Skillet cooks up a mix of gospel, rock, classical

Skillet, performing in Toledo Sunday with Toby Mac, features, from left, Jen Ledger, John Cooper, Korey Cooper, and Ben Kasica. NOT BLADE PHOTO Enlarge

Crank up the volume on Skillet's latest disc, "Awake," and the room will start rumbling and shaking with thunderous bass notes, pounding drum beats, thrashing guitars, and howling vocals.

The aggressive rock sound of Skillet, which will perform tomorrow at the Lucas County Arena with Toby Mac and House of Heroes, has resulted in the band's lastest disc, "Awake," making an impressive debut at No. 2 on Billboard's mainstream album chart.

The hard-rocking songs are a far cry from the type of music that Skillet's founder, John Cooper, listened to as a child growing up in Memphis.

"I grew up in church and my mother was a classical piano teacher. I took lessons for eight years and was a serious piano player," he told The Blade. "But I couldn't listen to rock and roll - nothing with drums. Drums were the devil's instrument, you know what I mean?"

Mr. Cooper, who sings lead vocals and plays bass, said he had a lot of catching up to do after discovering hard rock and heavy metal.

"The first time I heard Metallica, I just went nuts," he said. "It was the best music I ever heard. I had three different decades of music to listen to all of a sudden. There was the rock and roll of the '70s, the arena rock of the '80s like Fleetwood Mac, Kansas, and Yes - Yes is my favorite band of all time - also metal like Metallica and Bon Jovi, Motley Crue, glam metal. … And everything just changed in the '90s with Nirvana and Pearl Jam and the whole grunge sound."

Mr. Cooper has taken all those rock styles, along with the gospel and classical music of his childhood, and mixed them together to create songs with music and lyrics that appeal to Christian and mainstream audiences alike.

"It's all in the 'skillet,' you might say," he said. "My tastes are very eclectic. I still love classical music and you can hear the classical influences with the string orchestration. I love blending my voice with female voice and doing duets."

Joining Mr. Cooper in Skillet is his wife, Korey, on keyboards; longtime guitarist Benjamin Kasica, and drummer Jen Ledger, who joined the group in 2008.

Mr. Cooper's lyrics address real-life issues and personal concerns that his young fans can relate to, including feelings of insecurity, letting people down, or dealing with regrets.

He said there are a lot of people feeling hurt or scared, and he wants Skillet's songs to offer them encouragement.

"Things are getting hard and every week it seems like there are brand new problems to deal with," Mr. Cooper, 34, said. "When I was a kid, you didn't hear about Catholic priests being pedophiles, or school shootings, or sniper shootings. It is getting harder and darker.

"I think that's why we write the songs that we do. Everybody is afraid, feeling alone, losing faith and hope. Our songs offer encouragement to keep that hope, and not only to keep it but give it to other people."

"Awake" sold more than 300,000 copies in the first 20 weeks since its release, outpacing the opening sales of Skillet's previous disc, 2006's "Comatose," which earned a Gold Record.

The first single from the new album is a screaming rocker called "Monster" that topped the Christian rock charts and introduced Skillet to a wider audience.

"It was a real big hit for us on mainstream rock radio and did better than I thought it was going to do," Mr. Cooper said. "Things started taking off on the mainstream side of things and our second mainstream single, 'Hero,' also is doing really well."

"Hero" was featured last fall in promotional spots for the National Football League's Sunday night games.

As Skillet has gained crossover appeal, Mr. Cooper said some Christian fans have criticized him for "watering down" the spiritual message. But he said it's more a matter of taking a different lyrical approach.

"Different people have different opinions, but what I feel really good about is that we haven't had to compromise anything we've wanted to say or sing about," he said. "The subjects we sing about are subjects that I want to sing about. That's what I'm really happy about, and I feel really led by God to write the songs we've written."

The band has been around since 1996 and its music has been released in both mainstream and Christian markets since 2003, but it's only in recent years that Skillet has started to catch fire.

"We've been around for so long and we're known as a Christian band, so it's been a little hard to get acceptance in mainstream rock. But it's happening now," Mr. Cooper said.

Toby Mac and Skillet, with House of Heroes opening, will be in concert at 7 p.m. tomorrow at the Lucas County Arena. Tickets, $18 to $35, are available at all Ticketmaster outlets or the arena box office, 419-321-5007.

- David Yonke