Skillet frontman John Cooper recently explained the warning to America behind the band’s new song “Scream,” addressing the topic in an interview with CCM Magazine.
The musician discussed the deeper issues facing Western civilization and the impact of a secular society on the younger generation.
“You also have the deeper issues of what happens to a Christian civilization,” Cooper said. “And I’m talking about all of Western civilization, but let’s just talk about America now. What happens in that society when all of a sudden all of the institutional powers that basically control the society—whether it’s media, schools, universities, business, etc.—when everybody decides that actually there is no God, there is no moral code, and actually there is no such thing as truth either? And then you’ve got kids, teenagers that have grown up in a world where they were told there is no truth, there is no God.”
Cooper went on to describe the struggles of youth raised without a moral anchor, highlighting the influence of social media and isolation.
“They are basically a product of random chance Darwinian evolution,” he continued. “They’ve been raised in that society and they completely have no anchor. They have no anchor and they’re just being whipped around, and they’re also simultaneously being yelled at on social media from their friends telling them they’re stupid, they’re fat, they’re never going to be worth anything, and they have nothing to live for. And they don’t have friends because all their friends are on these cell phones. It’s their community, but they never see them face to face. They don’t have somebody to go to when they are like, ‘I don’t know if I want to live anymore.’ And they have that silent scream. So ‘Scream’ could be actually out loud. It could be guttural, or usually it’s a silent scream. It’s people that feel that they have nothing left to live for. That’s what ‘Scream’ is about.”
He further explained how the song addresses nihilism and represents a cry for help and a turning toward faith.
“It’s nihilism,” Cooper added. “It’s like nothing actually really matters. Do the best you can. Take what’s yours. And that is a recipe for depression. And so the tension in the song is going, ‘Yeah, I feel that way sometimes too.’ But then there’s the reaching out, which is the second half of the chorus. ‘Come pull me out from under the noise and thunder. What have I become?’ So that is the cry out to God. I don’t want to be in this place. I want—there’s got to be something more. And that sometimes is something you don’t have to actually say in the song. It’s sometimes rhetorical. People kind of know that’s what you’re getting at. It’s this cathartic moment. That’s what ‘Scream’ is about.”
The track is featured on Skillet’s new EP, After the Storm.
