Latest / The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine / John Cooper: Skillet

Transcript

John Cooper: Skillet · The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine

0:26
Speaker 1: Complained, And.
0:30
Speaker 2: Today we've got John Cooper from Skillett. Super excited for this,
0:33
Speaker 2: John Skill. It has been a band I've known about
0:35
Speaker 2: for a very very long time. You guys have been
0:37
Speaker 2: around the Black for a while now, so I'm super
0:40
Speaker 2: excited to chat with you. Before we get into all
0:42
Speaker 2: the things that we're going to talk about with the
0:44
Speaker 2: new album and everything, I just want to know, like,
0:46
Speaker 2: how are you doing today?
0:48
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm doing good. Thanks. I'm glad that you've known
0:52
Speaker 1: for Skillett. We've been around for a long time and
0:55
Speaker 1: absolutely thrilled we're still playing music. Never dreamt it last
0:59
Speaker 1: as long. We're approaching thirty years here, which is just
1:01
Speaker 1: absolutely crazy, and but we're doing good. We're on the
1:05
Speaker 1: road where about halfway through a tour now with a
1:08
Speaker 1: Seether and Tim Montana and Royal Lynn is the opener
1:14
Speaker 1: and having a great time. Everybody's happy, everybody's healthy.
1:18
Speaker 3: What a fun lineup too. That's that's great to see
1:21
Speaker 3: you know. You were talking about how you're coming up
1:23
Speaker 3: on thirty years here and everything. In fact, the Skillet
1:26
Speaker 3: was the very first show I ever saw as a
1:29
Speaker 3: young lad. I was still in elementary school and my
1:33
Speaker 3: sister told me to the Watertown South Dakota Civic Center
1:37
Speaker 3: and I saw Alien Youth put on and had a blast,
1:42
Speaker 3: and then Collide quickly became one of my all time
1:45
Speaker 3: favorite records, you know, shortly after that, and man, what
1:50
Speaker 3: a ride you guys have been on all these years?
1:52
Speaker 1: Right, Wow, Alien Youth, that brings me back. Man had
1:59
Speaker 1: the blog, Yeah you should bring that back. That's when
2:04
Speaker 1: it's kind of coming back in style now, you know,
2:06
Speaker 1: it's been long enough that people are like, oh, it
2:08
Speaker 1: doesn't look that weird anyway. Yeah, that was a great
2:14
Speaker 1: I mean that really was a great time in music though.
2:16
Speaker 1: I mean the late the late nineties had a lot
2:18
Speaker 1: of really, in my opinion, exciting bands happening. You know,
2:22
Speaker 1: you had the industrial movement, which I was a big
2:26
Speaker 1: fan of, whether it's you know, you had Manson. Of
2:28
Speaker 1: course you already had nine ish, but but you began
2:31
Speaker 1: to branch out with Manson and the time White Zombie
2:35
Speaker 1: and then Rob Zombie around actually around the late nineties,
2:38
Speaker 1: like was Rob Zombie had his own solo records. But
2:40
Speaker 1: that was a really cool time. And then you also
2:43
Speaker 1: had the explosion of like Lincoln Park, you know, ninety
2:47
Speaker 1: eight probably in ninety nine. I can't remember when, and
2:50
Speaker 1: so just like a lot of things changing so quickly,
2:53
Speaker 1: it was just a really good time for rock music.
2:55
Speaker 1: And then by the time I saw you on that
2:57
Speaker 1: tour an Alien Youth, that's probably two thousand and one
2:59
Speaker 1: or two. That's right around when we were about to
3:02
Speaker 1: get like you know, Evanescence and some of those really
3:06
Speaker 1: big not new metal but like modern rock all yeah,
3:12
Speaker 1: I would call you modern rock breaking Benjamin was was
3:15
Speaker 1: right around that time. Three Days Grace first record was
3:18
Speaker 1: oh three, I believe RO two. I can't remember, so anyway,
3:21
Speaker 1: walk down memory lane. Thank you very much. I remember me.
3:24
Speaker 2: I remember, you know, seeing that, seeing you all like
3:27
Speaker 2: get ready soundtracking and everything in Watertown, and I think
3:31
Speaker 2: that was like two thousand and one, if I remember right,
3:33
Speaker 2: uh and uh yeah. I just remember like seeing you know,
3:36
Speaker 2: like the hair, the pier scenes, the uh uh. I
3:39
Speaker 2: remember at the time you had the keep bit like
3:41
Speaker 2: I think the girls were wearing like the big platform
3:43
Speaker 2: kind of boots and everything, and growing up in Watertown,
3:45
Speaker 2: I had never seen anybody dressed like that in my life.
3:48
Speaker 2: And I remember lately going to the soundcheck and then
3:51
Speaker 2: because my dad brought me in, like I think some
3:53
Speaker 2: local church people were like helping you out with the
3:55
Speaker 2: sound check stuff. And I remember my dad bringing me
3:58
Speaker 2: in and he was like, do you want to actually
4:00
Speaker 2: go to the concert leader? And I was like, ah,
4:02
Speaker 2: I'll pass on this, Like, uh, you know, I was
4:04
Speaker 2: only seven years old, and I'm like, I just haven't
4:06
Speaker 2: seen anybody ever look like this before my life.
4:12
Speaker 1: That well, that's true. Uh, that was very true. We
4:16
Speaker 1: had we had it was that was it was. It
4:18
Speaker 1: was an unusual era and uh yeah, but it was
4:22
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. Those were those are good memories
4:24
Speaker 1: and we did that. So from ninety six to two
4:27
Speaker 1: thousand and six was we I mean, we were still
4:31
Speaker 1: just trying to make it or Colyde was our first
4:34
Speaker 1: I think breakthrough album, which actually you just mentioned single
4:38
Speaker 1: that was two thousand and three. That was when we
4:40
Speaker 1: kind of began to break in and we began doing
4:44
Speaker 1: more mainstream stuff and then you know, we toured with
4:47
Speaker 1: Saliva on that record and that kind of that kind
4:50
Speaker 1: of changed the game. But it was still another gosh,
4:53
Speaker 1: three more years until we had like a hit record.
4:55
Speaker 1: It was that first ten years wasn't easy, man.
4:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, you were the struggle part of the career,
5:01
Speaker 3: which is which is often one of the best memories
5:03
Speaker 3: are made though, right.
5:06
Speaker 1: Well, it definitely makes you who you are. I mean,
5:08
Speaker 1: even on on Collide. Uh, actually even when Komotos came out,
5:12
Speaker 1: So for people that don't know, Komotos was our two
5:15
Speaker 1: thousand and six release, so that was ten years into
5:17
Speaker 1: our career, our fifth album. That was our first big album.
5:21
Speaker 1: You know, it was a gold selling record. We did
5:23
Speaker 1: not have any radio hits, but it was just a
5:25
Speaker 1: lot of word of mouth, like everything was clicking. But
5:28
Speaker 1: even on that album, I mean, I was still selling
5:30
Speaker 1: my own merchandise, you know, I was. I was our
5:32
Speaker 1: merchandise manager. I was setting it up, I was training
5:36
Speaker 1: people to sell it. I was driving the bus at
5:39
Speaker 1: night because we were we couldn't afford a bus driver.
5:43
Speaker 1: I had two little kids and we couldn't afford. It
5:46
Speaker 1: was just you just gotta do what you gotta do.
5:48
Speaker 1: But yeah, it makes you who you are. And then
5:50
Speaker 1: when things go good. Uh, in my opinion, you're you're
5:54
Speaker 1: very thankful for it, you know, because you you put
5:57
Speaker 1: that hard work as it's very rewarding and and and
6:00
Speaker 1: also it just kind of keeps you. People saying, I'm saying, man,
6:04
Speaker 1: when you sold twenty million records, how do you keep humble?
6:08
Speaker 1: You know, how do you you know, You're like, oh, dude,
6:09
Speaker 1: if you had any idea, how long right? How much more?
6:14
Speaker 1: How many people told us that we sucked before we
6:17
Speaker 1: sold a million records? You know, you just kind of
6:21
Speaker 1: and how many people still tell us we suck even
6:23
Speaker 1: after we sold a million records? You just kind of
6:26
Speaker 1: get to where you you're thankful for what you have
6:28
Speaker 1: and you realize that your success is not measured by
6:31
Speaker 1: record sales or what some somebody on social media says
6:36
Speaker 1: about you, good or bad. You don't believe the hype.
6:39
Speaker 1: You don't believe the negativity. You don't believe the hate either.
6:43
Speaker 1: You just know who you are, and you do your job,
6:45
Speaker 1: and you do the best you can, and you stay humble.
6:48
Speaker 2: Love it well, John, I want to be like kind
6:50
Speaker 2: of upfront honest with you. So obviously I mentioned like,
6:53
Speaker 2: you know, I grew up going to the going to church,
6:56
Speaker 2: growing up in that world U and you know obviously
6:59
Speaker 2: even saw you when I was younger and got to
7:02
Speaker 2: a point in my life.
7:03
Speaker 1: Or did it did it?
7:05
Speaker 2: Well? That's true, That's true because I saw you soundcheck
7:07
Speaker 2: when I was younger, saw you sound saw you sounded back.
7:10
Speaker 2: But but yeah, a lot of things in my life
7:12
Speaker 2: changed throughout, especially around my faith, and so like I
7:17
Speaker 2: learned a lot more about myself. I learned a lot
7:19
Speaker 2: more about like theology and the Bible when I went
7:21
Speaker 2: to Bible College and then I ended up going to seminary,
7:24
Speaker 2: and so things have really changed for me, like ever
7:26
Speaker 2: since I was like that very kind of conservative, uh
7:30
Speaker 2: what we would describe as like an evangelical kind of
7:32
Speaker 2: youth group. And so even though I'm like still very
7:34
Speaker 2: much a Christian, I would probably maybe in a lot
7:37
Speaker 2: of ways, Like I think I'm probably a lot of
7:39
Speaker 2: the kind of person maybe like uh, maybe yourself or
7:43
Speaker 2: other people would say like, hey, I don't know about that,
7:45
Speaker 2: Like that seems to be the kind of Christian that
7:48
Speaker 2: we're wanting to push up against. That seems to be
7:50
Speaker 2: like the kind of Christian that's like, you know, making
7:52
Speaker 2: America not as good of a nation as it could be,
7:55
Speaker 2: like that kind of thing. So I'm just I just
7:57
Speaker 2: wanted to be like upfront, and I just wanted to
7:59
Speaker 2: kind of hear you out of like kind of where
8:00
Speaker 2: you're coming from, especially with this new album. You know,
8:04
Speaker 2: I was listening to some of the new songs on it,
8:07
Speaker 2: I have read a few of the new interviews that
8:09
Speaker 2: you've done on it, and just I just want to
8:11
Speaker 2: kind of get to a point where I'm just hearing
8:13
Speaker 2: you out, even though like probably in a lot of
8:14
Speaker 2: ways we totally disagree on like a million different things,
8:18
Speaker 2: and so yeah, I just want to hear kind of
8:20
Speaker 2: you know, maybe like first I saw. One of the
8:22
Speaker 2: things about this new album obviously being called Revolution, is
8:26
Speaker 2: you've described it not as necessarily like a political revolution,
8:29
Speaker 2: but a revolution for love and specifically around like Jesus's words,
8:33
Speaker 2: around like loving your enemies. And so I'm just kind
8:36
Speaker 2: of curious, like obviously, to love an enemy means that
8:38
Speaker 2: you have to have maybe some sort of enemy. So
8:41
Speaker 2: I'm just curious, like, who would maybe you think of
8:43
Speaker 2: as being like your enemy that you're trying to love.
8:47
Speaker 1: M Yeah, great, thanks for the explanation there. I appreciate it,
8:51
Speaker 1: and I love these kind of talks. So I just
8:54
Speaker 1: want to you did say correctly, but I want a
8:57
Speaker 1: little even a little more nuanced if I can. And
9:00
Speaker 1: so the record is called Revolution, and it is in
9:03
Speaker 1: no way about politics. It's not a political revolution that
9:08
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. It is a revolution of I might
9:11
Speaker 1: even call it a spiritual revolution, revolution of love. I
9:15
Speaker 1: think that's good too. And part of that, to me
9:18
Speaker 1: is more about loving, uh, loving neighbors, loving people that
9:22
Speaker 1: don't love you back. So I wouldn't say necessarily like, hey,
9:27
Speaker 1: I have enemy uh. In other words, enemies is is
9:32
Speaker 1: you know. So let's say that I get my phone
9:34
Speaker 1: and I, you know, post a new record and somebody
9:37
Speaker 1: comes on there like I hate you and this, that
9:39
Speaker 1: and the other. I wouldn't say they're my enemy, but
9:42
Speaker 1: we are in sort of a conflict. And so rather
9:45
Speaker 1: than repay this person back with a we'll screw you too,
9:50
Speaker 1: right or or whatever, you know, it's more of a repaying,
9:55
Speaker 1: you know, repaying negativity with kindness, you know, those kinds
9:59
Speaker 1: of not not meeting the reaction with a level of
10:03
Speaker 1: hatred or what have you, that sort of thing. So
10:06
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily saying that there are specific enemies, but
10:10
Speaker 1: obviously we do have those kind of conflicts and we
10:13
Speaker 1: need to do that. Part of the revolution of love
10:15
Speaker 1: that I'm talking about is also specifically on that. We
10:18
Speaker 1: have a song called Revolution is the title track, obviously,
10:21
Speaker 1: and the first line of the song says, lost the
10:26
Speaker 1: future generation face to face, can't communicate, can't tell the
10:30
Speaker 1: truth from faking. Some of this is really just about
10:34
Speaker 1: the fact that I love teenagers in general. Ah, I
10:38
Speaker 1: love kids. I just have a heart for kids, but teenagers.
10:42
Speaker 1: My mom died from cancer when I was fourteen. I
10:45
Speaker 1: entered a very dark period in my life, fighting with
10:48
Speaker 1: my dad and maybe if we can just get raw
10:50
Speaker 1: for a second, you know, I used to sort of
10:53
Speaker 1: to the degree that I would like fantasize about maybe
10:58
Speaker 1: hurting my dad or hurting other people that were not
11:01
Speaker 1: so nice to me, in other words, not repaying with love,
11:06
Speaker 1: and thinking, well, what happens if my dad did do this,
11:09
Speaker 1: what would I do? And I'm just being honest, I
11:11
Speaker 1: would have some sort of fantasies about what that would be.
11:14
Speaker 1: And that is about the you know, a pretty dark
11:17
Speaker 1: thing to admit. Jesus saved me from those things, which
11:19
Speaker 1: is part of my testimony. So I have a heart
11:22
Speaker 1: for people struggling with depression, suicidal thoughts, being bullied at
11:28
Speaker 1: school or wherever, or online. Now, of course I didn't
11:31
Speaker 1: have online when I was a kid, there was no
11:34
Speaker 1: such thing, and so I, oh God, thank God the Internet.
11:40
Speaker 1: It's good and it's bad. Right, we can use it
11:42
Speaker 1: for good or you can use it for evil. So
11:45
Speaker 1: I guess what I'm saying is a part of the
11:47
Speaker 1: song Revolution is specifically singing this the highest race of
11:52
Speaker 1: suicide recorded in American history right now, the highest levels
11:56
Speaker 1: of depression, the amount of kids that are medicated, even legally.
12:01
Speaker 1: So I mean, just like just medication. Everybody's medicated. And
12:05
Speaker 1: I meet these kids, it shows and my heart just
12:07
Speaker 1: goes out to them, you know. So some of this
12:09
Speaker 1: is also saying to some of these young people, Hey,
12:13
Speaker 1: you're bullied at school, you go home. Now you're bullied
12:16
Speaker 1: online too. You can't get away from it. Who cares
12:19
Speaker 1: what these people say? Just don't go online. Do yourself
12:23
Speaker 1: a favor. Don't go online. But if you do, who
12:25
Speaker 1: cares with is that they don't own you. They don't.
12:28
Speaker 1: They can't speak evil over you, they can't speak death
12:31
Speaker 1: over you. Who cares what these people say? And I
12:34
Speaker 1: talk a lot about that on my social media and things.
12:37
Speaker 1: So I think that the overwhelming message of the album
12:41
Speaker 1: is those kind of things. I don't know if that
12:42
Speaker 1: answers your question. But that's kind of what I mean
12:44
Speaker 1: when I say a revolution of love. That's sort of
12:47
Speaker 1: the definition there.
12:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm curious, like I mean, certainly, like I think
12:53
Speaker 2: that's absolutely part of the album. And then I do wonder,
12:56
Speaker 2: like you you mentioned like obviously you don't, you don't,
12:59
Speaker 2: you don't person only feel like this is like a
13:01
Speaker 2: very political kind of revolution, but like you've got lyrics around,
13:04
Speaker 2: like you know, faith, family, and freedom, which I do
13:07
Speaker 2: think like those words especially connected can like you know,
13:11
Speaker 2: anybody listening to a song like that and these days
13:14
Speaker 2: in this kind of political climate, would think of that
13:17
Speaker 2: as just by saying those words together, does seem like
13:20
Speaker 2: to be a political statement? Like do you feel like
13:23
Speaker 2: that way at all? Like when you're talking about like
13:25
Speaker 2: your faith, your family, your freedom and putting that all together,
13:29
Speaker 2: would you say that, like, even if you're not trying
13:31
Speaker 2: to make it a political statement, do you see like
13:33
Speaker 2: how it maybe could be perceived as a political statement.
13:37
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I think that's absolutely fair and I
13:40
Speaker 1: don't mind that at all. Don't shy away from that.
13:42
Speaker 1: So I would say, yeah, absolutely agree. And the reason
13:47
Speaker 1: I appreciate that, and the reason I'm trying to answer
13:49
Speaker 1: so honestly. Is one of the things I don't I
13:51
Speaker 1: don't like about what's going on is I don't like
13:53
Speaker 1: it when people are dancing constantly, you know, meaning dancing
13:58
Speaker 1: around the truth. If you're like, oh, yeah, I can
14:01
Speaker 1: see that and that's that and you can meet with
14:04
Speaker 1: like common ground on things. Absolutely, I can see why
14:07
Speaker 1: somebody would say that my faith, my family of freedom
14:09
Speaker 1: sounds a little bit like American. Yes, that sounds a
14:13
Speaker 1: little good good, but yeah, I would say, absolutely, it
14:22
Speaker 1: is pro America. And so for me, I think some
14:26
Speaker 1: of it just depends on also what people mean when
14:29
Speaker 1: they say political. So in other words, me be for
14:33
Speaker 1: me to say something that is pro America, I don't
14:36
Speaker 1: mind if somebody says it kind of sounds political, I
14:39
Speaker 1: would say that that's uh, it's more. I would say
14:42
Speaker 1: it's more political philosophy than partisan. Maybe that's the way
14:46
Speaker 1: that I would say. And I don't think of it
14:47
Speaker 1: as as a partisan message. Now, if then you were
14:51
Speaker 1: to say, yeah, John, but don't you agree that it
14:54
Speaker 1: sounds a little bit more like the right than the left,
14:56
Speaker 1: I would say, yes, it does, sadly in my opinion,
15:00
Speaker 1: because in my experience growing up, the Democrat Party was
15:03
Speaker 1: not was not against In fact, I think from my opinion,
15:09
Speaker 1: it used to be more the left that was more
15:11
Speaker 1: pro freedom of speech than the right was when I
15:15
Speaker 1: was growing up. And there's been some shifts in some
15:18
Speaker 1: of those things. And that's probably a whole other podcast
15:21
Speaker 1: which I don't even really necessarily care to get into.
15:23
Speaker 1: But in other words, if somebody took that and say, well,
15:25
Speaker 1: it kind of sounds like you're saying like you're against
15:27
Speaker 1: censorship and that's a right wing thing, I would be like, well,
15:30
Speaker 1: that's fine with me. I am against censorship. I'm very
15:33
Speaker 1: kind of nearly absolutist when it comes to that, So
15:37
Speaker 1: I would just say to me, it's not partisan. But
15:39
Speaker 1: if somebody took it that way, I would say, yeah,
15:42
Speaker 1: I'm just standing on the principles I believe. I believe
15:44
Speaker 1: the government doesn't have the right to tell me how
15:47
Speaker 1: to raise my kids. I think that constitutionally is just wrong.
15:52
Speaker 1: And I would say the same to, you know, to
15:56
Speaker 1: somebody that disagrees with me about a lot of stuff.
15:58
Speaker 1: I always tell people, you can make fun of my
16:00
Speaker 1: god on my social media page, you can make fun
16:03
Speaker 1: of me. You can say anything you want against Jesus.
16:06
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go on and take your comments
16:08
Speaker 1: down because I'm a big freedom of speech guy.
16:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally get that, and I think both like
16:13
Speaker 2: I mean again, like however, other people would maybe even
16:16
Speaker 2: like think of me like politically, I think Colin and
16:18
Speaker 2: I both like would very much agree that, Like we're
16:21
Speaker 2: very much like pro freedom of speech, and so you're
16:25
Speaker 2: definitely not going to get any pushbackground like freedom of
16:27
Speaker 2: speech in particular on a podcast like this is definitely
16:31
Speaker 2: much more you know, really caring about that. You know,
16:35
Speaker 2: now that doesn't necessarily mean that we try to promote everything,
16:38
Speaker 2: but we definitely don't think that somebody should be thrown
16:41
Speaker 2: in jail because of what they believe or what they say,
16:44
Speaker 2: even if we believe that what they say is wrong
16:46
Speaker 2: or whatever.
16:49
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yep, I feel you on that. That makes good
16:52
Speaker 1: sense to me.
16:53
Speaker 3: You know, with your faith being such a large part
16:56
Speaker 3: of your identity, the modern day church has kind of
16:59
Speaker 3: moved in a in a different direction, and the progressive
17:02
Speaker 3: world is very different from the conservative world, and uh uh,
17:06
Speaker 3: maybe what's considered the traditional American church. I'm curious where
17:10
Speaker 3: you think it's going and and and whether or not
17:14
Speaker 3: you think it's it's a positive or negative or or
17:17
Speaker 3: what you would like to see in comparison to what's
17:20
Speaker 3: maybe going on now.
17:23
Speaker 1: Sure, I just would like to understand a little more
17:27
Speaker 1: clearly what you mean. Happy to answer it, though, maybe
17:30
Speaker 1: explain to me when you say the modern church is
17:32
Speaker 1: going in a different direction.
17:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, so definitely, I would say, like more interested in, uh,
17:40
Speaker 3: some of the buzzwords that are of the day, you know,
17:42
Speaker 3: you know, inclusive communities and and h racial racial justice,
17:47
Speaker 3: things of that, you.
17:48
Speaker 1: Know, social justice, et cetera. Yeah, yeah, okay, Sorry. The
17:55
Speaker 1: reason I said that is because sometimes when people say
17:58
Speaker 1: the church is going whenever they they actually mean the opposite.
18:02
Speaker 1: It's almost like depending on which way you go, you know,
18:05
Speaker 1: depending on what the moderator means. Yeah, it does seem
18:09
Speaker 1: like there's a definite bifurcation in the American church right now.
18:13
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because the Catholic Church is growing. Really
18:18
Speaker 1: I'm not Catholic. I've got Catholic friends, of course, but
18:21
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church seems to be growing in some instances
18:25
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of people, even in some cases,
18:28
Speaker 1: leaving the more evangelical world going to Catholicism because it's
18:33
Speaker 1: more traditional and they're looking for something more maybe rooted
18:38
Speaker 1: in history, or you know, they're feeling the upheaval of
18:41
Speaker 1: the times and maybe the waves of how fast things
18:44
Speaker 1: are changing, and maybe they feel like they're hypothetically Baptist
18:49
Speaker 1: Church or whatever. They're like, I don't like that they're
18:52
Speaker 1: changing with the times. I'm going Catholic. It's a funny
18:57
Speaker 1: thing to see. I've got a really good friend that well,
19:01
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, this is a music podcast, So of course,
19:03
Speaker 1: you know Lacey Stern from Flyleaf, who is a really
19:05
Speaker 1: good friend of mine. You know, she's gone Orthodox, which
19:08
Speaker 1: is a similar kind of path that we're talking about,
19:11
Speaker 1: which I don't think she would mind me saying. I
19:13
Speaker 1: think that's common knowledge. I sure, hope. I didn't say
19:15
Speaker 1: anything I wasn't supposed to say. So the point is
19:19
Speaker 1: is that there is a bifurcation, and I think a
19:22
Speaker 1: group of churches are are more going, hey, we need
19:25
Speaker 1: to get back to our roots, we need to be
19:27
Speaker 1: more rooted in history. Because of the upheaval, you definitely
19:31
Speaker 1: are also having a new progressive wing that is more
19:34
Speaker 1: concerned about social justice and things like that. So how
19:39
Speaker 1: do I feel about it. I would just say it's
19:42
Speaker 1: probably such a long conversation. I'm trying to think of
19:44
Speaker 1: how I can say very quickly. I believe I am.
19:48
Speaker 1: I know, I don't look traditional, even though I might
19:50
Speaker 1: look more traditional than I think. In two thousand and one,
19:52
Speaker 1: it's I'm not really sure. Maybe that comes to the age,
20:00
Speaker 1: but but I am kind of quite traditional when it
20:04
Speaker 1: comes to theology, and I like, I think that that
20:08
Speaker 1: is good for the world. I think that the kind
20:10
Speaker 1: of to me. We're in a very postmodern time period,
20:14
Speaker 1: and so the relativisms of the day, in my view,
20:18
Speaker 1: are creating a lot of instability and confusion in people's
20:22
Speaker 1: lives to where they don't know. Maybe I'll give you
20:24
Speaker 1: an example. Here's the I don't know why this just
20:26
Speaker 1: popped up my I've literally never said this on a podcast,
20:29
Speaker 1: so hopefully nobody's offended. I remember something from Memphis, Tennessee. Memphis,
20:34
Speaker 1: Tennessee has a large percentage of black people, you know,
20:39
Speaker 1: and so I grew up with a lot of black people.
20:42
Speaker 1: When I went to University of Memphis in Memphis. I remember,
20:46
Speaker 1: I'll be on college chemists. This is around nineteen ninety
20:48
Speaker 1: three or four, and I remember saying something. I said, well,
20:51
Speaker 1: it depends on because whites tend to think this, and
20:54
Speaker 1: I said, I understand something that says something about about blacks.
20:57
Speaker 1: And a white liberal went off on me so hard.
21:04
Speaker 1: How dare you use the word blacks? They're called African Americans?
21:08
Speaker 1: You racist? And I was like, what, I've never heard
21:13
Speaker 1: this before. I've grown up in Memphis and all of
21:15
Speaker 1: my black friends call themselves black. I've never heard this.
21:19
Speaker 1: I'm obviously not trying to say anything. I wouldn't say
21:22
Speaker 1: something rude and just went off on me. And I
21:26
Speaker 1: remember that feeling of like this is so unjust. There's
21:29
Speaker 1: such a better way for you to tell me that,
21:32
Speaker 1: in your opinion, white friend of mine, that black people
21:36
Speaker 1: want to be called something different. But I don't mind
21:38
Speaker 1: changing my vocabulary, you know. And I remember in twenty
21:42
Speaker 1: twenty watching a podcast I can't remember, there's some podcasts.
21:46
Speaker 1: I think he's a former NFL football player. Maybe he's
21:48
Speaker 1: a football player now. He's a Christian, but he's definitely
21:51
Speaker 1: more like on the progressive left. And somebody had asked
21:55
Speaker 1: him he's black, and they said, how should whites refer
21:59
Speaker 1: to to black people? Should we call them black, or
22:01
Speaker 1: should we call them African American? And he said, no,
22:04
Speaker 1: don't call us all African American because some of us
22:07
Speaker 1: come from Haiti and some of us going to be
22:09
Speaker 1: like that, that's not good. And I was like, I
22:11
Speaker 1: knew it.
22:12
Speaker 3: You're ahead of the times.
22:13
Speaker 1: Well these things, I knew it. But the point being
22:17
Speaker 1: is is that I think most people are fine to
22:19
Speaker 1: call people what they want to be called, because we
22:23
Speaker 1: don't mean anything by it's the ever shifting rules that
22:27
Speaker 1: make people live in a frustrated period to where I
22:31
Speaker 1: just feel like I'm not talking in good faith to people,
22:33
Speaker 1: you know, and it's really stressful. So I think that
22:36
Speaker 1: because of that, I'm very much into traditional church. Now.
22:41
Speaker 1: I'm actually charismatic, funny enough, so people came to my church,
22:44
Speaker 1: they probably wouldn't think it was that traditional church because
22:46
Speaker 1: we jump and go crazy and you know, we're as
22:50
Speaker 1: charismatic as they get. But so that's that. But there
22:56
Speaker 1: is a wave of social justice happening. I guess that's
22:59
Speaker 1: what I would say is that I think that there
23:01
Speaker 1: are things that traditional churches need to hear. We need
23:05
Speaker 1: to listen to people when it comes to other people's
23:08
Speaker 1: they say, hey, this is what's going on, and the
23:11
Speaker 1: Church never did what was right when it came to slavery,
23:15
Speaker 1: when it came to redlining, when it came to marching
23:17
Speaker 1: with them. Okay, they can list the things off, and
23:20
Speaker 1: I think people like me should be like, that's totally fair. Ye,
23:25
Speaker 1: you're right, So what are we supposed to be doing now?
23:28
Speaker 1: Of course, what is biblical and what are we supposed
23:30
Speaker 1: to be doing? And I wouldn't say it's totally fair
23:33
Speaker 1: because I still would say that the abolitionious movement still
23:38
Speaker 1: was started by Christian people, and William Wilberforce, of course
23:42
Speaker 1: was a Christian in the UK, which was at the
23:44
Speaker 1: beginning of outlawing slavery, So I wouldn't say that no
23:47
Speaker 1: one did. But you're absolutely right. We miss a lot
23:50
Speaker 1: of things because we're broken people and we do a
23:52
Speaker 1: bunch of stupid stuff. But I still want to live
23:55
Speaker 1: out the Word of God according to how it is.
23:58
Speaker 1: I understand everybody wants to do that. Love you for free,
24:01
Speaker 1: but that's what I believe.
24:04
Speaker 2: So you're saying, like, and I think it's a great point.
24:06
Speaker 1: Like, you know, there were.
24:07
Speaker 2: Christians that were obviously abolitionists back then, and there were
24:10
Speaker 2: Obviously Christians were supported slavery, right, Like the Southern Baptist
24:14
Speaker 2: Convention literally was started in order to defend slavery. There's
24:16
Speaker 2: a reason why it's Southern Baptist Convention, and then the
24:19
Speaker 2: Northern Baptists were separated from it, right, Like that's a
24:21
Speaker 2: whole history, right. So there were both Christians that were
24:24
Speaker 2: on both sides, right, just in the same way that
24:26
Speaker 2: we have Christians on multiple different sides of lots of
24:28
Speaker 2: different things. One of the things that you know, I
24:31
Speaker 2: think that was really interesting you mentioned just a second ago,
24:34
Speaker 2: is that that there's lots of things maybe that even
24:39
Speaker 2: more traditional churches maybe could learn from, like from people
24:42
Speaker 2: that from others, maybe specifically Christians that maybe disagree with them.
24:46
Speaker 2: I'm just curious, like maybe there's like maybe some specific
24:48
Speaker 2: examples of what that could even be, right, Like think
24:51
Speaker 2: of putting yourself back in like the nineteen sixties. You know,
24:54
Speaker 2: you could maybe say that the more traditional churches down
24:56
Speaker 2: in the white South would say you would like them
24:59
Speaker 2: to say, yeah, maybe we could learn a few things
25:00
Speaker 2: about like what would the civil rights movement and all
25:03
Speaker 2: of that. Right, So I'm just curious, like what could
25:05
Speaker 2: you even think maybe or imagine what the more maybe
25:09
Speaker 2: more traditional Christians that maybe you would maybe for yourself personally,
25:12
Speaker 2: or even if you want to kind of represent more
25:14
Speaker 2: traditional Christians, maybe what are some of those things that
25:16
Speaker 2: maybe they could learn from, maybe some of the more
25:19
Speaker 2: progressive type of Christians.
25:21
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, that's a great question. I mean, I will
25:25
Speaker 1: be the first to admit I honestly don't mind admitting
25:28
Speaker 1: at all that I don't always do a good job
25:30
Speaker 1: of reaching out to people. Now in my personal life,
25:34
Speaker 1: actually I do, so let me rewind, let me start over.
25:39
Speaker 1: In my personal life, I do a good job of
25:42
Speaker 1: reaching out to people. And one of the things I
25:45
Speaker 1: don't talk a lot about just because I'm always I
25:48
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't like talking about myself and what
25:50
Speaker 1: I think I'm doing well because it just feels like yeah, yeah, right.
25:58
Speaker 1: But you know what I was talking with somebody recently,
26:01
Speaker 1: I said, what you got to realize is that Skillet
26:03
Speaker 1: is actually an extremely inclusive band. Most people don't know that.
26:08
Speaker 1: I mean, eighty five percent of skill is income for
26:12
Speaker 1: the last fifteen years has all been in mainstream rock.
26:15
Speaker 1: We hardly do any Christian shows anymore. We do some festivals,
26:19
Speaker 1: we do. I'm not saying we never do, but I
26:21
Speaker 1: would say literally eighty eighty five percent is just playing
26:24
Speaker 1: with rock bands. And most of the bands I tour
26:28
Speaker 1: with are not Christians, do not believe what I believe
26:31
Speaker 1: about lots and lots of things. They're my good friends,
26:37
Speaker 1: and we have meals together, and my kids grew up
26:40
Speaker 1: with them on the road and their friends, and they
26:42
Speaker 1: still keep in contact today, you know, and we live
26:44
Speaker 1: life together. And to my knowledge, none of these people
26:48
Speaker 1: have ever felt judged by me or that I said
26:52
Speaker 1: because you think a B or C. I don't want
26:54
Speaker 1: you around my family. That has never even been even
26:58
Speaker 1: a consideration. In my view. It's the opposite of the
27:01
Speaker 1: message of Christ, of what I'm how I'm supposed to
27:04
Speaker 1: be treating people. So I think that I'm pretty good
27:08
Speaker 1: when it comes to that. Sometimes when it comes to
27:11
Speaker 1: maybe the online debate or the ideological debate, I can
27:16
Speaker 1: just be like, straight on, no, these are the statistics.
27:20
Speaker 1: It's this, and it's this, and because of this, you're wrong.
27:24
Speaker 1: And then what people can, some of them say, is
27:26
Speaker 1: don't throw statistics at me. This is what I went through. Man,
27:31
Speaker 1: the cop pulled me over because I'm black, and because
27:35
Speaker 1: this and this and this, and in my personal conversations
27:39
Speaker 1: which I have had that conversation with black friends of mine,
27:42
Speaker 1: I never say to them I don't believe you, because
27:45
Speaker 1: the statistics say I've never I've never done that in
27:48
Speaker 1: a personal conversation. I think what can happen is that
27:51
Speaker 1: we in churches and as we're ready for the ideological
27:54
Speaker 1: debate and we don't treat it like we're talking to people.
27:57
Speaker 1: I am the worst at that, I will admit it.
27:59
Speaker 1: On the front end. I'm getting better. God's helping me
28:02
Speaker 1: get better at that, because that's what it means to
28:04
Speaker 1: love people. So if you were saying some of the
28:06
Speaker 1: things that we could do, I think it would be
28:08
Speaker 1: something like this. And I'm not saying nobody does this.
28:12
Speaker 1: I'm talking about me, all right, Me, my church? How's that?
28:15
Speaker 1: Me and mine? We got to be better at saying
28:20
Speaker 1: I love America. I think America is the greatest nation
28:23
Speaker 1: on the planet Earth. I've traveled most of the world
28:26
Speaker 1: now and I've seen what the world has to offer.
28:29
Speaker 1: This country is awesome. Does that mean that I can't say,
28:35
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I cannot believe how much we blew
28:38
Speaker 1: it and slavery, how much we blew it when churches
28:43
Speaker 1: would not support Martin Luther King as he's preaching a
28:46
Speaker 1: message of nonviolence. I've said my whole life because I'm
28:52
Speaker 1: a big Martin Luther King fan. I know for sure
28:56
Speaker 1: if I was alive in the sixties, I would have
28:58
Speaker 1: been a welcome X guy. I don't think I would
29:01
Speaker 1: have been an MLK guy because I don't think I
29:04
Speaker 1: have it in me. I think I would be like,
29:07
Speaker 1: you know what, not to get on a tangent, but
29:09
Speaker 1: I'd be like, I don't I don't need the white man.
29:11
Speaker 1: I don't need you to help me. We're going to
29:13
Speaker 1: help ourselves. And you know what, what you're doing is
29:17
Speaker 1: so wrong. This demand, this demand's a reckoning here. I
29:20
Speaker 1: think I would have been that way. Mlk's message blows
29:24
Speaker 1: me away, it really does. So not to go on
29:26
Speaker 1: a tangent in that including social but I can just
29:28
Speaker 1: say I do not like his socialism, but I understand
29:31
Speaker 1: his socialism because well that's a whole other thing. I
29:36
Speaker 1: don't know. I am antisocialism, which I'm assuming is what
29:39
Speaker 1: you do by that. I'm pro capitalism, but I do
29:43
Speaker 1: think that capitalism has a really uh a sinful side
29:48
Speaker 1: to it. I think you can have you can be
29:50
Speaker 1: godly and and in the system, or you can just
29:53
Speaker 1: be a system for greed, which it has been. I
29:56
Speaker 1: would never say that it hasn't been. And so I
29:59
Speaker 1: think you could be pro America and still say it's
30:02
Speaker 1: so evil that we're doing this. And I'm I could
30:05
Speaker 1: list off ten things I think that we're doing right
30:07
Speaker 1: now that's like that. So I think it's just that
30:11
Speaker 1: I think it comes down to that and admitting that.
30:14
Speaker 1: And when I say those things, I just want to
30:15
Speaker 1: make sure that doesn't come across like I'm saying none
30:18
Speaker 1: of those true. None of those Christians are doing it,
30:20
Speaker 1: but I am. I'll be the first submit we got
30:23
Speaker 1: to do better at this. So that's I don't know
30:25
Speaker 1: if that really helps her best. I think I like you.
30:28
Speaker 2: Maybe I think that's why, like maybe because you're you're saying, like,
30:31
Speaker 2: here's some of the things that like America has done wrong,
30:33
Speaker 2: and obviously it's continuing too wrong. And I think that's
30:36
Speaker 2: why like a lot of people might be a little
30:38
Speaker 2: like suspicious of when a person might say, like let's
30:41
Speaker 2: make America great again, is like what is the again?
30:44
Speaker 2: Like what was the again that was great because if
30:47
Speaker 2: we're because a lot of times the things that we
30:49
Speaker 2: need to admit were sins and evil that America has
30:51
Speaker 2: done were those times when it was the again. So
30:55
Speaker 2: I think that's why a lot of people might get
30:56
Speaker 2: suspicious on that. And I'm just curious, like, maybe what
30:58
Speaker 2: your thoughts are on that, because clearly I think we're
31:01
Speaker 2: in an agreement here, like America's done and still is
31:03
Speaker 2: doing a lot of horrible things, and so I think
31:05
Speaker 2: I'm just like, in my mind, I'm like, well, I
31:07
Speaker 2: don't really necessarily want to go back to an America
31:10
Speaker 2: where we were doing those evil things like something like slavery.
31:13
Speaker 2: So I'm just curious, like maybe what your thoughts are
31:15
Speaker 2: on like when people say like, let's let's go back
31:18
Speaker 2: to when America is great, Like, well, what when was
31:20
Speaker 2: the time where we weren't doing some of these really
31:22
Speaker 2: evil things?
31:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, fantastic question. And I and I don't want to
31:28
Speaker 1: make it sound like yeah, that me that we would
31:30
Speaker 1: all necessarily agree on what those evil things are. In
31:35
Speaker 1: other words, I'm not trying to misrepresent myself so that
31:37
Speaker 1: you like we may disagree on something, so fine with me.
31:41
Speaker 1: And I also want to say, I've never publicly supported Trump.
31:44
Speaker 1: I've never said make America a great again. Just yeah, yeah,
31:47
Speaker 1: for the record, but but yeah, my understanding of the
31:51
Speaker 1: MAGA movement. Actually, I don't want to speak for all
31:56
Speaker 1: of them, so I'll give you my personal opinion what
31:58
Speaker 1: I think the sentiment means. I don't think it's choosing
32:01
Speaker 1: a date and saying, let's make America as if it's
32:05
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty again or seventeen eighty again or nineteen eighty again.
32:10
Speaker 1: I think it's more saying, can we agree that the
32:14
Speaker 1: principles of America seventeen seventy six? Say, you know, can
32:19
Speaker 1: we agree that these principles are good? They are worth preserving.
32:23
Speaker 1: Now what you have is, of course the great. Oh
32:28
Speaker 1: my gosh, I'm so sorry, I'm forgetting my name. Who
32:30
Speaker 1: is the who is the slave that became became a senator?
32:34
Speaker 1: Here revels? Oh my gosh, No, I'm a I'm so annoyed.
32:41
Speaker 1: He's one of my favorite American heroes, and all of
32:43
Speaker 1: a sudden, I'll think of it in a second, I
32:44
Speaker 1: feel embarrassed. He's one of my heroes. Forgot his name
32:47
Speaker 1: like a moron. But like he said, and then MLK
32:51
Speaker 1: later said, it's these principles that demand that slavery ends.
32:56
Speaker 1: It's these principles that demand that that everyone is treated equal.
33:01
Speaker 1: These are great principles. So when we when I think
33:05
Speaker 1: let's make America great again, which is something I don't say,
33:08
Speaker 1: by the way, uh but uh, but when i'm what
33:11
Speaker 1: I mean by that is, let's go back and agree
33:13
Speaker 1: that these principles are good and let's preserve them. And
33:17
Speaker 1: that's where for me personally, where I get things like
33:21
Speaker 1: freedom of speech, stop censoring people on social media, freedom
33:25
Speaker 1: of the press, stop saying that everything you disagree with
33:28
Speaker 1: is misinformation or disinformation. You know, this unholy alliance that
33:33
Speaker 1: is happening between a president uh uh party, political parties,
33:39
Speaker 1: and big tech. You know, to to do to do
33:42
Speaker 1: the bidding of the GOP or the DNC absolutely wrong.
33:47
Speaker 1: You you end up getting into all sort of oligarchy
33:49
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Freedom to to chart your own course.
33:53
Speaker 1: And that is how I had kind of understood limited
33:56
Speaker 1: government federalism. It's we're gonna chart on course, get the
34:00
Speaker 1: government out of my life, and respect other people's. You know,
34:03
Speaker 1: when we talk about pursuit of happiness, we're really talking
34:06
Speaker 1: about you being able to chart your own course with
34:09
Speaker 1: your own business, private property. I think all those things
34:12
Speaker 1: are good. And so to me, it's not make America
34:15
Speaker 1: great again. Let's pretend it's seventeen eighty eight, seventeen seventy
34:17
Speaker 1: six again. It's let's preserve those things. And if we
34:21
Speaker 1: can do that, then I think that we could probably
34:25
Speaker 1: heal a whole lot of things. Not everything. Let's don't
34:28
Speaker 1: be ridiculous and naive, but we might be able to
34:31
Speaker 1: heal some things. That's my own my take.
34:33
Speaker 3: I appreciate that you said that because I think that
34:35
Speaker 3: those principles of America's founding are really the principles that
34:39
Speaker 3: allowed us to relieve ourselves of some of our sins,
34:43
Speaker 3: our national sins, including the original sin of slavery. And
34:48
Speaker 3: it's a it's a continuous way, oh absolutely, So without
34:51
Speaker 3: those original founding principles that we all are willing to
34:56
Speaker 3: live by, I don't think we get there. I think
34:59
Speaker 3: that we devolve into something much worse than today.
35:02
Speaker 1: So uh oh, I agree, I think we we we
35:06
Speaker 1: devolve into some sort of dictator or tyranny or the
35:11
Speaker 1: the the equal horror, which is the other side, which
35:17
Speaker 1: is just complete anarchy. I mean you you can't have
35:19
Speaker 1: complete anarchy or you die. You can't have tyranny or
35:23
Speaker 1: you're a slave. So I agree with that principle philosophically.
35:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, awesome. Hey, we think that you're a genuinely beautiful
35:31
Speaker 3: person and we love you as an individual, and we
35:35
Speaker 3: love Skillet as as an entity. And what you what
35:39
Speaker 3: you represent might not be you know fully in line
35:42
Speaker 3: with what Mason and I are totally in line with
35:46
Speaker 3: in the modern day, but we still respect you and
35:49
Speaker 3: we're really really happy to have had you on today.
35:51
Speaker 3: We know you have to get out of here, uh,
35:53
Speaker 3: but we want to say thanks from the bottom of
35:55
Speaker 3: our hearts.
35:56
Speaker 4: Yeah.
35:58
Speaker 1: Likewise, I sure love it. Thank you so much for
36:00
Speaker 1: it was great to have a cordial chat totally where
36:05
Speaker 1: we're just discussing things. And I really appreciate you guys
36:07
Speaker 1: helping me promote the album as well. So likewise, and
36:11
Speaker 1: if we were coming near you this time, you can't
36:14
Speaker 1: miss the show. But that's right, Mason, come out, have
36:18
Speaker 1: a good time, meet the bands, and all you're gonna
36:21
Speaker 1: do is contact my people who set this up and
36:23
Speaker 1: we'll have some fun break bread and love it.
36:27
Speaker 2: And I appreciate like again, like you know, I know
36:30
Speaker 2: it can mean maybe difficult to just like hop on
36:32
Speaker 2: a call with random strangers and then talk about some
36:34
Speaker 2: of these things that you know means so much to
36:36
Speaker 2: each one of us and so and especially when there's
36:39
Speaker 2: disagreement there, right, But I just appreciate like your vulnerability
36:43
Speaker 2: to like at least be willing to do that, and
36:44
Speaker 2: so I just I just wanted to at least name that.
36:48
Speaker 1: Oh great, very very kind of you. Thank you so much, guys.
36:51
Speaker 1: Great your chat with you bros.
36:53
Speaker 4: And keep rocking.
37:00
Speaker 2: S