During a recent interview with Allie Beth Stuckey, Skillet frontman John Cooper opened up about his teenage years and how his mother’s death influenced his decision to start the Christian rock band Skillet—despite despite his mother’s warnings warnings that his music would be used for evil.
Cooper joined Stuckey on her podcast to discuss the recent demonic accusations surrounding Skillet’s cover of “O Come, O Come Emanuel.”
Next year, Skillet will celebrate 30 years as a band. The band consists of Cooper (lead vocals, bass), Cooper’s wife, Korey (rhythm guitar, keyboards, backing vocals), Jen Ledger (drums, vocals), and Seth Morrison (lead guitar, backing vocals).
Throughout the course of the band’s career, Skillet has been nominated for two Grammy Awards, received nine Dove Awards, and a Billboard Music Award. Although it is a Christian band, Skillet is known for touring with secular artists, including Papa Roach, Theory of a Dead Man, Shinedown, Korn, Puddle of Mud, Creed, and Sevendust.
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“My mom got cancer when I was 12,” Cooper told Stuckey. “She fought cancer for three years on and off…[when] it came back again. She got really sick. She died when I was 15.”
Cooper shared that during that time, he and his mother fought “a lot about music” and other teenage things like “haircuts” and clothing styles.
Describing how strict his parents were, Cooper recalled getting grounded because he didn’t shave my mustache. “It wasn’t a mustache. I had a few random hairs,” he joked. “And I kept forgetting to do it. And my parents were like, ‘You’re ruining your Christian witness. You look like a drug dealer, and people are going to think that you serve Satan.’ It was always heavy like that.”
His mother’s death made Cooper realize many things he was being taught about religion weren’t true. “Jesus is real. The Bible is real,” he said, but “I think a lot of this [other] stuff needs to go. And I just was like, I can listen to whatever I want to listen to. But the truth is, I still didn’t listen to secular metal. I listened to only Christian music.”
“Christian music was there for me. It really changed me, helped me, kept me grounded in my faith in incredible ways,” Cooper explained. Bands like Petra and Stryper and artists like Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith were very influential to Skillet’s frontman. They “really helped me because they really sang—most of them—Scripture most of the time,” he said.
It was then that Cooper began to contemplate writing songs that could help those struggling with “depression, suicidal thoughts, a death, [or] getting bullied at school.”
