Skillet frontman John Cooper recently discussed how his band has faced criticism about their hard rock music being demonic or sinful, addressing the issue in an interview with David A.R. White.
Cooper explained his reaction to these criticisms and compared Skillet’s experience to that of other artists who struggled to find their place in the music industry.
“Yeah, for sure,” Cooper said. “I remember watching a documentary about Lenny Kravitz years ago, and I remember Lenny Kravitz saying, ‘I was too black for a lot of people, and I wasn’t black enough for other people. I wasn’t rock and roll, but I was too rock and roll,’ where he was trying to find his lane. It was some kind of quote like that.”
He went on to describe how this feeling of not fitting in resonated with Skillet’s own journey.
“And I always felt that was with Skillet,” Cooper continued. “It was, like, ‘It’s too heavy, but it’s not heavy enough.’ ‘It’s too spiritual, but it’s not overtly Christian enough.’ ‘It’s too this.’ And I think for us — so, yes, we’ve dealt with it. I think for us, it was just, like, ‘Hey, I’m gonna be real. I’m gonna be myself. I’m gonna be unapologetically authentic,’ and I know that some people are not going to like that we sound a certain way, or that I said something a certain way, or that I’ve got tattoos all over me, or whatever it may be. And I don’t really care. I’m not trying to please them. I will never be able to please them.”
Cooper also reflected on his upbringing and the realization that some religious groups will never accept hard rock music.
“That’s one of the things I learned growing up in the church I grew up in, which had a lot of great things about it,” Cooper added. “But I just know for a fact I will never be able to convince a Bill Gothardite or somebody from your Mennonite church, I will never be able to convince them that hard rock is not evil.”
He concluded by explaining his approach to dealing with these critics and his openness to genuine discussions.
“They just believe that the music is inherently full of the power of Satan, and there’s nothing I can do, and so there’s no reason to try,” Cooper stated. “So for me, I just went, ‘Hey, I’m not here to do that with them. I’m just gonna be myself and be full of joy.’ And if I meet somebody that really does wanna have a good-faith debate about it, I’ll talk with them about it.”
This perspective highlights Cooper’s focus on authenticity and his refusal to let critics dictate his musical and spiritual path.
The tension Cooper describes is not new for Skillet. It is a conflict the band has carried for most of its career, ever since it emerged from the Christian rock scene and gradually built a much larger hard-rock audience.
Skillet formed in Memphis in 1996 and emerged from the Christian rock scene before gradually building a much broader hard-rock audience. Albums including Collide, Comatose, and Awake helped the group move into mainstream rock radio and larger touring opportunities without abandoning its overtly Christian identity.
Skillet has sold more than 12 million albums, with Awake going double platinum and becoming one of the band’s biggest crossover releases. The band’s past four releases, from Comatose in 2006 to Unleashed in 2016, have each been certified gold at minimum by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Awake reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200, while Comatose helped push the band onto rock charts with songs like “Whispers in the Dark.” That crossover success came with its own complications inside the Christian music industry.
Cooper said Skillet was excluded from gospel Grammy eligibility after Awake because the band was considered “not Christian enough.”
“We released one of the biggest records in Christian music history, which was our ‘Awake’ album, and we got kicked out of eligibility for the gospel Grammy Award because we weren’t Christian enough,” Cooper said.
The criticism Cooper referenced from figures like Bill Gothard has deep roots. Gothard taught that listening to Christian rock is “fellowship with demons,” a line often cited in discussions of his opposition to contemporary Christian music. Gothard also asserted that rock music causes “a mix-up in the alpha waves between the two hemispheres of the brain, resulting in what some researchers call ‘switching.'”
For Cooper, the answer to that kind of opposition has been consistency rather than argument. He has said Skillet never hid its Christian identity even as it built a larger hard-rock audience through mainstream touring and radio play. That approach mirrors the stance he outlined in the interview: being unapologetically himself while remaining open to good-faith conversation with anyone willing to have one.
