Skillet frontman John Cooper shares the thinking behind Comatose
, why the church needs to wake up, and how you can be more like Jesus.
Kristi Henson: Let me start off by saying I have really enjoyed the new record. John Cooper: Thank you very much.
KH: It’s similar to your old stuff, but it is different in a way. Let me read this little quote to you and let me get your reaction to that. This Andy Carp, director of A&R for Atlantic, and he says, “This is a new era for Atlantic and Skillet. It’s the first record where we’ve really been one on one with the band and it’s the latest step in our journey together. I’ve been at the label 17 years and we’re known for having so many great rock and roll bands, Led Zeppelin, Genesis, Yes, Bad Company -- there aren’t that many labels that have that kind of pedigree for great rock acts and Skillet is yet another in a long line of great bands.” Wow, what do you think of that?JC: Andy is a really great guy. The thing we wanted most from Atlantic was that chance for the one on one, the chance to shape me and help me grow as an artist. I think he knew that and I think that was part of what gave him belief in us. I think in the end it came down to Andy’s belief in us, the reason we even did this album with Atlantic.
KH: And I know that for Atlantic Records, you guys are a big priority for them this fall. Do you feel any pressure from that?JC: Most of the pressure I felt during the recording of the album. I was just fit to be tied the whole time. I was driving everybody crazy.
You know there’s so much pressure doing a record, on so many levels on this album, even without the pressure of Atlantic Records. It’s our seventh record in the Christian market. Your fans get to where they expect it to be better than the last one, which they should.
There’s so many new bands on the scene all the time, if you’re just an old band putting out mediocre records, pretty soon you’re just an old band -- old news. So there’s pressure there, and then with the Atlantic aspect, I just knew that this has got to be the record we hit or we can’t do this again. And now I’m through with that pressure. I know that we are priority. I’ve heard that from them and you just cross your fingers and want it to go good, you know?
KH: I think you guys have delivered as far as the record goes. I’m telling you, it’s going to be a force to be reckoned with. Lets talk about the title, Comatose. Is that kind of a theme for the record?
JC: Yeah, it really is. Its funny how you can get an idea and you don’t realize how much a certain thing may be God showing you something that ends up having to do with all aspects of your life.
The “Comatose” aspect was like that. I wrote the song “Comatose” probably three or four months after
Collide came out. Almost three years ago I wrote it. The original idea was that we need to come alive to God and come awake. What can we do to help shake the world -- that kind of thing.
The last couple of years, I would say the biggest thing that has happened in my life -- that has just shaped me in so many ways -- we went on this mainstream tour with Saliva after
Collide came out. It was our first club tour -- in fact, the first time I had ever been in a club; I’d been a Christian my whole life and never lived that lifestyle. During this tour, it just hit me the desperation of the world, the desperation of people looking for something to fulfill them, the loneliness there and the people hurting for love.
I had never experienced that. I had heard it before and I knew it in theory, but I had never seen it with my own eyes before and it shook me in such a deep way, that I would come out of playing this tour… we were playing these shows and I would come back to the bus, I was talking to this band maybe I was talking to someone at the show that was really hurting, I was just get kind of emotional and weepy sometimes, I was so hurting for these people.
So at that point, I wasn’t thinking of this comatose idea. There was a real idea bursting in me that us Christians are not going to the world and reaching the world in such a way maybe that we could be. We’re not doing the best job that we could do. Some of that might be, with most of us Christians that grew up in church, we just kind of judge people, like we don’t know, we don’t understand how bad they are hurting because we never hurt that way because we’ve been Christians since we were kids, you know? And I have to say that for the first time that I felt really compassionate for people who were addicted to drugs, who were addicted to these things.
I had always felt,
What’s wrong with these people? Then I just felt so compassionate for them, so that kind of began a real journey for me. That’s kind what the song “Reversing” is about: God changing my heart and saying we’ve got to get out there and change these people and see how they’re hurting so bad.
So then the
Comatose idea began to be about, not just waking up to God, but the church waking up to the needs of people. That theme is throughout the record. All the problems in the world, all the wars going on, all the sinful violence going on—everybody’s looking for hope, and maybe you could be that hope to somebody else.
KH: There are several cuts that are maybe even a little more personal than others. I think you wrote “The Older I Get” about your mom.
JC: That’s actually about my father. “The Older I Get” was my testimony, basically. My mom died when I was 14 and my mom was a radical Christian. My dad got remarried quickly after that, and I began really fighting with my dad constantly and I honestly cannot remember one day for about four years that me and my dad didn’t fight, if we saw each other. It was terrible. I really hated him, honestly and I just wanted to get out of there.
When I left home, I pretty much didn’t plan on talking to him ever again. And God really changed my heart and, over the next few years, I really reached out to my dad. A lot of things have happened and through that amazingly enough, my relationship with my dad has been totally restored. God just did this amazing healing in that relationship. We get along now; he gets to be a part of my kids lives and they get to know their granddad. It’s really amazing—and something that only would have happened with God.
So I just wrote this song—I’m 31 years old now, and I didn’t think those things were going to bother me the same way they still bothered me. And it’s kind of a song looking back saying, “If we just would have done this back then, how much better could our lives have been. How much time would we have not had wasted if we had put these things aside back then, but let’s put them aside now.”
KH: How do you write? What is your process? JC: Well, for some people, they would find me to be the most sterile songwriter on the planet. A lot of artists are up and down in their personalities, they’re very moody people—and I’m really not moody.
And when it comes to the way I write, most of the time when I write a song, I just kind of sit down and decide I’m going to write a song. It’s almost like clocking into work. It doesn’t mean it’s always good—in fact, the really good songs will tend to be the ones I’m not trying on.
KH: On this record, do you kind of have one you’re a little partial to … ?
JC: “The Last Night” is very personal. In the last couple of years, I’ve talked to so many kids about suicide, about cutting, more than ever before. I live in this town called Kenosha, Wisconsin, which, you know, is not a big city, maybe 100,000 or so; in this city alone, in high schools this last school year, there were eight suicides. And I was just like, that’s it, I’m writing this song. It’s become pretty personal to me.
The song is about a person coming to God or a friend and saying, “I’m going to kill myself, my life stinks, my parents say everything’s my fault,” and then this friend or God, whatever you want to consider that to be in the song, is saying basically, “I’m not going to let you say goodbye and I’m going to be the one that’s here for you.”
The reason its so personal to me is that, No. 1, it could be God saying that in the song, because ultimately He is our best friend, He’s the one that fulfills everything, but as all of us Christians know, sometimes that feels like that’s not enough. You need someone in the flesh to be there for you. And I think that sometimes its easier for us Christians to say, Jesus will be there for you, and us not be there for them, so that’s multiple reasons why that song is so personal to me.
Other than that, I think it’s my favorite musically because it has a good sense of musicianship, with the piano and the strings. Its kind of a pretty song, but at the same time, it’s got the big, heavy guitars. I felt that that was a good middle of the road. That sound encompasses the whole record.
KH: Do you have any words of wisdom or shout-outs to all the Panheads out there?JC: Mainly, I just want to say thanks to all our fans for believing us and supporting us. We’ve been doing this 10 years now—there’s a lot of bands that we started with that are not around anymore.
Our fans really supported us musically and I think they know our heart. They really believe in what we’re trying to do. We switch our sound a lot. We try new things. When we’re a little bit nervous, they give us a chance.
I guess the only words of wisdom, I just want to encourage all our fans in their own personal live to be awakened to what God is calling them to do. How they can help someone be there for someone. Be Jesus in the flesh to someone else, to help someone who is hurting.
Coming off a pair of hit records, the band approached their new album, 
