HOW TO GO
What: Winter Jam 2015, featuring Skillet, Jeremy Camp, Francesca Battistelli, Newsong, etc.
When: Feb. 20, 7 p.m.
Where: U.S. Bank Arena, 100 Broadway St., Cincinnati
Cost: TBA
More Info: 513-421-4111 or www.usbankarena.com.
This will be the fourth time the Grammy-winning hard rock band, Skillet, has participated in Winter Jam 2015, the most successful annual American tour featuring Christian music. John Cooper, Skillet’s vocalist/bassist, said the show is interesting for reasons other than just for being predominantly Christian.
“It’s extremely diverse,” Cooper said. “There will be people of all ethnicities aged from 5 to 65. There will be hardcore Skillet fans, but there will be some people who don’t know who we are, who don’t even like our genre of music.”
Skillet is headlining the show, which also includes Jeremy Camp, Francesca Battistelli, Building 429, For King & Country, and, of course, Newsong, the festival founders, and others. Two years after the release of “Rise,” a concept album depicting a teen-ager facing the unique horrors of his generation, and five years after the platinum-selling “Awake,” Skillet is in the midst of writing a new album and hopes to start recording this summer.
“Every time I do a record, I always try to beat what I’ve done,” Cooper said. “I don’t plan on doing a concept album this time. Since I’m writing about myself, I’m sure there’ll be threads running throughout, but I don’t plan on a single message. Doing music as long as we have, we like to spice it up. There will always be people who wish it sounded like something else, and people who wished we tried something new, so I just write about things that are meaningful to me.”
Skillet is an unusual band in the Christian music genre. Whereas many Christian bands downplay their faith to avoid alienating secularists (and the major labels that come with them), Skillet is openly evangelical, yet they seldom mention Jesus or God directly in their music. The lyrics to several of their songs are first-person love sonnets addressed to God, but if you had no idea Skillet was a Christian band, one would assume they were directed at a girl. This had led to many observers to suspect of them of being sellouts.
“Traditionally, Christian music is for Christian people, where it’s unambiguous what you’re talking about,” Cooper said. “We do it a little bit different. I like underlying messages, something that makes me think without feeling I’m being preached at. What makes Skillet a Christian band is not every lyric on every song, but the themes behind the songs.”
What makes the “sellout” suspicion especially ironic is that Cooper, unlike many Christian artists, isn’t afraid to call out other Christian bands whom he deems inauthentic.
“There are a breed of rock bands who call themselves Christian but otherwise you’d never know it,” he said. “I’m not so on board if you call yourself a Christian but your life doesn’t look very Christian.”
Given how vocal Cooper has always been about his faith, it might seem surprising that his own family and associates didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt when he was a young man first starting out as a Christian rock musician.
“There were people who didn’t like that I wore black, who didn’t want me doing rock,” he said. “It seemed some of their beliefs were based more on tradition than the Bible. Like, when my mother yelled at me for wearing a certain T-shirt, it wasn’t because Satan was driving me to wear that shirt, it was just because she didn’t like it. Those were hard times, but it helps that they know me. My mother passed away when I was 14 but I think she would love what I’m doing now. When you know someone, you have more grace for something you don’t understand.”
About the Author