Jelly Roll and Brandon Lake are opening up about ther “Hard Fought Hallelujah” duet. Jelly Roll teamed up with the Christian artist for the song, a collaboration that might never have happened if Jelly Roll hadn’t performed “Believe” with  Brooks & Dunn at the 2024 CMA Awards.

“I watched the CMA Awards with Brooks & Dunn,” Lake recalls to K-Love, as part of a joint interview between the two singers. “You performed this song called ‘ I Believe.’ So this is some time before I heard back from Jelly and his team. I fell asleep during the awards show. I’m chilling in bed, it’s late at night. I wake up the next morning, and the first thing I see on my phone is a video of Jelly’s performance, and Brooks & Dunn. I opened it up, still laying in bed and I watched this happen. I had never seen church like this happen in this place. It was so unexpected, and I’m literally laying there, and I start bawling my eyes out.

“I felt the spirit of God translate through my phone, from that moment, after the fact,” he continues. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. This is the dude. He just led the world in worship.’ I don’t think anyone saw it coming. People were standing up, lifting their hands, there are tears rolling down their face. I was just so moved. It gave me all the confidence in the world that this is a dude we have to ask to get on this song.”

Jelly Roll’s spiritual change coincided with his physical change. The Nashville native has already lost more than 140 pounds, with vows to use a lot more in 2025.

“I started really changing my life in the last year, as far as focusing on my health, and realizing that my mind, my body, my spirit weren’t connected to each other,” Jelly Roll reflects. “I wasn’t thinking the right way. I was carrying 500 and some pounds, and because of that, my spirit was broken. I just turned to the shame cycle a little bit, the spiral. I couldn’t get myself out of it. I started working out, I started reconnecting with my faith, and then I hear this record, and I’m like, ‘This is crazy.'”

By his own admission, Jelly Roll wasn’t a likely choice for Lake to choose. Lake was aware of Jelly Roll’s past, which did little to dissuade him from asking Jelly Roll to be part of “Hard Fought Hallelujah.”

“I don’t know what Bible somebody is reading who would hate on a collaboration like this,” Lake says. “If you look at Jesus’ life, look who He spent time with. Even the 12 he called were jacked up.”

Jelly Roll spent a lot of years in and out of prison, fighting addictions and other hardships. Baptized when he was 14, the 40-year-old admits he might have never strayed from the church if he had found someone like Lake earlier in his life.

“He said to me on the phone everything I wish the church would have,” Jelly Roll says. “The way he made me feel is like, ‘Man, if I felt this way on Sunday when I went to a couple of churches, God knows where my journey would be at right now.’ Maybe the things people are still mad at me at for not being where they think I should be, maybe I’d already be there.”

Jelly Roll can at least now acknowledge how far he has come in the last few years, which gives him the strength to keep moving forward as the best version of himself as possible.

“If you knew how I was talking at interviews five years ago, and it’s all over the internet. Go look it up.” Jelly Roll says. “And then you see how I’m talking today, imagine what God can do with me in five years. And then look at what God’s already doing with me.”

Download or stream “Hard Fought Hallelujah” here. Find all of Jelly Roll’s music and upcoming shows at JellyRoll615.com.