Epic, expansive and anthemic, Skillet create the type of rock that simply explodes in a live setting. Rather than merely a show, Skillet put on an experience for their fans through authentic and energetic performances of their studio work, as well as existential banter with fans touching on everything from the bands faith, to their support of serving men and woman to frontman John Cooper’s passion for video games. We talk to John ahead of an upcoming tour to Australia to find out a little bit more about the band and their relationship with the Panheads plus his first interaction with vegemite!
Melisa: So some exciting news, Skillet have announced a tour here in Australia for November. You were last here 7 years ago in 2011 so why the long wait for the return?
John: I know, it’s been ages hasn’t it? I don’t really know why, I know that every year we’ve been discussing, ‘Ok we’re going back to Australia, we’ve gotta make time for Australia’, and things just got so busy. We started touring the world and then it’s time to make another record and it just got pushed back and I can’t believe it’s been that long so very much looking forward to coming back. Some of our favorite shows we’ve ever played, it was just great crowds and excited fans and we’re looking forward to coming back.
Melisa: Great I have read your shows are very energetic and immersive. What can fans in Australia expect on this tour?
John: Well I guess the energy of a Skillet show is what most people say about it, so there’s a lot of energy and the excitement of the fans and that excitement also kind of premiates through the crowd and of course being on stage is really fun because you kind of feed off of that energy from the crowd and the excitement and I think people just come to a Skillet show and the fans are like community. There’s always such an inspirational vibe and I think that kind of electrifies me as well on stage so it’s kind of a circle, it’s kind of cool! That’s what I usually tell people what to expect [laughs].
Melisa: So Skillet are a Christian rock band, how do you combine your faith into your music and shows?
John: I have always found music to be powerful. The music really touched me as a really young person, at 5 years old the first time I heard rock music like Michael Jackson and Van Halen the way that music made me feel always felt very meaningful and even spiritual to me actually. Just the force of music – I don’t mean religious necessarily, just spiritual in general, felt supernatural – and so I always thought that rock n roll is a great way to sing about something that you believe in whether it’s love or something religious or political or relationship or whatever it may be. I think it’s a great avenue to sing about something meaningful to you and how faith comes into my music, I write things that I believe and I feel and not all of my songs are religious. In fact a lot of my songs are not overtly religious but they are all through my world view and the way that I see things and my music always contains changes of hope and spirituality in it and so that’s how it kind of comes in. I think people say a Skillet show feels spiritual or even if the listener isn’t spiritual at all there’s something about it that feels spiritual to them and I think that’s cool.
Melisa: I guess that’s why you have such diehard fans in the Panhead, is they have that feeling too.
John: [laughs] Yeah that’s right. I think that’s part of what makes people feel, people are always tweeting after concerts that they feel that it feels like family. To be 100 percent honest I appreciate that the fans feel that way but I kind of felt it was a little corny, I kind of thought they must really like the music. I don’t know why it feels like family but I thought so often that I started recognising that’s what it’s like for Skillet fans. I don’t mean they are corny by the way, I just thought it was a little overstated, not corny. But that’s what it’s like, I think people come and people are kind of feeling hopeless all from different points of views and I started looking at the crowd and noticing, ‘Wow this is such a great amalgamation of different kinds of people’, and people are always throwing at me, ‘Hey I’m an athiest, I don’t get the Jesus stuff but your music makes me feel better’ I hear that all the time [laughs]. It always makes me laugh, ‘I don’t get this Jesus stuff but you make me feel good’, and I’m like, ‘Good that’s what music is supposed to do’. So I think that is pretty cool.
Melisa: It must be so satisfying when you do have fans come up to you and say, ‘I may not believe in the religion but you make me feel great anyway’.
John: It’s wonderful and it’s by far the best part of this job. I mean I love being a a performer and playing music is fun in general, writing music is great. Being a rock star is fun and all of it is really cool but the absolute best thing is meeting someone that says, ‘Hey your song “Sick of It” is what convinced me to go into drug rehab, I was [for] 14 years addicted to meth, or whatever that may be, ‘and that’s a song that got me through. I met somebody that said that they had been addicted for 5 or 6 years, got divorced, lost their kid into the system and after 6 years they heard one of our songs, it convinced them to go into drug rehab and he’s 3 years clean and just getting his kid back. He’s been fighting for that kid and it was because of some rock song that I wrote and that makes you feel very small and very humbled and it’s wonderful so I’m lucky to be doing this.
Melisa: That’s absolutely amazing, that is a wonderful story. I love that story! Now we were talking about the Panheads, do you have any crazy experiences with a fan or are Panheads generally well behaved?
John: [laughs] Let’s see, I mean honestly most of all the true fans are really respectful and always treat us well and of course it’s a give and take, we always treat our fans well also. I mean we have had a few experiences where maybe people like us a little too much and didn’t know where the boundaries were, that can happen sometimes but I’m usually quite forgiving unless I feel like they are not safe and that’s happened once or twice. It’s actually because Skillet has girls in the band and my wife is in the band and she’s tough but she’s only 5 foot 2 and 100 pounds [laughs] so she can feel quite intimidated by somebody I’m sure. But for the most part Skillet fans are so respectful and again just so happy to meet us, never really had too many issues.
Melisa: That’s good! So John I have read that you have a passion for video games, being a gamer myself I have to ask – your favorite game and console of choice?
John: Haha I’m going to date or age myself or whatever they want to call it, my favorite console is still the original Nintendo NES because it was ony 2D and that’s what I grew up on so those are the games I’m most comfortable with. I love the original Castlevania and Contra, those are my favorite but I do play some other video games. They’ve kinda gotten quite complex but being that my son loves the games now, all of the lego stuff is kind of amazing! The lego Batman and all that stuff is unreal and I’ll tell you what I really loved and not everybody knows it but I really loved The Devil May Cry series.
Melisa: Oh yeah right!
John: If you know The Devil May Cry, I think there’s 3 or 4 of them and I love those games. It was a bit fantasy horror I guess but I thought those were really cool. I loved the Lord Of The Rings games when PS2 came out and PS3, those were great.
Melisa: Oh yeah the Lord Of The Rings games were pretty crazy, at that time. Have you ever considered writing music for games, lending Skillet music to games?
John: Yeah we had a little bit, we’ve been featured on the WWE video games which was a really cool look because I love wrestling. I was very excited about that, on 2 of their video games so those were really cool. In terms of writing new original music for a video game, never been asked to do that – yeah that would be really fun and really cool! There is something about rock n’ roll and video games that to me always felt synonymous, same with wrestling and rock n’ roll, those two things are always meant to go together. Of course that’s all subjective because you guys think vegemite and bread goes together but I can’t bear witness on that.
Melisa: [laughs].
John: Oh my gosh last time I was there they made me try it, I thought, ‘OK you must have to grow up on vegemite.
Melisa: Oh so you not got the taste of vegemite at all then?
John: Not yet and not something I’ll try again but it didn’t hit me right the first time [laughs].
Melisa: I do think it’s an acquired taste and most of us were brought up on it, right from when we were born we were given toast with vegemite on it [laughs]. So Skillet have 5 studio albums under the belt and the tour coming up in November, what’s next for Skillet?
John: Well we are working on a project right now, it is going to be next year. We’re about a little over half way recording it actually, we’ve been recording it as we tour which has been a real fun experience. Not everybody likes to do that, I’ve quite enjoyed it actually I think probably because I get quite inspired by the fans. A lot of the songs I write are stories of people that I talk to, they tell me stories of how music helps them or what they are going through and I get inspired and I write songs about it a lot of the times. It also relates to my own life and how I relate to it so I think in that inspiration, seeing the fans and singing the songs every night, I’ve enjoyed writing on the road because I get inspired. I can write, I can record while we’re touring which has been really cool. Another big thing going on right now is just last week I only just announced that I started a side project, a band called Fight The Fury and we’re going to be announcing very soon when that EP is slated to release. So I’m kind of doing a little band on the side for fun and exploring new ground there so there’s quite a lot going on in the Skillet world.
SKILLET November 2018 Australian Tour Dates
Thursday 15th – Sydney – Big Top
Saturday 17th – Brisbane – Eatons Hill Hotel
Sunday 18th – Melbourne – Forum
Monday 19th – Adelaide – HQ
Tickets: https://metropolistouring.com/skillet-2018/
