Even without a new CD to its credit in three years, the profile of the Christian hard rock band Skillet has flourished.
Rather than slave away in the studio, the four-piece group based out of Kenosha, Wis., had been building its reputation one live performance at a time, whether on a headlining show of its own or a crossover opening slot for a mainstream hard rock band.
Skillet has been playing about 150 shows a year, enough touring to get that most-recent CD, the 1996 Grammy-nominated "Comatose," pushed to the brink of gold-record status. Lead singer John Cooper expects the touring to pick up even more after next month, when Skillet releases its new CD, "Awake." It was produced by Howard Benson, who has worked with mainstream artists such as All-American Rejects, Daughtry and Flyleaf.
Cooper, his wife and keyboard player Korey Cooper and the rest of the band open the first night of the three-day Spirit Song Christian music festival Thursday at Kings Island.
Is Skillet looking for opportunities in the mainstream market, or is the band committed to Christian music?
It's a little of bit of both. We want to have a balance. It's also dependent on what opportunities arise. We were the opening act on the Three Days Grace tour. And we were the support act on a tour with a band called Flyleaf. And we've done our own Christian-based touring as well. We can do our own touring, which we really enjoy. Being a headlining act is great. We love doing that sort of thing. But if other opportunities come up that are viable, it's good to get our message out and hopefully gain some new fans.
When you open for a mainstream act like Three Days Grace or Flyleaf, do you feel the need to bring up your Christian message as you talk to the crowd in between songs?
There's really not an easy way to answer that question. As an opening band, whether you're in Christian music or mainstream music, you're really not there to talk. It's the headliner's tour. You're there to play your set and get the crowd going before the headlining act. That's our role and our job. Nobody cares what the opening band has to say. Do your job.
Did you ever feel you were too heavy a band to make it as a headliner at Christian festivals?
We've only just begun headlining festivals this year. Headliners are usually the ones have the broadest appeal, because parents like it, girls like it and kids like it. I was always told, yeah, we're too heavy. We're not going to ever have that type of appeal no matter how good our songs are because it's just kind of aggressive, and my voice is pretty aggressive. That has been the thinking. But because of how events have unfolded, with our touring numbers going well, people gave us a shot I guess. It's pretty cool.
