HM Exclusive Skillet Interview
When Kelly Benson flew out to Quincy, Illinois for the Skillet cover story, we secretly thought she hopped on one of those gambling boats on the Mississippi and frittered away her wealthy perdiem. We thought she’d just make up the entire story – the entire interview. That is, until she handed over this transcription of the conversation she had with John and Kory Cooper. Read on and see if you believe. In actuality, this is a very in-depth interview that covers a lot of cool ground.
Alright. So you guys got in at 10 this morning. And are you doing the festival circuit right now?
John: Pretty much mainly festivals. (Yawns) I’m sorry. Pretty much mainly, like, it’s not been intense like we’ve been playin’ every night. Mostly like what we’ve been doing is the business side of things, preparing for the record…
Kory: Photo shoots.
Yeah, all that. We have a video coming up and all the decisions. But we’ve been doing a lot of festivals. It’s kind of the “before the storm” thing is kinda getting over with and now it’s like, uh oh, now it’s hitting us.
How did the photo shoot go? We’re anxious to see the photos. We’re waiting for the cover shots.
Yeah, it went pretty good. Yeah, let me think here. Photo shoots…every band has things they like and dislike doing and I don’t particularly feel comfortable doing photos of us and videos. I always have to get worked up for it. But, uh, yeah I think it went pretty well, don’t you think?
Kory: Yeah.
We did it in LA which was pretty cool so. Yeah.
Kory: Change up the vibe a little, keep the fans guessing.
Well I’ve heard Comatose, we have a little advanced copy at HM and I was really impressed. I just want you guys to talk about the writing/producing/recording process of Comatose and maybe how it was different than other albums or how it was more of the same.
Hm. Well…
Kory: The pre-recording stuff was a lot different because we did full on demos with our A&R guy. A lot of the songs ended up exactly like the demo just sounding a lot better.
Yup. I’m just trying to think. That’s true. I think the biggest part, the biggest difference would be the amount of time I spent working with the, uh, producer, Brian. Brian and I co-produced the project. I think the biggest strength of his is songwriting. And, uh, I’ve not done a record with someone who’s biggest strength is songwriting before. Um, he used to play in a band and he was a front man and all the same things that I do, so the amount of time we spent on changing the lyrics, um, getting the songs to hit like we wanted them to. Uh, we’ve never ever done anything like that before. Typically it’s been like, this is what we want to do, we do our own thing…(yawns) here we go. I’m so sorry. It’s not that I’m bored. I don’t know why I’m like this. Sorry about that. On Collide, which was our last record, that was the first time I spent a lot of time going through the songs with our producer Paul. That was the first time we’ve done that and this was like that plus a million.
Kory: Yeah. And Paul is more a rock guy than Brian, although he is a rock guy, he’s got pop ears.
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Comments
From a long-time Skillet fan:
"maybe it’s not our most original album but with this record, you know, it doesn’t sound like anything else that’s out there. We’ve done some original things in the past that might not have been so pleasing (laughs). Original, but yet not so pleasing. I think there’s a real mass appeal to what this record has. You know, it doesn’t sound like TFK, it doesn’t sound like Pillar, it sounds like Skillet. "
The record sounds like Nickelback/Default/Theory, Sum 41, Avril Lavigne/Kelly Clarkson, Evanesence, Linkin Park. Every trendy hard band is referenced if not out-right plagarized. I continue to respect Skillet for not selling out their message, but I cannot believe how poor the new disc is - especially lyrically. It's the bad top 40 "rock" I hear at work all day, "sauteed" into one easy collection. If it wasn't Skillet, I would not have bought it.
I spent my last cd money of the year on this record instead of the new mewithoutYou. Boy, I feel ripped off. Good interview but the Coopers seem to be really out to lunch saying things like "we're doing something nobody else is right now."
Sigh.
An album with a few of Skillet's best songs yet, let down by some totally uninspiring songs. And why try a punk song? When you buy Skillet, you expect Skillet. 'Rebirthing,' 'Last Night,' Better than Drugs' Comatose, Falling Inside the Black & Whispers in the Dark ROCK!!! The others could have been left off. Oh, and the last track's talking parts - please don't try that again!
An album with a few of Skillet's best songs yet, let down by some totally uninspiring songs. And why try a punk song? When you buy Skillet, you expect Skillet. 'Rebirthing,' 'Last Night,' Better than Drugs' Comatose, Falling Inside the Black & Whispers in the Dark ROCK!!! The others could have been left off. Oh, and the last track's talking parts - please don't try that again! How dare anyone say it's not original. THe great songs are perfect Skillet - original, although I will admit the addition of Korey's vocals on many tracks adds a gothic flavour, but still well out of Evanescence's ground. Some massive leaps forward, others weak efforts. THe album is worth it just for the good tracks though.
I loved the Skillet:Comatose CD! In my opinion it's just something I don't get tired of listening to. I think each and every song on the album has been the best so far,including Looking For Angels. I feel the messages are understood better too. Don't be just another rock band, but be what God wants you to be. Skillet you guys (and girls) are awesome! Keep letting the Lord lead you and you can't go wrong. I look foward to the next album. Ya'll keep rocking for the Jesus!, It's all about Him.
Comastose ROCKS!! and it's even better live!! the whole album!! i've seen Skillet twice in the last month!! they're AWESOME!!
The new cd is familiar enough and quite catchy in an enjoyable sense, still with enough mix and additions to give it an uniqueness above the average way most hit bands would do these songs. Kudos to Skillet. May want to avoid a repeat of the LA Symphony treatments to the final track. It would be much better from a different angle. The lyrical reading weighs it down in a bad way. That would be my only major recommendation. Thanks for staying with it. Most bands never see this far in longevity or success.
