Q and A: John Cooper (Skillet)

By PAUL SOUTHWELL

AMERICAN hard rock band Skillet are one of those huge international bands that you might not have heard of [if you’ve been living under a rock, or are of a certain vintage], but they have a legion of dedicated, fervent fans who devour all that they do with unbridled enthusiasm. Their first tour to our neck of the woods was a roaring success. And now, their return visit looks set to sell out across the country, with remaining tickets in limited supply and venues upgraded, indicating their popularity.

Skillet’s videos and songs have digital streaming statistics that would be the envy of many a long-established high-end artist and their most recent album, Dominion, could not be a more appropriate album title. Hot Metal caught up with driving force, lead vocalist and bassist, John Cooper recently for a relaxed chat about everything from his early days of music appreciation to his unwavering love of the under-appreciated sub-genre of Christian metal, and what makes Skillet unique.

Hot Metal: You’re touring here again, and it appears at least one show is already sold out, scaled up to a bigger venue, which is not surprising. 

John Cooper: “I did hear about that. I believe it was Sydney.”

HM: Yes, and last time you were here, you packed out the Big Top at Luna Park in 2018, which is a large venue. It must be very heartening to know that you’ve got a stack of fans here in Australia.

JC: “Oh yeah, and it always surprising because we don’t get to Australia a whole lot, mainly because it is so far away. But every month we get sent Spotify charts and we’ll look up all of our demographics and I’ll go, ‘Man, a couple of the biggest cities in the world for Skillet are in Australia! We’ve got to keep going back down there!’ I think that we would have come back sooner had it not been for the pandemic. That sort of pushed everything back a couple of years. We had such a huge turn out the last time we were in Australia. I am thrilled to be coming back there and I cannot wait to see the fans.”

HM: Indeed, and a song like “Monster” has now got around four billion streams. I am not sure what that translates to in today’s economy, but it is an apt song title given the spread.

JC: “Right, ha-ha, yes, it is, and the music world has changed a lot so these days, so you definitely don’t do as many record sales as you used to do, obviously. Then you have the streaming thing so it is almost like having to be willing to change with the times and to figure out how people are listening to music now and what is the best way that we can go about it. So, we are being a little strategic and I don’t mind that because it is just that technology is changing everything very quickly. The good part though, is that now, people all over the world can hear your songs, and you can build up a following in different ways. I would say that without the Internet I don’t really think that we would have been coming to Australia and Europe, or Russia, and Japan, you know, all of the various places that we have been.”

HM: How did having Adam [Gontier – Saint Asonia] contribute to the re-recorded song “Finish Line” come about?

JC: “That song, funnily enough, was actually written in 2019, and it was released on our album, Victorious, and that album was out in August or September of 2019, which was only about four or five months before the pandemic hit. The song kind of got buried, it never really came out of radio, and we never really got to tour the song. So what was interesting was that in 2021 or 2022, that song started getting a lot of streams, and that is another good example of what we were talking about. It wasn’t really released as a single but then it started streaming a lot, and in fact, it was streaming a lot more than our radio singles had from that particular album. But that song was more poignant now than it was in 2019 because the pandemic had sort of changed the way a lot of people viewed the world, and how we view life; just how short life is, the things that matter and wanting to not give up on your life. So, I think that after the pandemic, those kinds of things hit people a little bit differently so the songs starting spiking. So, we said, ‘Why don’t we re-record this song, give it a little different flair, giving the band something new?’ and then I was just like, ‘Oh my gosh, I wonder if Adam would sing this song?’ and he did, which was a real honour.”

HM: Did you write the album Dominion with the pandemic in mind, or was something you wanted to keep completely out of it?

JC: “Actually, it was, but not that every song was necessarily tied to the pandemic. But it certainly was all written during the pandemic and that puts you in a different frame of mind. What I started seeing online, I was really disheartened that so many people were so depressed and sad, and I had a couple of friends that found themselves back into alcohol addiction, and drug addiction. It was somebody that had kicked it years ago and been sober for some five to 10 years, and then the pandemic hit and after six months [they slipped]. And I think it was that feeling that I think most of us probably remember, which is when you realise, this isn’t going away anytime soon. It was lockdowns for two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, and we were thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, this is really going to last,’ and people were going back into that addiction. I also had another friend whose kid committed suicide, and he was [understandably] just depressed. These young people were just down, and it made me want to write a record that was saying to people, ‘hey, you cannot control pandemics, and you cannot control the things outside of yourself, but you can control how you deal with it – your inner life, you know, the fear that you’re dealing with, that feeling that you just want to give up’. So I wanted to write an album that was saying, ‘don’t give up, keep pushing, you can control this, don’t give in to the fear’. So that is what we did but I wouldn’t say that the songs are necessarily tied to a certain time period, but that is the way that it was birthed.”

HM: In that light, would you say that your song lyrics are intentionally against nihilism? That sentiment of hopelessness is quite prevalent in the rock field.

JC: “Yeah, I would say that is the case. I would imagine, or I assume that most people write songs from where they are at in their lives, and if you want to be an authentic songwriter then you’re writing about how you feel and what you believe. It is the way you see the world, you know? And so I hate nihilism. I just think that it is destructive, and I grew up in a pretty nihilistic time, the eighties and the nineties. The nineties were when I was becoming an adult, so I was right at that shift, and certainly in America, the eighties were a time of excess, materialism, and everything was big; larger than life. In the music world, it was hair metal, which I love, but it was Bon Jovi, and Mötley Crüe and all those great hair metal bands. Then the nineties came in, and that was a very nihilistic time. It was where we sort of like realised that all of the materialism did not give you the satisfaction that we thought it would. We had all the money, the success, and the whatever, but it still doesn’t fill that empty void. So, all of sudden the music was nihilistic, and it was all, ‘nothing matters, screw the world, hate the world,’ and I think that is a very destructive thing, and it was a very destructive decade actually. But I understand where it all comes from, so sometimes you will see in my lyrics, I may well tap into that nihilism and that feeling that nothing matters and life is all for nothing. But then with Skillet, you’ll find that all of sudden we will flip it and say, ‘but, I don’t want to feel that way, I want to believe that there is something better in life, something bigger in life for the people that I love’ and that is why there are a lot of spiritual undertones in Skillet’s music. That nihilism will lead you to depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, et cetera. So, as I alluded to, about not giving in to fear, there is actually a Bible verse [2 Timothy 1:7] that I really love, that I really think is a kind of a life verse for me, I guess you would say, and it says, ‘I have not given you a spirit of fear, but of power, love and of sound mind,’ and you can hear that verse in lots and lots of Skillet songs.”

HM: It makes sense then that Skillet has played shows with Stryper, yet on the other side, you’ve played alongside Steel Panther, which is a massive contrast.

JC: “Ha-ha, ah yeah, that’s right. We have done a little bit of everything and to you the truth, that is what I love about Skillet. Because we are a very inclusive group, because I think that music draws people together from across political divides, and between religious and non-religious viewpoints, so I just think that music is one of the few things that everybody in the whole world kind of agrees on. No matter where you come from, music generally makes you feel better. I listen to a lot of music from people who do not agree with me on my world view, such as I said earlier, Mötley Crüe, whom I don’t know if we would agree on a lot of things, but I love the music. We get to play with a lot of amazing bands and I don’t ever want that [difference] to come between us. They sing about what they sing about, and I have a chance to sing about what I want to, and so, we’ve just gotten to do it all, man.”

HM: The metal bands from the eighties were great, including Dio and Iron Maiden, but then along came talented bands from the Christian side with Bloodgood, Whitecross, Tourniquet and Vengeance, which was very interesting. 

JC: “Wow, it is funny that you know all those bands as I don’t often do interviews with people who know of those bands, which is really, really funny. But I love that music. I really loved Barren Cross; do you remember Barren Cross?”

HM: Oh yeah, Atomic Arena was great.

JC: “Yeah, Atomic Arena, that was one of my favourites, they were my favourite. But I loved all of those Christian metal bands, that most people don’t know about, and they didn’t get enough credit. There would be no Skillet without those bands. My influences are very deep though because all of my friends were listening to metal. When I first heard metal, I just fell in love with it; I mean, Def Leppard, Metallica, Mötley Crüe, Bon Jovi, I just loved all of that music. I loved the hair metal stuff and it was probably in the early nineties when I backtracked, and I discovered what I would call arena rock or even classic, and progressive rock. It was bands like Kansas, Yes, Styx and Fleetwood Mac, you know, some of the more musical groups, I guess you would call them. I just fell in love with that very over the top, symphonic, complicated rock, and that is probably when I started delving into progressive metal like Dream Theater. So Skillet’s stuff kind of does run deep. There is a lot of metal influence, certainly Christian metal because I wanted to support those bands. But sometimes you’ll hear some elements in Skillet of the symphonic stuff, and that is coming from my seventies influences of Journey, Fleetwood Mac, and all that kind of stuff.”

HM: So, I gather there is a bit of the late Chris Squire’s bass style in your bass playing?

JC: “Oh yeah, Chris Squire is my favourite bass player. Actually, Yes is my number one favourite band of all time.” 

HM: Really, I would not have thought that.

JC: “Yeah, ha-ha.”

HM: Given you’re from Tennessee, I presumed that the Elvis influence would have loomed large on everyone there.

JC: “Ah yeah, but I’ve got a funny story, and because of your love for music, I think you’re going to find this really interesting. I grew up in Memphis and yes, of course, my parents grew up during the Elvis time and all that kind of stuff. That was all kind of like happening down the road from where they lived, at the time when they grew up. But I grew up in a very religious household and I was disallowed to listen to rock music so I couldn’t listen to anything  much, you know, Elvis was like the devil, you know, anything with drums and anything with guitars was outlawed in my house and that is where this kind of bifurcation happens, where I was in fifth or sixth grade, at 11 or 12 years old, and all of my friends where listening to metal. I would go to their houses and I would hear all of this amazing music and was like, ‘what is this?’ and they’d say, ‘this is heavy metal, this is Quiet Riot,’ and so I’d hear this stuff, and love it, but my parents were saying, ‘no, you cannot listen to that,’ but then a friend at my church gave me Petra and Stryper albums as an alternative to that music. So that is where my love for Christian metal comes from, even though my parents didn’t want me listening to Christian music either because they believed that Christian music was also from the devil. But I finally convinced them to let me listen to a few select Christian artists and so Christian music was sort of my alternative to everything that my friends were listening to, and I desperately wanted my friends to like this Christian metal because the truth was that these bands were really good. But my friends didn’t want to listen to it because it was Christian metal, so that is all kind of woven in to my own story as to why I am so unapologetic about my Christian music roots and so on, when people ask, because I always want to give it up for those bands. I mean, those bands got me where I am, and they were really very talented artists, but people just didn’t always give them the time of day. So that is kind of my funny story, so Elvis did not have a huge impact on me directly because I was not allowed to listen to Elvis. But yeah, definitely Elvis looms large; blues music and that kind of dirty South music, you might call it, with the horns and all that kind of stuff, all that gospel music. It was very big in Memphis.”

HM: I can empathise because when I was a lad my Mum took me took a Christian bookshop and I found the debut Whitecross album [Whitecross], which Rex Carroll’s guitar playing had aspects of Randy Rhoads and George Lynch, so I was happy.

JC: “Oh yeah, I love Whitecross, because Whitecross kind of sounded like Ratt, and I love Ratt, I am a huge Ratt fan.”

HM: Given your love of eighties metal, and Skillet’s line up with Jen [Ledger – drums] and Seth [Morrison – lead guitar] being younger, who do you relate to them musically?

JC: “Yeah, I mean, let’s see, this line up has been around…I believe that Jen has been in the band for 16 years, and Seth has been in the band for about 13 years. So, this is the longest Skillet line-up, and after a decade it starts feeling like you’ve been with each other forever, you know. We just get along great, there are such great people, and they are killer musicians. Seth is a shredder, but it is weird because he kind of grew up in a time where guitar shredding was really not all that popular. He grew up in the nineties and the early 2000s, and there wasn’t a lot of shredding happening then. But he has an older brother who is 14 years older than him. So, he was one of those ‘surprise’ kids, you know, when the parents thought they were done and then 15 year later, ‘Oh my gosh, what is happening?’ and so he grew up with an older brother who was always listening to Van Halen and Metallica. So, Seth grew up, as a kid, thinking that that is what rock music is, it is Van Halen and Metallica, and he was right, by the way.” 

HM: Yes, agreed. Ha-ha.

JC: “So he grew up listening to all of that and so he is a metal head, who was kind of unaware that that was unusual, at a time when a lot of his friends were growing up more on the pop punk music of the early 2000s, and whatever was hitting at that time, which was shredding guitar solos, typically. That’s kind of a funny story but if anyone has seen Skillet live, they know that we’ve got two girls in the band that just crush. Our girls are just so absolutely awesome. Our drummer Jen is like watching Dave Grohl if he was a pretty woman instead of a dude. Ha-ha.”

HM: Skillet’s live performance also relies heavily on backing vocals, and all band members can sing. Is that something that was a calculated approach or did it just naturally happen?

JC: “I think that for Skillet, it just kind of happened, One time, when I was writing a song, and I was thinking, ‘this song would be really cool with a female vocal’ you know, and again that was what Fleetwood Mac did. They would also intersperse some of the male vocals in there, so why not try it? Also, at the time, I was thinking that I had always liked how Linkin Park, who are certainly one of my favourite bands from the nineties, if not the favourite band from then. And I liked how they did the combinations from rapping to singing or both at the same time, then they’d scream and sing together, creating this great drama. I thought that was really cool and wondered if we could do something like that, so I suspect that is how it began. It all dawned on me, and I thought, ‘well, of course, I mean, I sing, Corey [Cooper – rhythm guitar and keyboards], my wife, sings, so let’s try some of that’ and then when Jen joined the band, I didn’t even know that she could sing when she joined the band. So I thought, ‘that could be cool, now we have three of us [singing]’ and so I was just doing this dramatic interplay, using it like you might use an instrument. Sometimes you’re singing and then you want to have a counter melody on guitar, and so that can be a vocal. That vocal can be the counter melody which adds another layer or even another dimension to the song to get excited about. It worked and then it became known as something that Skillet does, maybe as part of our signature sound, which really wasn’t the plan, but I am glad that it worked because it is unique.”

HM: Thanks very much for your time, I’ll let you go.

JC: “Great to chat with you. Thank you so much”.

HM: No worries, and make sure Seth learns to play “Nagasake”.

JC: “You got it.”

 

SKILLET AUSTRALIAN TOUR

4/4: Enmore Theatre, Sydney

5/4: Eatons Hill Hotel, Brisbane

7/4: Northcote Theatre, Melbourne (SOLD OUT)

8/4: Hindley Music Hall, Adelaide

10/4: Astor Theatre, Perth (SOLD OUT)