Kickin’ Down the Door
By Andy Argyrakis, senior music editor, gmclife.com
Summer festivals are the heart of this season, and there’s no better band to dowse an already scorched crowd with even more alt-rock attitude than Skillet. The scene is Ignite Chicago, just seconds away from O’Hare airport, and the band is blasting its way through a headlining set in the sold-out expanse of a baseball stadium. Though the set list is overflowing with tunes from its 2006 blockbuster Comatose (which spawned six consecutive chart-topping singles and is currently approaching gold sales status), anticipation is particularly high for previews of the upcoming Awake (Atlantic/Ardent/INO).
Thankfully the group obliges with two fresh tunes: the lead off mainstream single “Monster” and the Christian market’s current chart burner “Hero,” both of which are destined to be enduring rock anthems full of mighty guitars, icy keys and frontman John Cooper’s unmistakably melodic screams. Add in an ultra-slick show complete with a string section, smoke machines, plus pyrotechnics (when it’s dark enough outside), and you have what amounts to a band that’s clearly the modern rock forerunner on both sides of the fence.
From pressure to productivity
Shortly after the explosive performance, Skillet invites GospelMusicChannel.com into its home away from home – the cozy and comfortable tour bus – where the charismatic leader, keyboardist/singer (and John’s wife) Korey Cooper, guitarist Ben Kasica and drummer/vocalist Jen Ledger are cooling off but still brimming with exuberance. Coming down off the high of nearly 10,000 fans going crazy for the past hour, the band reflects on the last and best three years of their career, a season simultaneously met with both elation and apprehension.
“I always thought once you got success there would be less pressure on you because you’ve finally got that fan base and you just have to put out the music, but that’s just not the case,” contends John with a chuckle. “There’s an immense amount of pressure from people on all ends wanting the record to sound a certain way and have the lyrics be either more Christian or less Christian. So all of that is happening in between doing what you normally do, and while you don’t want to listen to all those voices, you can’t help hearing them. But in preparing for the new record, we’ve spent a lot of time praying and soul searching for what God was leading us to say on the record and trying to stay true to that.”
If early concert performances of the aforementioned Awake tunes were any indication, Skillet hit the ball out of the park, maintaining its spiritually centered convictions and connecting with seeker-friendly relevance. In fact, the band’s on the verge of following in P.O.D. and Switchfoot’s footsteps as the scene’s ultimate crossover act, capable of conquering any Christian festival one night, and then laying it out righteously hard in any rock club or arena, the next. The double GRAMMY-nominees’ recent resume also includes three Top 40 tunes on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock charts, two BMI Songwriting Awards, touring alongside mainstream standouts Breaking Benjamin, Three Days Grace, Seether and Flyleaf, plus a solo headlining slot on Pollstar’s Concert Pulse Top 50 Tours for 2008.
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