Skillet Prepares For A ‘Spiritual Revolution’ After Single Debuts No. 1 On Rock Charts
NASHVILLE — Skillet frontman John Cooper says the band wants a revolution.
And from recent indications on Apple Music, fans agree.
The band has a new album called “Revolution” coming in November, but its first single debuted at No. 1 on the Apple iTunes rock and music video charts in August. Ironically, the song is called “Unpopular.”
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“I want to make very clear to people that this revolution … is not a political revolution,” Cooper told Baptist Press. “This is a spiritual revolution,” he said, “It is a revolution of love, a revolution of understanding, of reaching out to people who are hurting.”
Skillet has been around. The band has sold 22 million units worldwide, won a Billboard Music Award, received two Grammy Award nominations, and Spotify has certified they have 10 million monthly listeners.
Cooper says while the band is a very much a rock band, they are unapologetically Christian. He says the success God has given them intensifies their desire to make an impact.
“I’ve always wanted to do Christian music in the mainstream rock world. I never wanted to be just only in the Christian music world,” he said.
That vision has led them all around the world. This fall they’re touring the U.S. and parts of Central Asia and Europe.
He believes people everywhere are feeling pushed down.
People “feel all alone in the world,” he said. “They feel completely beat up by society. They have grown up in a culture that tells them there is no higher purpose. There is no God, and if there’s no God, there’s really not a static higher purpose in their life.”
Without God, people feel like some sort of “cosmic accident” and there “is not better life to come,” he said.
But Skillet members believe there is a greater purpose that is worth pursuing even if it makes a person unpopular with the current culture.
“We don’t have a lot of songs that are maybe a little tongue-in-cheek, but this one’s got some attitude to it,” Cooper said referring to the popular single.
“I think the whole point of the song is that in a world gone crazy, in a culture that loves evil and loves chaos and loves the destruction of what I would call God’s created order … I do not want to be popular,” he said. “I don’t want to be on the team.”
Cooper said the band is aware that many of their fans are not Christians and say they aren’t interested in following Jesus.
“John, I’m not into the Jesus stuff, but your music makes me feel good. You guys gave me hope,” he said fans tell often him.
“I feel like that’s a job well done for Skillet. I think that that’s throwing a seed,” he said. “I can’t force the Holy Spirit to water that seed. All I can do is throw it out.”
And that’s what they plan to do as they keep on rockin’.
The band wants to play their role in the revolution, he said, as they “tell people about a God who loves them, be non-judgmental to those who don’t accept and preach the Gospel in the most compassionate but unashamed way as we can.”
The album drops Nov. 1.
This article has been republished with permission from Baptist Press.
Brandon Porter serves as Vice President for Communications at the SBC Executive Committee.