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Six years ago, John Cooper, with virtually a whole new band and on the cusp of signing a major-label record deal, made an extraordinary move. He packed up his family and moved from Memphis, Tenn., to Kenosha, Wis., between Chicago and Milwaukee.
“It just seemed like the thing to do,” Cooper says now, explaining that he had his wife, Korey, wanted to be closer to her family. “I’m slowly adjusting. It’s freezing up there, but it’s a nice place. The people are nice.”
Not that Cooper has been home much the past few months. In October 2006, Skillet, the Christian rock band Cooper formed 11 years ago in Memphis, released its sixth studio album, “Comatose.” The effort marks the latest salvo in the band’s effort to break out beyond its Christian base to reach a more mainstream audience.
Skillet – among the groups performing today as part of Winter Jam 2008 at Memorial Coliseum – has two top 40 singles, “Whispers in the Dark” and “The Older I Get,” from the latest album. But the band’s long-range goal is daunting. The only artist in recent memory to pull it off is Amy Grant, who made the easier transition from gospel to country. But although other bands, such as P.O.D., have made inroads, Skillet is wading into largely uncharted territory.
So the band has been touring relentlessly to reach new fans. While still headlining Christian festivals and events, Skillet has also been playing far less lucrative, less glamorous opening slots on secular tours.
“It’s pretty weird,” Cooper says. “Literally one night we played Little Rock (Ark.) with Godsmack, and the next night we played Missouri with MercyMe. So it doesn’t get much more schizo than that. But the good thing is that our music appeals to a lot of different kinds of people. You get the rock side and the pop side and everything in between.”
Ironically, it has been easier finding acceptance this time around than when Skillet first appeared on the scene in 1996.
“There wasn’t a lot of hard-rock Christian music like we were doing,” Cooper says. “There was a little bit of people not accepting us too much because maybe we were a little loud. And probably the biggest issue was the lack of acceptance because of the way we looked. We looked a little too crazy or had earrings or whatever. Those kinds of things really used to be a much bigger deal than they are now. And those kinds of things used to really tick me off.”
Albums such as 1998’s “Hey You, I Love Your Soul,” and 2001’s “Alien Youth,” marked the band as pioneers in Christian rock and earned them multiple Dove Award nominations. During this time Skillet went through a lineup change, with Cooper’s wife, Korey, joining on guitar and keyboards, St. Louis native Ben Kasica on lead guitar and Lori Peters on drums.
The band made the transition to a major label in 2003 with the release of the guitar-heavy “Collide.” That album launched them into the mainstream top 40 charts with the single “Savior.” Ironically, their first attempt at mainstream acceptance also marked their ascendancy to the top tier of Christian rock bands, signified by their Grammy nomination for Best Rock Gospel Album.
For the follow-up album, Skillet kept the shredding guitar from “Collide,” re-introduced the heavy, industrial keyboards of some of its most popular work and introduced Korey on vocals.
“This album was like adding a lot of things we’ve tried in the past, thinking about what worked for us there,” Cooper says.
Cooper says audiences have been receptive. And he is happy that so far the band has had to make few changes to their show.
“The only thing that’s been maybe hard is trying to balance doing amazing shows for new fans and doing all our older stuff and keeping those people happy,” he says.
