debuted<\/a> at No. 1; the album also marks his debut on the all-genre Billboard 200 (No. 57), while also debuting at No. 4 on the Americana\/Folk albums chart and No. 12 on the Top Rock & Alternative Albums chart.<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s crazy, especially the rock chart. I\u2019m like, \u2018Man, I didn\u2019t know I made rock music, but let\u2019s go,\u2019\u201d Queen told Billboard<\/em> shortly after the album\u2019s debut.<\/p>\n\n\tQueen has six songs proliferating the Hot Christian Songs chart, including \u201cDusty Bibles\u201d at No. 3, as well as his Brandon Lake collaboration, \u201cCan\u2019t Steal My Joy\u201d and other songs from the new album, \u201cCloud and Fire\u201d and \u201cWatch Your Mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tMt. Zion<\/em> also marks Queen\u2019s first album after signing with Capitol CMG \/ Capitol Records (in conjunction with F&L Music Group) earlier this year.<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cJosiah has had an exceptional year,\u201d Capitol CMG president Brad O\u2019Donnell told Billboard<\/em> in a statement. \u201cHe\u2019s had his biggest shows ever and now has released an incredible new album. Its success\u00a0across\u00a0multiple genres is a testament to the quality and depth of his music. Not only did he top the Christian charts, he also had strong showings at rock and folk, proving that his music is reaching a universal audience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tQueen is also gearing up for a potential torrent of awards wins next month at the GMA Dove Awards, thanks to his debut The Prodigal<\/em>, which also reached No. 1 on Top Christian Albums.\u00a0Queen is in the running for artist of the year at the Oct. 7 GMA Dove Awards, while \u201cThe Prodigal\u201d is up for song of the year, and the deluxe version of The Prodigal<\/em> is up for pop\/contemporary album of the year.<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cI\u2019m truly blessed. Just the fact that I can even say I have two albums, it\u2019s amazing,\u201d Queen says.<\/p>\n
\n\tBillboard<\/em> spoke to Queen about Mt. Zion<\/em>, his new label home, and the success of songs including \u201cDusty Bibles\u201d and \u201cCan\u2019t Steal My Joy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cDusty Bibles\u201d is at No. 3 on the Hot Christian Songs chart and climbing on the Christian Airplay chart. You wrote it with Zac Lawson, Dylan Thomas and John Michael Howell.\u00a0 What inspired the song?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tI was listening to Chris Martin of Coldplay talk about how all his biggest songs, he wrote in like 10 minutes. I feel like sometimes the ideas just come out of nowhere. With this album, I wanted to write about things that are practical in our lives, that keep us away from God, whether it\u2019s a song like \u201cSlow Down, Please,\u201d where I was going through a season of life where I felt like it was a million miles an hour. With \u201cDusty Bibles,\u201d I just had this thought about we\u2019ve got dust on our Bibles but brand-new iPhones. We all kind of laughed and [my co-writers] were like, \u201cYou can\u2019t put that in a song,\u201d and \u201cHow about Android users?\u201d <\/p>\n
\n\tBut it just stuck. I wrote that last October or November \u2014 we almost didn\u2019t release it. We thought we\u2019d just throw it on the album, but listening back to it, it just felt very relatable. I was spending too much time on my phone, and I felt like it was really timely. But it\u2019s also funny because, in my generation, if I didn\u2019t have TikTok or Instagram, I probably wouldn\u2019t be here [in music]. It\u2019s a cool opportunity for artists to come up and be independent, but if you find all your validation from your phone, it just never fulfills that.<\/p>\n
\n\tHow did you decide on Mt. Zion<\/em> as the title of the album?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tI wanted to write an album about the things in our lives that we try to keep away from God, and the song \u2018Mount Zion\u2019 talks about realizing we don\u2019t deserve God\u2019s love, yet we\u2019re still invited into it. It\u2019s about breaking down the walls.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Prodigal<\/em> was released independently, while Mt. Zion<\/em> was released with Capitol CMG \/ Capitol Records. What has it been like working with a label versus independently?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tThe last album, I didn\u2019t even have, funny enough, CDs or vinyls for people to buy. That\u2019s a really big thing. Also, I like to give singles a moment and not do too many. It felt like they didn\u2019t want me to change how I wanted to do things. But they came beside me and helped me on a lot of the other fronts. On [radio chain Educational Media Foundation\u2019s] Air1, the worship channel, they played a new song from the album every day [leading up to the release of Mt. Zion<\/em>], which was cool that they were able to do that.<\/p>\n\n\tYou also have a top 10 Christian Airplay hit with your Brandon Lake collaboration, \u201cCan\u2019t Steal My Joy.\u201d How did the two of you end up writing that with Hank Bentley and Jacob Sooter?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tWe met at a radio conference, and he kept saying, \u201cYou\u2019re a joy, man.\u201d He kept calling me joy and joyful, and said, \u201cLet\u2019s write a song about joy.\u201d He gave me his number and later I was at my parents\u2019 house, and I wrote that chorus and sent it to him. We wrote it over text message, he was on a tractor cutting his lawn. Honestly, it was a big compliment that he said he saw that joy in me. The line that really hit me when we were writing it was, \u201cWhat the world couldn\u2019t give me, it can\u2019t take away.\u201d It\u2019s a fun one to play live, and having Brandon on it, that\u2019s just the cherry on top.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhat other songs from the new project have you seen really connect with fans?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\t\u201cMeaning of Life.\u201d That one I did not expect for fans to relate, but when I ask, \u201cWhat\u2019s your favorite song on the album?\u201d that one comes up. My fanbase just enjoys songs that are really rooted in the Bible and that\u2019s from Ecclesiastes, where King Solomon has everything, a palace, he\u2019s rich. But he says it\u2019s meaningless. He\u2019s like, \u201cYou can toil, you can work and do all these things\u2026\u201d We try to do things, even me. Sure, I can make a No. 1 Christian album, but somebody else can come and do that. Like the song says, \u201cI don\u2019t want to live just to die and miss the meaning of this life,\u201d and it seems like people are kind of relating to that one, too.<\/p>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.billboard.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Known for his rustic, acoustic-folk sound, Contemporary Christian singer-songwriter Josiah Queen has a troubadour\u2019s knack for translating keen observations into evocative songs, such as his breakthroughs \u201cFishes and Loaves\u201d and \u201cThe Prodigal,\u201d and his most recent radio single release, \u201cDusty Bibles.\u201d Explore See latest videos, charts and news With his new album Mt. Zion, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2010122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[367427,21932],"class_list":["post-2010133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-christian-gospel","tag-music-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Melanie-Santiler-Cimafunks-Ese-Besito-Voted-Best-New-Latin-Music.gif","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2010133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2010133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2010133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2010122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2010133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2010133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2010133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}