Skillet's John Cooper On Listening To Christ Over Celebrities
On The Babylon Bee Interview Show, Kyle and Ethan talk to John Cooper of Skillet. They talk about CCM fame, discovering Petra, and weird band names. John Cooper is the lead singer, bassist, and producer for Skillet. Skillet has become one of the best-selling bands with two Grammy award nominations and has gone platinum twelve times. He has recently written a book titled Awake and Alive to Truth, where he dives into the most asked questions in modern culture. Be sure to check out The Babylon Bee YouTube Channel for more podcasts, podcast shorts, animation, and more. To watch or listen to the full podcast, become a subscriber at https://babylonbee.com/plans Topics Discussed Journey to CCM fame Viral Facebook post Being convicted with faith Awake and Alive To Truth Book Becoming famous young Celebrity Christians Growing up without Rock music MTV and Beat It Michael W. Smith Seeing Petra live Stryper story Comparing Skillet to other bands Secret to weird band names Korn Googling Skillet Iron Maiden Duets Raising kids with the Skillet voice Touring with kids Subscriber Portion Pyrotechnic story Props John Cooper's gymnastics skills Band's feeling entitled Creed story Positive lyrics Almost becoming Bono Women in the band 10 questions
I just have to say that I object strenuously to your use of the word hilarious.
Hard-hitting questions.
What do you think about feminism?
Do you like it?
Taking you to the cutting edge of truth.
Yeah, well, Last Jedi is one of the worst movies ever made, and it was very clear that Ryan Johnson doesn't like Star Wars.
Kyle pulls no punches.
I want to ask how you're able to sleep at night.
Ethan brings bone-shattering common sense from the top rope.
If I may, how double dare you?
This is the Babylon B interview show.
Hey, everybody.
Babylon B interview show.
Kyle.
Ethan.
And coming up soon, John Cooper of Skillet.
Yes.
John Cooper of Skillet.
Now, people have been interviewing John Cooper of Skillet a lot about the woke culture and like how all the Christians are getting all woke.
And we kind of did, but we really kind of just got into like rock band.
We were just fascinated by he's played with all these secular bands and lived this crazy rock and roll lifestyle, but kept his faith through the whole thing.
That seemed to be more of the angle we went with.
We just said, hey, you got any cool stories?
Yeah, this is definitely a Got Any Cool Stories episode.
And he had some cool stories.
He did have some really cool stories.
He was a lot of fun.
Yeah, cool guy.
And if you want to check him out.
I forgot to ask him about his eyeliner, though.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I don't know.
How much eyeliner is too much eyeliner for a Christian?
It feels like a big step in your life.
And when do you decide to put the eyeliner on?
I'm going to go with the eyeliner.
And the first time, I don't know.
It feels like maybe that would be a.
I guess we should have asked him this.
We should have worn eyeliner to interview.
That's exactly solidarity.
Okay, so he sings vocals and plays bass for Skillet.
He hosts the Cooper Stuff podcast.
Cooper stuff.
Cooper stuff.
And if you go to his website, johnlcooper.com, you can get his book, Awaken Alive to Truth, Finding Truth in the Chaos of a Relativistic World.
And if you get the audio book, he does the entire book in his signature, screaming and singing at the same time.
Awake and alive to truth.
Awake, awake.
Without further ado, John Cooper.
Hi, John.
All right, everyone.
We are here with a very exciting interview.
This is shocking, really.
And it's just what it is.
We're talking to a man who got famous during the late 90s CCM boom.
And he was a Christian.
He believed in God, all that stuff, believed in the Bible.
And now, today, he has come out and said that he still believes in all that stuff.
Oh, man.
So it's an incredible story.
Very rare and shocking.
Hey, John.
John Cooper.
Skillet.
How you doing?
That took me a second to get.
I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sorry.
It's early.
It's early.
Yes, it is shocking.
Still holding to the faith.
Yeah, man.
It feels like it.
I don't know.
I look back at all my heroes from that time and I'm like, oh, yeah, they're all not Christians anymore.
Or maybe never were.
I don't know.
But yeah.
It can be kind of depressing.
But one thing that you're inaccurate on is that we did not get famous in the late 90s.
We started in the late 90s.
It took us 11 years to get famous, but we got there.
Oh, I heard of you in the late 90s.
So to be famous, thank you.
Oh, yeah.
Because we were into the because we were in the CCM stuff, you know.
Or do you call it CCM?
It was like the you guys were on Forefront.
when you start out, when do you, yeah.
What was your earliest days?
No, that's true, actually.
We were on, we were actually on a very small label called Ardent.
Ardent music was through Forefront.
So we were on, they would call us Ardent Forefront.
But there's only a few bands on Ardent.
If you remember, Big Tent Revival, remember them?
I love Big Tit Revival.
What would Jesus do?
Yeah, that's right.
What would Jesus do at my school?
Oh, I actually love Big Tit.
Steve Wiggins is still a friend of mine, actually.
And Steve Wiggins still loves Jesus too, believes in authority of scripture and everything.
There's two of them.
That's right.
So that's pretty good news.
But yeah, there was a bunch of awesome Christian music in the late 90s and tooth and nail and all the rock stuff.
You had hardcore.
There was just so much great music.
It was a pretty exciting time, actually.
Was there a time when Skillet was KK?
So I have this memory of, because I went to all these tooth and nail shows back then.
I swear there was this band.
I swear it was called Skillet, but it was like one or two guys and they opened.
They were like the beginning.
Were you ever like a one or two man band?
No, no.
When we started.
My memory is bad.
Yeah, yeah.
I think you've gone insane.
You've gotta be aware of it.
It's probably another similar sounding, like, you know, it was like cast iron skillet or something.
Some other name that sounded similar.
Saucepan.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Saucepan.
Maybe so.
I'm tooth and nail.
All right.
Well, there goes my own question I had.
You can go home now.
You're done.
So you've been making the rounds.
You're talking about how all the crazy woke culture, everyone's getting woke.
Yeah, everyone's getting woke.
And you're boldly speaking out.
So we highly enjoyed your viral Facebook post that you posted where you talked about you just kind of, it was, I think it was in the wake of, was it Josh Harris?
I kissed dating goodbye.
Was that when you posted that?
Yes, around that time.
It was Josh Harris and then somebody else three weeks later or something.
I don't know.
There's been a bunch of them.
It was the worship, a worship writer from Hillsong, and I can't remember his name, Marty Sampson, I think it was.
Okay.
So, yeah, there wasn't a question there.
I just said, do you remember when you posted that?
I do remember when I posted it.
I remember because funny enough, you know, it had been for several years at the time, I had been thinking, I just feel like I'm going to explode.
I like, what is going on?
And I wanted to say something, but then I was like, I had all these conflicting feelings.
One of the conflicting feelings was there's so much hostility and so much volatility.
Why say anything?
Why jump in and make it worse?
Like, there's already enough fuel to the fire.
Just don't say anything at all.
And maybe it'll go away.
That was something that I've been wrestling with for a couple of years.
And then another thought I had was, I'm just a singer in a rock and roll band.
Nobody's going to care what I have to say about anything.
Why even do it?
And it was actually my wife that finally was like, because I was just livid.
I was livid when after Joshua Harris and Marty Sampson.
And I was just angry.
And my wife was like, you need to write something about it.
And I was like, why?
Nobody cares what I have to say.
Nobody's going to even read it.
And I think my Facebook page at the time, I only had, I think I had 3,500 followers or something.
So I was just like, worst case scenario, my wife is right.
She'll get mad at me if I don't write it.
And I don't like to cross my wife.
And so I'll write it.
I'll post it.
3,000 people see it.
No one cares.
And so I posted it and about two hours later, Corey, my wife Corey, was like, how's your post going?
I said, oh, I don't know.
I just, I did it.
I don't even really care.
And I opened it up and it had like 2,000 shares.
And I was like, what's happening?
And all of a sudden it started getting all these messages in and it became a whole thing.
But that was really just because my wife made me do it.
So there's a lesson.
Always listen to your wife.
She knows best.
Yeah, in that post, you talk about how when people leave the faith, they always act like they came up with this new objection to Christianity.
Like they're like, oh, yeah, can God make a rock so big he can't lift it?
Yeah, exactly.
Chris has never answered this before.
Yeah, they're like, I got this great new idea.
Nobody's ever thought it.
And my name's Pelagian.
Yeah, it's kind of like, you're not the first person.
That's what made me so mad about it.
I'm not livid if somebody struggles with their faith.
Lots of people struggle with their faith.
I'm not super mad if somebody's like, I just don't believe in Christ anymore.
I mean, that makes me super sad, but it doesn't make me angry.
What makes me angry is when people start trying to lead other people into their sin and they're leading them into their own just arrogance and then making a case against Christianity online.
I'm just like, why don't you just go away quietly?
Just go away then.
But no, they got to come on.
Nobody can ask the hard questions.
I mean, would God really send someone to hell?
That's like, my five-year-old kids can answer this for you.
You know, send me an email address.
Anybody that's gone to any sort of catechism class knows the answers to these things.
Gosh.
Anyway, that really annoyed me.
I don't like when people dishonor God's name on a social media platform and then get mad when somebody else calls them out.
I'm like, you're the one that did it, man.
Yeah.
Well, maybe it's tied in with that, but it feels like we don't really teach our kids these, like, how to think deeply about these things.
You know, we're, and even us as adults, we read the latest Christian bestseller, but we don't go back and see that the church has answered all these questions over the last couple thousand years.
Yeah, I think that that's fair.
You know, I do think the church is, and when I say the church, obviously I'm including myself on this.
It's not pointing fingers.
I think we have not done a great job of teaching worldview, teaching like, as you say, classic, classical understandings of history and ways to think and philosophers.
And we haven't done a really great job of doing that because we've just said all the Christian faith, it's just going to be about like how to live your life today, you know, about how to make more money and how to be a nice person and how to make friends.
And obviously the gospel affects your life today, but there's a whole lot of other implications of the gospel that we really don't teach.
And so I think that Christians in general don't really understand exactly what the faith is that they claim to subscribe to.
And I think we could be doing a better job, you know, us as parents, us as church leaders or elders or influencers, whatever we are.
And so I'm glad to see so many people speaking out about the faith and the gospel and authority of scripture, stuff like that.
Seems like it's also just human nature to not want to think too hard about your beliefs.
Like you just kind of go, oh, that sounds good.
I'll identify with that.
And I think that might be why the prevalence of I identify this way is so popular now because you just, you don't have to defend it or like get too deep into it.
You just go, I identify this way.
And then boom, that's me.
And we have to respect it.
Yeah.
And I do think that Christians, there's plenty of Christians that think that way.
We've all been guilty of it.
You just go, you know what, I feel really good at this church right now.
I prayed this prayer and this is my identity now.
And like, you just kind of, you don't want to get, you don't want to think too hard about it.
And I think that, I don't know, I think that's also an element.
It's a hard, it's always going to be an uphill battle to get people to really think about the hard stuff.
Like it's not easy to be an easy like apologetics class.
It gets everybody to just go, oh, I got it now.
I know what you mean.
You know, it's certainly, it's, it's certainly more comfortable to do whatever feels good all the time.
You know, like, well, that's how I feel today.
So, you know, it's, it's, you know, I actually wrote about this, you know, in my book, which this would be my first plug for my book right now.
I mean, not that I want to do it like that, but this is what it looks like in case I was going to plug it.
You got your head behind you.
It's right there.
It's the same head everywhere.
Way too much of me.
But I did talk about in the book, Awaken Alive to Truth.
And I did talk about that.
It's that, it's that being ruled by your feelings.
I mean, in the end, is that not exactly what the serpent said to Eve in the garden?
It's I can be my own God.
I can do my own thing.
And if it feels good, then I should be able to do that.
And what that basically means is that we don't really dig God's way.
I kind of want to do things my way.
Who doesn't want to do things their own way?
That's kind of like the cornerstone of original sin, isn't it?
So it's an important thing, I think, to explain to your kids, you know, for young people to understand that there is this pull on your emotions all the time to make it all about me.
And that's going to leave you down to some really dark places and to lots of pain on earth and beyond.
Do you think there's an aspect to, you know, in Christian music, I'm sure you've experienced this.
I mean, you get like a young band.
They're super cool.
They sound really good.
Like, whoa, they sound good.
And the church immediately like puts them on a giant pedestal.
And they're like baby Christians, but they're immediately put into this place of being seen as like authority figures and somebody to emulate.
And then I think that could have a lot to do with a lot of these Christian artists who, you know, they suddenly hit this.
They became a Christian icon when they were like a teenage Christian.
And that's like the worst.
That's like the worst thing to, you know, have, because when you become, have any kind of success in your life, that becomes like this, this thing that like calls back to you for the rest of your life.
You want to get back to that and wanting to get back to like the worst years of your Christianity, a teenager.
Seems like a bad precedent.
I don't know what you can do about that, but I don't know.
What do you think about that?
Yeah, that's a fun.
I don't know why.
That's just funny sounding.
I'm just dying to get back to my worst years as a Christian.
Well, I think that's a problem in, that happens in a lot of rock bands, right?
I mean, you see guys, they're like 50, 60 years old, and they're still trying to be their 23-year-old self or whatever, whatever they were when they became famous.
That's the life that you're trying to get back to.
It's like Dr. Evil says that there really is nothing worse than an aging hipster.
That's not from the Bible, but it's from Austin Powers, and I still think it's true.
Yeah, I mean, certainly, I do think that there's an excitement that we all, I say we all, I don't know, it's a generalization.
We all do have that like excitement when someone famous or someone talented in the culture claims to be a Christian.
You always see like, oh, I just heard that Justin Bieber's a Christian.
Everybody gets excited about the idea of having a cool person on our side.
And certainly, I think you're probably right about that.
One of the things I noticed early on in my career when I was not famous, but in the 90s, was that even in Christian music, there really was not a there's not much understanding.
I mean, I don't want to throw people in the bus, so I'm not going to say names, and it's a way generalization.
But he will name names in these exclusive subscriber portion.
Yes, that's right, that's right.
We'll talk about James White under there.
Yeah, no, you know, joking, but um, um, yeah, I think even in that, a lot of people don't, even in the market, they're talking about Jesus on stage, they're singing about Jesus, they're talking about Jesus in interviews, but they don't really understand their faith.
And even with that lack of understanding of their faith, there seems to be a lack also of sanctification, and even in even in a lack of an acknowledgement that we should be in a process of sanctification.
So, in in my experience, some of the people that I've met, even on the road, that I've talked to about overt sin in their lives, it's been taken very light, very, uh, it's not been taken very well.
And where I was coming from, a position of, oh, I thought we were all in Christian music, and I thought that meant we all were going to want to live for Jesus and pray together, and it's all about the gospel.
And then I met people like, oh, these are either baby Christians, maybe not even Christians, maybe they just grew up going to church, but they don't really know what they're talking about, and they do not want that measure of relationship and accountability.
And that begins to kind of be a problem because then what you're doing is you're just faking it.
So you're faking it on stage, and that kind of creates an issue too.
So before you know it, a lot of those people end up in apostasy, or certainly they end up in bad situations with sexual immorality, you know, fill in the blank.
Yeah.
Can we just name some names and you can blink if once for yes, two for no, or vice versa?
Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, I think part of it is exactly what you said: that we lift up these people that are just baby Christians.
And I think part of it is like, that's just how Christians are.
Like, if I go back and I look at all the kids in my youth group, there's probably a large percentage that have gotten apostate, but they're just not in the public eye like that.
And so there's no, like, it's not like people in the CCM world had to go to seminary or have any kind of training or there's any, you know, any gatekeeping there.
So I don't know, maybe it's something like that, too.
Yeah, I think it's very, very difficult because, you know, we do want to impact culture for the gospel.
So it's like we do want it, but it would be nice if there was a little bit more, maybe you should say, pastoral care, discipleship, sanctification, accountability, you know, all of these things.
It would be really nice to find ways to do that.
And I do, I have talked to a few people who say that they've begun to try to implement some of those things within certain labels.
That wasn't my experience back in the day.
So I don't know.
I do think it's a pretty hard, hard road there because we do want to impact culture for Christ.
But there's some issues and we got to work on those things.
My notes say that you weren't allowed to listen to rock music growing up.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
My mom would hate my music.
That's for sure.
Yeah, yeah.
This is what you get.
Here's a bunch of tattoos.
Anyway, so yeah, you know, growing up, it's kind of a funny story.
My mom was a piano teacher and a voice teacher and a flute teacher.
Did she sing like scream sing like you?
Yeah, my mom did not scream sing.
No, she was not into screamo.
She didn't do any cookie monster screams.
Only when you're bad.
Yeah, that's right.
So I was raised in a household that loved music, but also felt that only hymns or classical music, opera, things like that were okay.
So when I was five years old is when I first heard anything outside of either classical or hymns.
And I was at a friend's house.
And my friend was like, dude, you got to come watch this.
It's called MTV.
And I was like, what's MTV?
And he's like, music television.
And I'm like, I don't even understand what music television could be.
And he's like, there's videos.
And so I see Michael Jackson Beat It, which is totally awesome.
If people haven't, if you don't remember the Beat It video, it has like, they're like gangs, but they're knife fighting, but they're kind of like dance fighting too.
They're like dance knife fighting, which is like the best of everything.
I like you describing it for all our homeschool listeners.
In case you haven't heard of the song, Beat It.
Yeah, exactly.
That doesn't sound nice at all.
Oh, man.
It was so good.
So I came home and I was singing Beat It to my mom.
I thought, my mom loves music.
She's going to love beat it.
And my mom gave me the holiest butt whooping God ever created.
All right.
The holiest butt whooping for singing the devil's music.
And it was the beat that made people want to do evil things and the drums.
And, oh, it was.
So we fought about music for years and years and years.
So it's kind of a funny story.
Yeah, that's kind of how I was raised.
I mean, maybe not so hardcore, but, you know, I was all in.
My first CD was like Michael W. Smith, you know.
Yeah.
Which one?
Which album?
Do you know?
It was the Heart of Gold, I think.
Nice.
Yeah.
If I remember.
Oh, man.
I love Michael W. Smith's album, The Big Picture.
Yeah.
That's when he started like rocking a little bit.
I love that album.
It's a great one.
But yeah, my parents, no Michael Smith, know Amy Grant, no Petra.
But I finally convinced my parents.
This is a funny story.
And then I'll stop talking about it.
But so eighth grade, my mom was really sick with cancer.
And we had been fighting about Christian.
I wanted to listen to Christian rock music since I was in fifth grade.
And Christian rock music was even worse than rock music because they were wolves and sheep's clothing, right?
And, you know, they were even worse.
And so, you know, I went to like a seminar, a Bill Gothard seminar.
I don't know if you remember Bill Gothard, very like fundamentalist.
Anyway, eighth grade, my mom was really sick with cancer.
My friends were going to see Petra on This Means War Tour, which is an amazing album, by the way.
And so I was, me and my parents were like having it out.
So finally, my mom says, all right, here's the deal.
You can't go with your friends.
She says, I'll take you to see Petra.
And when, not if, when Petra starts praying to the devil, then we're going to leave the concert and you will know that it's satanic.
Or if they sacrifice any animals.
When they bring the goat on stage.
Once you start sacrificing the goat to Satan, that's when we're going to leave.
And so we leave the show.
The end of the concert, amazedly, my mom looks at me and she said, you know what?
Those boys love Jesus.
So that was it.
So Petra was okay.
Nobody else is okay, but Petra.
So that's my funny Christian music story for it.
She never took you to a Striper show?
Well, I got a Striper story too.
I was going to end it because I promised I would, but now you got me into it.
So then my mom was okay with Petra.
So, I convinced my mom to let me watch the Devil Wards.
And if people don't know Devil Ward, it's like the Christian Grammys or whatever.
Back in, so again, I was in eighth grade.
And because I was like, Petra might be on there.
And my parents were really freaked out about watching the Devil Wards.
So all of a sudden, this band that I had never heard of called Striper comes on and plays live at the Devil Wards.
I don't know.
It was legendary at the time.
They were all in the full yellow and black spandex, the big hair.
And they come on, and my mom was like, turns it off, go to your room.
It was an all-night prayer session, man.
All night prayer session.
Oh, man.
So I got to tell Robert Sweet that when I met him, that we had an all-night prayer session because of your music, but not the good kind.
Yeah, they're literally the opposite of devil worship.
They say to heck with the devil.
So I don't get it.
Striper was very, very bold about their faith.
I think they probably didn't get as much credit as they deserved for that.
Very bold about their faith.
I mean, I know they had issues and whatnot, but I just think they deserve a lot of credit doing something that no one else was able to do at the time.
Yeah, they were out there with secular bands a lot.
Did you guys tour with a lot of secular bands?
Yeah, we still do.
Yeah.
And especially when we're in Europe.
I mean, we tour secular bands in America.
You know, we toured with Nickelback and Papa Roach and Corn and whoever, God Smack, you know, all those bands.
And when we're in Europe, we play a lot of festivals with everybody, Aerosmith, Lincoln Park, and Metallica, you know, all those great metal bands.
And I love that.
I love getting to get out into the world of music and play the music that God's given me and that I hope is full of the Holy Spirit.
I hope that it pleases the Lord.
I hope that it is throwing seed to people that normally would not hear about Jesus and would not be listening.
That's what I hope anyway.
You ever got any guys that are like closeted Christians in these bands?
Like the guy, like a guy from Slipknot sneaks up to you.
He's like, hey, man, I want to read some Oswald Chambers.
Just don't tell me.
Oh, yes.
Let's see.
Well, we have played with Slipknot.
Some of the guys are good friends of mine, but no, Slipknot that I know of, not to my knowledge, are closeted Christians, but they are friends of mine.
But if they do get saved, it probably wouldn't be Oswald Chambers.
That wouldn't be radical enough.
If they do get saved, it would have to be like straight up, you know, Calvin.
I'm sure it would have to be somebody really radical that's put someone to death.
Stabs me in the face.
Yeah, I'm probably going to get quoted for saying that in a bad way.
That's a joke.
It's a joke.
But anyway, but there are, I will say this: every, every, every band we tour with, nearly every secular band we tour with has at least one member who who grew up playing in a worship band at church or who's whose dad was a pastor or some sort of church leader.
And every just about every band we've toured with has said to me, Hey, I actually am a Christian.
I guess I'm kind of backslidden.
I haven't thought about my faith in a decade or so.
Can we pray together?
Nearly every band.
And so I always go, Hey, Lord, if that's what you're doing, then God can do anything.
So I'm here.
I'm looking for those opportunities.
And I've had some, I've got some pretty great stories about that.
What was your mother's position on Carmen?
Oh, yes.
He walks the line, right?
I don't think Johnny Cash.
I was about to say that's Johnny Cash you're thinking of.
I mean, between rock and gospel.
Yeah, at the time, I'd never heard of Carmen, to tell you the truth.
Now, my mom actually passed away when I was 14 from cancer.
She was very ill for a really long time, for almost for three years, intermittently, I guess I should say.
But she passed away when I was 14.
And it was after that that I really got into playing music.
And it was obviously a non-issue at that point.
So I had not really heard of Carmen at that time, but who knows?
She probably would have been okay with Carmen.
Okay.
How can you not be?
He's so nice looking, you know?
Yeah, such a nice young boy.
Such a nice young man.
He was a nice young boy.
Well, well.
So, you know, when I was growing up, I'd go to the Christian bookstore.
They would have this big poster like, if you like cold play, listen to Switchfoot, you know, or whatever.
What was the skillet?
I mean, was it like evanescence or what was it?
Oh, no.
For us, what they do is in secular bookstores, they have posters that say, if you like skillet, you'll like that's how that's how big we are.
Oh, yes, yes, yes.
Anyway, yeah, let's see.
We get comparisons.
Certainly, evanescence could be a comparison.
Lincoln Park.
I've even heard, let's see, who is the comedian?
John Christ, a few years ago, he had a funny Facebook, one of his, you know, things that he would do at the time.
And I think this is before I'd met John Chris, and I saw it on Facebook.
And what was it?
He was comparing, he was doing what you just said.
And like, hey, some people have cold play, but we got Switchfoot.
And I know what it was.
I think it was a game show.
I think he was doing a game show to test if someone was really a Christian.
And so he was saying, I'm going to name a secular band and you give the Christian counterpart.
That's what it was, which is a kind of funny idea.
And I think that he said Nickelback.
And somebody was like, I don't know, skillet?
And so when I, yeah, when I met John Christ, he had this like sheepish look on his face.
Like, I wonder if John.
And I said, man, I thought that video was hilarious.
I was just thrilled to be involved in the video.
It means that people know who I am.
So I'll take Nickelback.
I don't think we actually sound like Nickelback.
I mean, I like Nickelback and they're good friends of mine.
And they sold 550 million records.
So I don't mind sounding like Nickelback, but I don't think that we do.
Yeah.
Well, we were thinking you're kind of more of the Christian version of evanescence because you don't let the woman talk as much.
Yeah, you're biblical.
Put them in their place a little more.
You know, there's got to be a male singer on stage at the same time.
Yes, we're the complimentarian version.
We're the complimentary in evanescence.
How about that?
That's pretty funny, actually.
You guys should do comedy.
Yeah, we're thinking about getting into it.
We're trying to use this interview show as a springboard to get into comedy.
You should do that.
It's not a bad idea, actually.
Yeah.
Man, I have so many stupid questions here that I'm like, I can't ask that right now.
I was like, who wrote these notes?
And I'm trying to think of it.
Oh, Ethan Mustard.
Yeah.
So let's just rattle them off.
So much.
You want to get into them?
Just ask the stupidest questions ever.
Wouldn't Crockpot be a better name for a Christian band?
No, it's a terrible name.
No, no.
At least Baptist.
Well, I mean, let's rewind.
I think this skillet is not a great name for a band, but it was the 90s.
And I tell people, you have to blame it on the 90s, man.
There was the weirdest, right?
Be honest.
The weirder your band name was, the more popular you became.
Because, for instance, corn, that's not a great name for a band.
The only reason that corn is cool is because it's with a K.
So if you had crock pot with a K. There you go.
There you go.
Now you might be on to something.
That actually does.
Yeah, that has a real ring to it.
Especially if it's written like a five-year-old wrote it just as they were.
Yeah, because again, something about the way that corn is written, it gives you that feeling of there's something not quite right with this band, which there isn't, which is why the music's so good.
But hey, they had a convert, right?
Absolutely.
Yeah, Brian Welch is a very, very, very serious follower of Jesus.
You know, I remember thinking, I wonder if this is going to be real or not.
A very serious follower of Jesus and a friend.
And if anybody cares, I don't know if they do or not.
We toured with corn three summers ago.
Undoubtedly, the best band I have ever seen play.
Absolutely the best band hands down I've ever toured with.
There you go.
Corn.
Talking about corn?
I am.
Just confirm.
Yeah.
You're confirming that.
They were huge for a while.
That's great.
I mean, confirming.
That's a good one.
Yeah, it kind of sucks.
You pick a band name when you're younger and then you're stuck with it.
Like you can't change now.
I mean, unless it becomes out as that skillet is like a racist word or something.
You know, that's the same thing.
Yeah, then you got to change your film.
So maybe we could help you out and explain what Dick Skillet is.
Yeah, Skillets that are from.
It ties to the old South or something.
I am from the South, so you never really know.
Skillet is not.
Here's the good news about Skillet is that now we finally got popular enough that if you go Google Skillet, the band actually comes up, not just a cooking show.
It used to be a cooking show that came up.
I'm like, man, it's like Spinal Tap.
I told him a thousand times, put Spinal Tap the Puppet Show.
I don't know if you remember that from the film Spinal Tap.
Yeah.
Classic.
So in the Christian entertainment industry, there's a lot of horrible ideas going around.
You look at something like, hey, we got this idea.
We'll do this crazy movie where like, you know, Satan gets punched or something.
I don't know.
You ever get invited to do crazy, like ridiculous things?
I see what you mean.
I see going on the Babylon DB podcast.
Something like that.
Or like for your stage show, we're going to have a giant Satan that you guys shoot with laser guns or something.
That's actually an awesome idea.
That'd be pretty cool.
Now, that would actually be worth, that would be worth seeing.
In fact, you might see that at a slipknot show, funny enough.
That's true.
Anyhow, you know, I do think that there's a fine line.
It's the second Spinal Tap quote, fine line between clever and stupid.
And, you know, like Iron Maiden, who we've also played with, by the way, Iron Maiden does all these things.
I remember when I was, we played with Iron Maiden two years ago.
And I think it was in Hungary.
And I remember I told my wife, I was watching this set, and I said, if this was a Christian band doing exactly what they're doing right now, it would be cheesy.
It's only awesome because, you know, it's tongue-in-cheek, I guess.
I mean, you know, but yeah, I do think there's a fine line.
Sometimes, I don't know.
Sometimes it's all in the way that you present the thing.
And a little bit of cheese can go a long way to doing something good.
But I have been asked to promote certain films that I just don't want to be involved in.
Like some of the super like end time, you know what I mean?
Like the super fantastical end time theology.
I'm like, I don't want to get into eschatological Christian films.
That's just not Soundtrack.
Yeah, once again, Iron Maiden could do the soundtrack and it might be awesome.
But for a Christian band to do it, all of a sudden it has that little twist, that little twist.
Yes.
But, you know, Iron Maiden does it.
The number of the beast.
Oh, my gosh.
I love Iron Maiden.
I know that's maybe not popular with some folks, but it's really good music.
Huge fan.
We're always bumping Maiden in the studio here.
Just crushing Maiden.
Crushing Maiden.
Yeah.
Well, you guys do a lot of male and female duets in Skillet.
Yes.
Very complimentary.
And yes, we do.
Have you ever thought of doing any of the famous male-female duets like A Whole New World?
Oh, we really should.
Yeah, maybe it's Don't You Dare? Close Your Eyes.
But do it Skillet style.
But there is more chance of us getting canceled for doing an old Disney film than there would be with the name Skillet because they're canceling all their stuff.
So you just, you never know.
Do not touch Aladdin because you just don't, you don't know what might happen.
We're not saying do a song at the South.
We're saying, you know, Aladdin.
You'd probably be okay with Aladdin.
Well, I don't know because Disney's canceling all their old stuff.
So I just don't know.
You don't know when the raging mob is going to come for you.
But we really could do some sort of theatrical duet.
But we are known for those duets.
You know, I like it.
It reminds me of Fleetwood Mac.
You know, I'm a big Fleetwood Mac fan from the 70s.
Or about you're the reason our kids are ugly, little darling.
That one?
You remember that one?
I actually don't know that.
I don't know that one.
It's great.
I know that I've heard it said to me before.
Do you have kids?
I got two teenagers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
18 and 15.
Do you ever use your metal voice to get their attention?
Yeah, I used to.
Yeah.
And full name.
You got to go full name on them.
Middle name.
Yeah.
Full on.
You got to let these kids know what's up up in here.
Yes.
Yeah.
And then my kids, like, I promise.
And I'm like, swear to me, just like Batman did.
You know, do you bleed?
Don't use that one.
You will.
You will.
Honestly, it goes great.
It goes great.
Perfect.
Do your kids think you're cool?
Your kids thinking you're cool?
You know, I've got such a great relationship with my kids.
They do think that I'm cool.
I don't think they would listen to Skillet's music.
You know, it's not urban enough.
You know, it's not hip-hop enough.
They've been raised in this culture of urban music.
But so I don't think they would like Skillet's music, but they do think that we're cool.
All jokes aside, my kids love Christ and they've loved Christ since they were a kid.
So they've always seen what we do as mission field.
And so my daughter got to pray with the son of a band that we toured with to accept Christ as his savior, you know, on the road, you know, touring in Europe.
And so my kids have always thought like that.
So they think it's very cool that there's a gospel message happening in this world where everyone you meet, meaning all the musicians we meet and tour with, you know, it's all about yourself.
You know, when you're a rock star, it's all about self-glorification.
And I think they've always liked the countercultural, no, we're rock stars, but it's not about self-glorification.
It's about Christ glorification.
And they caught on to that as young people.
So they think that's kind of quite cool.
I like how that's countercultural.
Just be a normal person.
Well, you know, well, it is when you've been raised all around, quote, rock stars, you know, even in the secular music world mainly is what I mean.
But yeah.
Well, actually, we'll move on.
Well, John will finish his thought in the subscriber portion.
That's right.
We're going to get into it.
We're going to get into the nitty-gritty.
He's going to tell us all the dirt on everybody.
Yeah, the nitty-gritty.
Tell us some stories from the road.
I remember hearing you had some issues with pyrotechnics a few times.
I want to hear some of the stuff.
Oh, man.
We've got some stories.
Yeah, yeah.
We like light that can't fire up and you just start telling us stories.
Yeah.
In fact, three days ago, my wife's hair got caught on fire.
And so there's a side.
This is true story.
Just about not three days ago, she burned about that much of her hair off from the front of her.
So she still looks pretty.
But that's rock and roll.
That's rock and roll, baby.
That was on the stage?
Actually, I know it was backstage.
She was doing someone's makeup for a video performance, and somebody had put a candle quite close.
And all of a sudden, somebody's like, your hair is on fire.
And I was like, that's rock and roll, baby.
Come on.
Just like Striper said, keep the fire burning.
Got to move on.
You guys remember that song?
That was on To Heck with the Devil, as you said earlier.
What a classic.
Great album.
Still a great album.
Still great.
You think their hair would catch on fire more with all that aquanet?
If anybody's would, you would have thought so.
Absolutely.
I don't know.
Yeah.
All right, let's move on.
Subscriber portion.
Let's do it.
Coming up next for Babylon B subscribers.
In fact, I have a funny story about Creed if you want to hear it.
Let's see.
Fistboom.
This is one of the biggest.
But I did call a pyrotechnician and we did get insurance.
We did do whatever, but we didn't really have the crew that we should have.
And so for the first three weeks.
One of the first search terms that comes up says John Cooper falling on stage.
There's one in particular that's actually kind of quite amazing.
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