadon Lavik: No, I haven’t worked there for about five years. [Laughs] I’m still friends with a lot of their staff there and that’s probably why a lot of people get confused, but I’m on staff at a church about 30 minutes south of Saddleback in San Clemente.

SA: How does that work balancing responsibilities at the church and the career with BEC?

Jadon: You know, it’s a constant struggle honestly. It’s one of those things where I’m kind of settling into what works for a number of different reasons. One is balancing the family as well – that’s the third dynamic. I have a wife, 2-year-old and another baby boy due any minute. So I’m just getting pulled. I just finished The Road, the acoustic record, and I’m working on another album due in March.

So it’s like, ‘Okay, this is a crazy season, Lord.’ Fortunately, I’m at a church that’s really supportive of what I do. I think they value the fact that I go out and play concerts and have albums and have to do stuff like this and for radio. I think they admire that and the church people are supportive as well. They get excited about it and they pray for me to go out and do things. That’s all cool. It’s the inevitable challenge of who gets me and when, but there’s an understanding there and that was true when they hired me. So far that hasn’t been a big problem.

SA: So do you get a certain number of Sundays off or how does that work with touring?

Jadon: I don’t really do concerts now, just because the last couple of years, I haven’t had a record that I really wanted to tour that much. I had a hymns record before this one and it didn’t really make sense to do a full-on tour in the way the industry typically tours, you know? It was more of a specialty album. This acoustic one is along the same lines. It recreates what we do. I go out with a guitar player a lot, so it’s a duo thing and we do this acoustic kind of set.

So that was the idea behind this record, The Road, to replicate that. We’d sell CDs at concerts and people would wonder what sounds like what we had just performed. So you’d explain that this was the full-band record and there was no option there. So we wanted to put something out that sounded acoustic since there were the requests for that. All but two of the songs are re-recordings of previously released songs. So there’s only two brand new songs and those are just teasers hopefully for fans to realize that I’m working on some new stuff as well. The idea behind it, and we even talked about this from a label standpoint, is that it’s more for the fans. The label’s not doing a big push behind it. It’s for people who are already clued in.

SA: So what’s the vision for the upcoming album in March?

Jadon: That’s the album where we’re going back to the norm. It’s a full band production. There’s new songs that I wanted to get out as a songwriter. You really hear the songs in your head bigger with full-production when you write them, so I want to record them that way. So it’s all new material out in March. And I’ll do a lot more touring on that record since it’s all new material and it’s a full band. I’ll be in a season of life where I’m a little more settled as well, so that lends to more concerts.

SA: What’s the title for that?

Jadon: It’s a play on words, so to speak. It’s called Art & Soul. Without giving away the whole thing, the idea behind it is I felt the songs were very split down the middle. There are total artist songs that don’t fill in all the blanks, so to speak. Then there are these unashamed congregational worship songs. I think it’s split right down the middle between worship and artistic poppy songs, which has always been what I gravitated toward. So I wanted an album title that reflected that division. We called it Heart and Soul originally, but then I wanted to change it.

SA: What’s the timeline officially?

Jadon: Well, I’m still recording, so we don’t have a firm Tuesday yet. But it will be sometime in March. I’m about two-thirds of the way through. There are a couple speedbumps as I said, just because of my wife being due next week. And you know how the holidays work. But I hope to be done in the next five weeks or so and then we can get it out by March.

↓ 3 comments

#1 Clay on November 11th, 2009 at 8:25 am

11/10/09 New songs?! YEA! “Art and Soul” – I like that. I appreciate PCC sharing you with us (Fans), often wondered about that. But Jadon,if you are thinking a 2 year old and a newborn are gong to make your life more settled – you’re dreaming! Thanks for the interview.

#2 Clay on March 6th, 2010 at 1:21 am

3/5/10 Re-visiting this article. Gee Matt – 5/10 for this article? I enjoyed your interview with Jadon Lavik. You brought out stuff I have wanted to ask him myself. This is a good job Matt. Thanks – and I guess thanks to Jadon too.

#3 Clay on May 28th, 2010 at 12:21 pm

5/28/10 Hey Matt – your article on Jadon Lavik popped again. I still think you should have given yourself better than 5 out of 10 – this article is good! I wondered how Jadon balanced his work at PCC, his touring and his family life. I’m glad PCC is supportive of what he does. His outreach has been very valuable to me. I liked your exploration of his different production styles. Rich “full band” production, and the more personal acoustic sound. After hearing “Art & Soul” I appreciate what you mean. Love the “worship songs,” of course, but the “artists songs” were a surprise – subtile enough for my “non-church” friends. Well, Matt – thanks for sharing your interview.

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