Skillet’s John Cooper on Why Christianity Is Now Automatically Labeled “Conservative”

0:00At a time when half the entertainment industry is allergic to standing still, skillet did the opposite. Nearly 30 years in, they never rebranded, they never softened the message, and they have the biggest audience of their career. 12 million Spotify listeners a month. The first Christian song to clear a billion streams on Spotify. Their new EP after the storm drops October 9th, and skillet's John Cooper is here in Nashville with me now. It's great to see you, John. You too. Thanks for having me on. It's good to have you. And 30 years, that's a long time to be in the industry, but it's also a long time to be in the industry and not change, and not dismantle and rebrand and become something different or fall apart. How do you think that is? Why do you think 30 years in, you guys are still going strong and still staying the course?

1:01Right. I think it's just because skill has always been authentic, we've always been ourselves. And there was a time when the things that make us unique really worked against us, and we just didn't care, like that's who we are. And then as the culture changed, those things became a bit more, actually in style. They became acceptable than they came in style. And I think that people know that we're just real. We don't try to please anybody else, try to make music we believe in, that helps people. And we don't apologize about stuff. We don't take ourselves all that seriously either, you know. But maybe put up with some meat on the bones so people know what I mean. Like for instance, we had girls, ladies in the band, and rock music at a time when there really wasn't much of that. And some people kind of felt like that was that softened it too much. You know, girls don't belong in metal, you know. And yeah, so we had a little bit of that at the time, and we were Christians.

2:03We were always vocal about our faith. And that just wasn't looked at as being very cool when we started. And then as the years progressed, people started going, man, have you seen those skillet chicks? You know, you've seen that drummer, she's amazing, and she is our drummer's killer. And my wife plays guitar and people, they started going, that's actually pretty cool. And then little by little, you started seeing other bands, get girls and bands, you know. And then also culture change, it became more okay to sing about positive things. Rock music at the time we started in the late 90s. I know some people listened to probably weren't around, but for those of us who were around, if you go back and listen to late 90s music, it was a very dark era. That was a very nihilistic decade. And rock music was angry, it was about darkness and anger and wrath, breaking stuff. And we were singing about hope. And I think that that was looked at as a little bit like soft or cheesy. And then as things kind of began to change, people were like, I love that your songs are

3:06about hope, you know. You're my recovery songs. I hear that all the time, you know. Your song helped me get through my drug rehab. Your song convinced me to go into drug rehab. Your song kept my family together, just all kinds of stuff like that. I would say having women in the band, it's a little Fleetwood Mac-ish. It is Fleetwood Mac-ish, yeah. And I mean, they did it well. They did it really well. We don't do it as good as they do. Yeah, I think it's because of the hard rock aspect. So you do have Joan Jad and you had people like that. But in hard rock, it was just looked at as a little bit like, I don't know, is that okay or not, you know. And took a minute. Well, and also having your wife be in band and be together for almost as long as the band's been together. That's not something, I would say in a lot of ways, you're an anomaly, in that you do rock and you have women in the band, you're faith forward, even though you don't explicitly sing about faith. It's kind of an underlying message. But then also being married to somebody who's also in the band and then staying together

4:10and having a really positive relationship, that's also kind of anomaly to the rock culture. Absolutely. How do you, how do you even do that, by the way? I don't, I can't imagine if I worked with my husband. I knew you were going to say that. I don't feel like it, I don't think it would go well. I hear this all the time from the wife or the husband. They're both like, never, lover, but never. Yeah, that, that was a unique thing. In fact, I remember when our label, we were signed to Atlantic Records for 20 years. And I remember in there like, I, John, I don't know if you want to announce to everybody that you guys are married because the idea of like you being available is kind of a sex sales, sex, sex, sells kind of thing. It's just the idea that people could be available and you don't want to make this into a, and I was just like, no, that's what's awesome about it. But skillet, we are ourselves.

5:11We're married and I like celebrating that because being in a covenant marriage is a huge part of the Christian faith and it's a, it's a, it's a statement we want to make and it actually turned into a really incredible thing because it made the whole band feel more like a, like a community or something. I can't quite say it's a lot of abstract, but you will see, if you go and skillet message boards, you will see where people basically like, I always felt like I belonged to the skillet family and it's hard to explain that, but there's sometimes with some bands, it's sort of like how you might not be able to explain how you two made people feel. But Bono was always active socially and whatnot. And the way when you go to a U2 concert, you kind of feel like let into that world skillet like that just way more unsuccessfully. Well, I don't know about that. I think you two automatically download onto everybody's iPod. They did. I think they thought they were doing a good thing, just like Communists do. We're like, we're going to help you by controlling your life.

6:14You know, please, you know, yeah, I saw what you were talking about that the scariest words in the American language were the government were here to help. Exactly. So I didn't, I got an iPod. I didn't love having the YouTube. I was like, what is this? You know, everyone's a little stunned by that. I will say too, being that you guys not only married for so long, but having a family for almost as long as you've been married and had a band. Right. How do you tour with both parents on the road and having young children? How does in the rock genre? Yeah. Yeah. So this is another piece of that that's really interesting. The whole authenticity. Actually, I didn't answer your question about how in the world we work together. I'll put it back. It goes one and the same though. It does. I'll put them together. So we had decided to have kids and we have two kids. So just so if people care, my kids are 24 and 21. My daughter's married and we raised them on the road.

7:15And so that also is like not very rock and roll for some people, but it was amazing. We had to do it. It was either that or like like my wife couldn't keep playing the band or we had to, we had to figure something out. And we said, well then we'll just do it on the road. And so that also made it literally a family and the whole bus felt like a family. And at that time we began doing a lot of a skillet podcast. So this is like 2003, 456. When video podcasts were kind of coming on the scene, you know, you could find out what you two or some other lesser band like us was doing on the road. It was almost like a reality show. So we kind of put on our own kind of reality show via Apple podcast. And at that time we were not a big band. We were beginning to grow. But we had one of the biggest music video podcasts on Apple. So that was growing. And our kids were in it and they would see us all together. We would sing worship songs together.

8:17We would pray together or we would go go carting together. And so it kind of made like when we went in toward Russia years ago, somebody gave us a handwritten note, you know, like when they've been broken English saying basically, you know, my dad left when I was a kid. We have six kids that all live in one room with my mom together. You don't have any money. And I had nowhere to belong but I always watched your podcast. I felt like I was a part of your family, you know. That's kind of how we did the thing. And we just kind of said, that's going to be our gig, you know. And so my kids have toured with. And both parents in the band and then have kids touring along the way. You got to have a lot of faith to make that work. Oh, yes, absolutely. And it was difficult. I mean, because you would have to structure things. And so how my wife and I decided to make it work would be, these are my jobs, these are your jobs. And you know, one of the needs help, we jump in, but pretty much you do this, I do this.

9:19So she almost does no interview. She hasn't done interviews in like 20 years because I said, I will do the press and I will do the business and I will do the whatever you do, the homeschooling. You do not want me homeschool. I homeschool our daughter one time for an hour. And I like it, it's so hard. It made me forget I was a Christian. You know, I was ready to like put my fist through a wall. It is so much work. I'm like, I'm not doing that again. Plus I'm not smart. So my wife did all that. I did the business. I just kind of did her own little jobs, you know. But it was very sweet having the kids on the road. They got to go around the world and then they got used to seeing different kinds of people and the way people looked. The tattoos or crazy hair, different languages, different religions. We would tour people that my kids would become good friends with. And it was good. It kind of broke down that barrier about like skillet. Are they the Christian band? Are they going to be no fun to be around? Because I'm not a Christian and I don't want to hang out with them if they're going to judge me.

10:21And we would hang out together and they would see that we're not here to judge them. In fact, it's kind of like against our actual religion to judge people. And we're family. And it was actually pretty special. Yeah. It kind of helps you become more, I think, inclusive and non-judgmental. And then you get to go around the world and you know, I always say to like friends of mine that are younger, you know, that are maybe into things. Communism, socialism, whatever. I'm just like to... You need to come with us, see what my kids saw. When we go to some of these countries that tried that crap, you come and you see what it's like, it'll change you drastically. And so kind of, for my kids, I think it gave them, you know, face to face with reality, you know, it's good. So kind of going along with that. You don't have to be conservative to be a Christian or Christian to be a conservative. They, you know, they don't have a monopoly on one another. But it would seem that there's quite a bit of overlap between people who are politically

11:24more conservative and also Christian. But then you throw in the rock aspect of that. You've been pretty forthright about your beliefs, both with religion, faith and but also politics in a way. Is there a risk that comes with that? Yeah, definitely. I would say there's not as much of a risk if you're on the left because you'll get praised by all of the powers that be. Now, of course, you're still risking something. I mean, there's going to be some fans that don't like it. So I don't want to say they're not risking anything. That's actually not fair. But you will get opportunities from some of the institutional powers. If you're on the right, you should shut up. Yeah, lose your job. But also, I mean, I think everybody, probably lots of people listening feel the same way I do, which is like, I really don't love it when musicians talk about politics anyway. I mean, and I know that that's funny because I have talked a lot about politics and people.

12:27I think they don't understand where I'm coming from in it. I spent my first 24 years of my career. I never said, people about politics. I never even said anything one way about any candidate because it's really annoying. It's just really annoying sometimes when you see celebrities talk about this stuff. And sometimes you just like, do they even know what they're talking? Have they read anything? I don't even know if they do or not. But I think 2020 is when I was just like, this is all hands on deck. You know, like they're gonna, and I'm not trying to get into the topic, because they're gonna get me canceled. But it's just like, you can't keep people in their houses forever. That's just not America. And you can't kick people off of social media or off from their job because they said something about COVID that you don't like. Or anything that you don't like, I'm a free speech kind of absolutely, nearly absolutely. I have a bit of a libertarian streak when it comes to that stuff.

13:28And I'm just like, hey, this is all hands on deck. I don't want to get political. But like we're free speech in this thing. Do you remember in 2020 when some of the musicians were trying to get Joe Rogan off the spot of water? You look crazy, Seth. And I'm just like, okay, I'm a Joe Rogan doesn't need me to speak up for him, but like I did because this is ridiculous. And it was coming from the guy that wrote, keep rocking in the free world. And I'm just like, all right. Did it surprise you how many people in entertainment in general went so deep into the COVID hysteria? I mean, these are people from all different genres and all different forms of entertainment. But people that a lot of them make their careers on doing things that are really risky, probably not health forward, probably not health conscious, probably not, you know, living a life that's risk averse, doing crazy things. But then all of a sudden, COVID happened. They're like, shut everything down. You must all be in masks. We must all be vacks. We must just end everything.

14:28Like was that surprising to you all these people? Especially people in rock and roll that the lifestyle with like stay home and be a shut in, even though you're healthy and rock and roll. Those don't go together. But for that stupid time in history, a lot of the people preaching to us were those people. Right. Yeah, it was. I remember, so all the things that I've said that have gotten me into trouble online, I never expected any of them to actually, like, I'm just, I'm just dumb like them. I'm oblivious. And I'm just like, what? Everybody feels this way. And I remember thinking like all the rock people are going to be really glad I said something. The industry is going to like it because rock and roll is kind of like about, it's kind of like rebellious. And you're sort of like, you know, it has a little bit of a screw the man attitude or I thought that's what rock and roll was. And so it was very strange for me. I remember after I got in a lot of trouble for something I had said about that, about

15:31another band. I was like, wait a minute. Like I'm the punk rock. Like I'm the revolutionary. I'm the Christian guy. Yeah. Faithful to my wife. I talk about marriage all the time. I talk about my faith all the time. There's no crazy stories about skillet out there, getting drunk and wasted and doing crazy. That's that's who we are. And now I'm the punk rock guy. So that's the only reason I talked about politics. And so I've now that I think I think 2024 kind of kind of was a little bit of a reset. It seems for the country. And I was like, okay, good. Now I can go back to like not talking like I want to play music. But 2020 was a bit of an all hands on deck thing. So in general, I agree with people when they're like, I don't want to see some actor come up and yell at me about Iran or whatever they're on about that. I don't even know if they even know what they're talking about. You know, like the springsteens of the world. It gets old. Yeah.

16:32I love the boss too. I love springsteen. But it does kind of get to where you're like, I know. But now he spends his concerts just hop around talking about how bad Trump is and how oppressed everybody is. I mean, while they're paying how much to go see him in concert and he's worth how much and he's standing on the stage talking about how bad America is under Trump. I mean, that's a little ironic. It just, yeah, it just gets a little bit like exhausting. Yeah. I love it. Everyone, this singer for stained came out with that song around that time and it has a lyric in. It's like, am I the only one that I can't remember. I think it's called my only one. The lyric was about when springsteen comes on the radio, am I the only one that's like, almost can't take it anymore? Yeah. Because the boss is amazing. One of the greatest songwriters, certainly of the generation. And I still listen to him. But I'm like, I don't want people to feel that way about me. I know some people do. And but I'm trying to say my lane is best as I can. But all hands are on deck to, I believe, to save Western civilization.

17:35And I don't think we're through it. It's we're on the break. And uh, we'll slowly let me ask you about this because AOC, she recently did an interview where she said, quote, woke one was crazy. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah. Well, what you're talking about in 2020 was woke one. I mean, if you think about it, it was the cross section of all these things. It was COVID stupidity and the masking and the social distancing and the shutdowns and the lockdowns. And it was BLM burning things to the ground and that was okay. And it was the start of the rise of the LGBTQ mafia of where everything was pronouns and you know, men and women's sports and and everything stupid that was happening really was burst in 2020 or she would call it woke one. Woke is not over. I would argue that woke two is maybe worse. But is it interesting to you that they some of the folks that were active in woke one are maybe trying to distance themselves from woke one?

18:37Yeah, I mean, I haven't followed it as much. I used to follow it a lot because I was because of what I just said. So I don't follow it as much, but I did see the clip and I remember thinking like, what would be a lot better than saying woke one was gray. I would rather you say, I am sorry for woke one. We're not going to do that again. We were wrong. But this is the problem with I have a lot of progressive friends. I'm in the music business and I love them. Well, we the funny thing is is that we all get along and we don't hate each other even if we really disagree about how we would like the world to be. I think that's another reason I was a little naive and oblivious when I sort of speak in my mind because I grew up in a generation where nobody really cared what your political stance is where we were in college together and you sometimes we never even knew. And then you'd find out later like, oh, he's really into he's really into Bill Clinton. I had no idea he was really into that. And nobody cared. And so I think that's part of the weird thing. But progressiveism, the problem with progressiveism is that it never has to admit mistakes

19:42because it just looks at the past as as like useless retrograde. Now we know everything we need to know and if you give us the power, we will actually create an amazing world. Sorry, woke one was a little crazy. But now we're really going to woke harder and maybe they make some adjustments but woke didn't go away. It just went underground. That's for sure. But we did kind of reset at least a little bit. So for me, one of the for me, one of the things was just, I promise my manager, I wouldn't talk about all this stuff. But it's just the truth. It's like for me, one of the things was just all the all the trans ideology in schools and these these surgeries for minors. I really felt in my heart and I still feel today and I will go to my deathbed feeling this like that was worth. I don't want to lose my career. I love playing music. If it cost you your career to stand up for these poor kids like I'll go to battle for

20:51that any day and I am so thankful that maybe that's part of what they consider woke on. I don't know. But for what has happened there, good, you know what I mean. That was a true wickedness. I started talking about this pretty early on and I met a couple and older couple that said, hey, do you have, I don't know if you remember my daughter and they showed me a picture of me after a show with their daughter who was probably 16 at the time. I was like, oh, I do. I do remember they she'd come to a lot of shows and they said, we want to show you a picture of her now and they show me a picture. She identifies as a man. She's been through all the surgeries. She had like a little beard and her bones, she was so small and brittle and she had like walk a walker because all the medicine that she had taken had degenerated her bones.

21:52The doctors are saying she's probably not going to live to be 50 and these parents were just like, please don't ever stop talking about this. And so every time if somebody gets mad at me online, I think of that that that couple that's going to lose their daughter. So needlessly, you know. Yeah. Well, that's an important and impactful story and I think one, it's one thing to say, hey, I'm an entertainer. I don't need to be a politician, but it's another thing to just stand for your basic values. I think that that's perfectly acceptable and I always say, there's a whole thing of like shut up and sing, right? It was the Dixie Chucks. It was, hey, shut up and sing. We don't want to hear your take on the Iraq War and George Bush. And it was true. And I believe they lost their career over it because they're in country music and in country music, we are patriotic and we don't say things like that generally in country music. You have to know who your audience is, right? That's the same thing as if someone like Olivia Rodrigo got up and said, like, I love Trump. Probably wouldn't have much of an audience, right? So it's just, you know, your audience.

22:54I don't mind when those on the left have a political perspective where they advocate for something. It's that I know that they are taking almost zero risk in today's day and age by expressing it. Like if somebody goes up and they talk about how much they love abortion and all these things and they have a full concert supporting Planned Parenthood, there's really not a cost to them. In fact, it's probably going to elevate them in the industry to an extent. But if you go up and you say you're proly for, you know, God forbid, you respect our military and our law enforcement, then all of a sudden it's like, well, you're mega and we should boycott you. And I think that there's just a weird, a weird imbalance. And so I give people who stand up for their beliefs on the right a little more credit because I know there's a cost to it. And Mickey Minaj is a great example to be a female rapper and to come out and she took a stand on COVID and vaccines as well. But now she's doing things with the administration that she deeply believes in, like saving Christians in Nigeria was the first entrance into that for her. And she's been pretty much excommunicated by her genre and her peers.

23:59I mean, she's probably the biggest selling female rapper of all time. But all it took was her taking a stance that was a little closer to the right on something that she believed in and very quickly they throw her out. Why do you think there's such an imbalance? Hmm. That is, I don't know if I'm smart enough to know why there is, but there is. I mean, that's without a doubt. And I agree with you. I mean, I just went to my wife and I quarry. We went to see Sarah McLaughlin. She played here in town. My wife is a huge fan. And it was like, oh, I can't wait. This is going to be awesome. And she didn't get, she didn't talk about politics. And except for one new song she did, which is her, I don't know the name of it, but it basically was, I wrote a song about pro, pro-borsha, pro choice or whatever. It was like a stick to the man, get your hands off my body type song. And I sit through it. It's fine. It's one song. I sit through it and she crushed and it was amazing. I'd see her again.

25:00I don't know why people have to freak out so bad if somebody makes a political statement. Now, the whole concert was somebody just ranting over and over and you go like, man, I think you need something in your life. I think that you need to speak with someone. God's got a better way, brother. But I do think you're right. There is that cost. You know, I just think the conservativeism has always been, it's just always looked at as just like, not cool, you know. I remember when I first just posted like, happy July 4th and the amount of people, this was years ago, the amount of people that came after me, almost like your supporting racism, it was after 2016, 2016 changed everything. So then to be into America means you are into Trump and to say that you're into America means that now all the things they hate about Trump, they hate about you. Even though I never said anything about Trump, I never said anything about anything

26:01ever except for happy July 4th and then you're being called a racist and all that was when I started waking up. That was around 16 or 17 and I started going like, there's something really weird happening here. To be patriotic is to show that you're conservative and I just think that's sort of, it's bizarre because again, when I grew up, all of my Democrat voter friends were all patriotic, you know, not all of them, but a lot of them. Most people, it really wasn't controversial in the country. No. Well, I will say this, I do think that the way the industry treats conservatives and some extent Christians is very different than audiences. And a perfect example right now is Ella Langley breaking every single record with the longest running number one, I believe of all time. She's somebody who sings country music, who is pretty open about her faith and being a Christian. And she's somebody who, some in the industry, don't like the fact that she's just now

27:04destroyed every record. She's toppled Beyonce and Taylor Swift and everybody else for the most number one. And I would also say the same thing about someone like Immortan Wallen who they tried to cancel in 2020, who sells out stadium tours, every single time you tours, multi-night stadium sellouts in every city that he goes to. So I think there's a big difference between what the people at the top or the people at the records or radio, what they believe is acceptable and what actual fans come out to see. I 100% agree with that. That's always been my philosophy when we were getting signed all those years ago, once upon a time. And they're like, so are you going to be a Christian band or a rock band? I'm like, no, I'm going to do both. I just want to sing rock songs and I want to sing about my faith. And there was very much like that's not something you can do in the rock world. And I was naive, but I was like, I don't think people care.

28:07I know this because I know people. I have friends and they come out to see my shows and a lot of my friends are not Christians and they don't care. And they're like, those are your friends. I'm like, yeah, but I don't think people respond to authenticity. And look, if you really can't stand springsteens, rants about Trump, then maybe you don't go. I get it. And if you can't stand my rants about Jesus, then maybe you don't go. Most people are sort of like, yeah, that's the guy that's into Jesus. Yeah, that's the guy that's into the, you know, standing up for whatever. And I just think people want to see something they believe. So that's kind of my philosophy. If you sing something that you believe, oh, remember the Johnny Cash film walked the line? Such a great film. You know, that part and where the, he goes to play for the A&R guy. They're a performer. The first time and the guy comes and he's like, he's like, that's the song you give me. He was singing nothing. He was singing a gospel song. He was like, great. I came over the A&R guy, but he said something to the effect of, if you just got in a car

29:09wreck and you have three, you're about to die. You have three minutes to tell the world what you believe. Is that really the song? He's like, I don't care about your gospel. I don't care about your Jesus. I want to know like, what is it that you believe? Make me believe it. You know, that's what music is. And that's why for me, I listen to bands that do not believe what I believe. Sometimes people are kind of shocked at the music I listen to. They're like, I just, because you're a Christian. I'm like, it affects me. I think they believe what they're saying and the passion of it feels real to me. That's what art I thought was supposed to be. So I agree with you. Audiences don't care. I mean, so if you looked at the amount of our songs that have gone platinum singles that never charted on radio, you know, we couldn't get ready to play it, you know, but it never ended top 30. We've got a bunch of them that sold a million copies, could not break radio, but the audiences were like, no, I like that.

30:10You know, so you just keep pushing, man. And now more than ever because of social media audiences can find you in ways that they couldn't in the late 90s and early 2000s, I would say. Because the gatekeepers, they matter. They just don't matter in the same way that they used to. They were talking about politics, where you get your news media from no matter what it is, they still matter of course. And we need them and I need them to play my new song now. I need radio to get behind it and play it. But at the end of the day, you can bypass if you know, it's good. There's some bad, a lot of bad about social media, but there's some good things too. You can chart your own course and you can say that good rock and roll, revel, screw the man. I don't have to have them. I'm going to make the song that I want to make. We just had a song from our 2019 album, the song called Finish Line. It just got certified gold, right?

31:12Which is amazing, but we never even released it to radio. The label didn't want it on the album. They're just like, we just don't think this song is good. It doesn't fit. And I was like, our fans are going to love this song. Didn't even release it to radio. And it just went gold. I don't know. He became a social media thing. Yeah. That certainly can happen now. I had last week, I had John Rich on the show. I love John. And he's very firm in his beliefs as well and it pisses people off. And he loves that he's independent and he can do what he wants to do. And he doesn't have to answer to a label that tells him you do this. You must live in the confines of whatever. Another thing he's very passionate about though is protecting songwriters from AI. That's something that he is very concerned about because AI is writing music. And especially in the country music space, you know, there are charting songs that are entirely written and sang by artificial intelligence. You concerned about that at all in your genre? I mean, he is right. So I totally agree, but I'm extremely unknowledgeable, not capable to speak to the subject.

32:16But yes, of course, obviously, I mean, it's writing music. It's writing lyrics. It's writing. It's writing is better than any human, except for a few, you know, except for Celine Dion or somebody. It sings amazing. It is, it's totally freaky. But I'm not really knowledgeable enough to talk about it, but I'm glad he's doing it. I like John quite a lot. And speaking of authenticity, we just lost a music legend in Dolly Parton. And you, somebody who's born and raised in Memphis and Tennessee, obviously, being important to you and not only sharing that in common with Dolly, but also just the impact that she had on every genre in the world, kind of reflecting on somebody as big as Dolly Parton, even though in a very different genre than you. What is someone like that? Also somebody who's very firm in her face. What did the passing of Dolly mean just for music in general? Yeah. Well, I think that what I like about Dolly, actually, I think Ben Shapiro said something

33:19to this effect. I can't really remember, so I can't quote him, but I think he said something to this effect as well. But it was really great that it seemed like everybody kind of liked Dolly. And I think that that is very hard to come by now. So like I don't have any idea, I'm not overly familiar with Dolly Parton, but I don't think I've ever seen anything about like a particular candidate. I don't remember seeing that she voted for that. You know, whereas a lot of celebrities do. You know, Obama's running again. He'd have all, I mean, you know, you'd be dying to be one of his people if you were on that side. And I don't think that she was like that. She liked America. And I'm not even sure if that's possible these days, because if you came out as a new artist now and just said, I'm not going to vote. I'm not going to tell anybody who I'm voting for. I'm never going to show it, show my cards that I lean one way or the other, but this is

34:20the greatest country on planet earth. They're like, you're a conservative. Because that's who talks like that. It's just true because conservatives typically go, I love this country. And I want to keep it about all the great things. I don't want those things to change. We can change some stuff that's broken, but we love a lot about it. Whereas progressives are sort of like, no, it's not good. It was built on the slavery and oppression of women. And you just show which way you're coded if you just say I love America. So she was from a different time when, as I said, when I think both sides did love America. It's like a, you know, sometimes I see you on Fox News. I love to show the five. And like Harold Ford, he's the token liberal on there. I love Harold Ford. I'm sort of like, oh my gosh, if, you know, if that was the liberal that was

35:20president, wouldn't I be really happy? You know what I mean? Like he's from a different time. Yeah. And that is how people, to my mind, used to be a little bit like center, right, or center left. I don't even consider myself to be, I'm actually not hard right. I'm just kind of like a center to the right kind of guy. I love America. Great principles. I think it's really was like that seemed to not turn a lot of people off by, you know, constantly being in headlines for like bad stuff. And again, I'm sorry I'm ranting on this. I'm going so long. You're probably like, oh my god. This kind of show. No, I appreciate it. I also think it's hard to imagine because in her time, the country wasn't actually as divided again between right now, we're not really arguing about conservative values and liberal values. We're arguing about is America worth keeping or should we start all over again, tear it down and get rid of it? That is a different conversation. And so at that time, I mean, the pressure you get as a musician, if I go back to 2020,

36:27do you know the biggest reason I started speaking out, I just remember the biggest reason was because I was being bombarded on social media, not just by, by commenters, but by industry people that silence is violence. I just remembered, I'm sorry, I haven't talked about this in a long time. Is that the black square? The silence is violence was that if you don't, if you don't support either the black square, BLM, if you don't make a statement about George Floyd, you are responsible for it. So silence is violence and I'm sure some people listening remember this. It was a gosh for two months. It was just constant silence is violence. Science, there were articles written, how come skill it has it said anything? All these other musicians have, but it's strange that a Christian wouldn't say something about the violence. And I felt bullied and that's kind of my working principle of my life. I hate bullies like, I hate bullies like I don't care how big they are. Even if I know I'm going to beat up, I'm like we're going, I can't stand them.

37:32And I was like, okay, fine, I'm going to speak up and I don't, I don't support BLM. They're burning down. And by the way, I lived in Kenosha, Wisconsin, three blocks from where Kyle Rittenhouse shot people. I mean, they burn down, they burn down, they say the whole, maybe the cry on the fire, even mostly peaceful, three blocks from my house. And that is when I was just like, it's on. I'm sick of these bullies, silences violence, they just burned down the city I live in. And all these media outlets were coming in, lying, I experienced it. Can you tell you a story about that real quick? Yes, please. The day two days after it was burned, I glass everywhere because that's where the downtown area was. Glass everywhere. Somebody, I don't know, some organizations said we're going to get together artists from the community. It was not political. In fact, if anybody knows, if you get a whole community of artists, it's probably going

38:37to be more to the left than to the right. You're going to have a disproportionate amount of LGBTQ people there, but it's just the way it is. Not being rude to anybody. But they're going to get together and what they're going to do is they're going to go up and they're going to board up where all the glass is broken and they're going to paint. They're going to paint beautiful pictures. And so my wife and daughter decided to do it and my drummer to go be a part of that. So they go to the saying which is completely nonpartisan, probably left leaning and they're painting all these beautiful things. And somebody can't remember what outlet it is comes and interviews my wife as she's doing it. This article comes out on, I don't even know what, on vise or something like that. It's got a picture, thankfully, of my wife and my daughter from behind painting. And they spun it into a, these people are covering up BLM signs.

39:39They spun it and we started getting messages of hate from friends of ours that are like, why would you ever do this? And thankfully, they didn't have my wife's name on it. I just saw how they did it. The irony is is that I went to see my wife when they were almost done. And the owner of the shop just walked up and saw it for the first time. Who's a black man? He's weeping. He's like, why would you, why would people do this for us? This has been my whole livelihood as this door. Why would they do this to us? So you have the black store owner crying thanking my wife and my daughter and can't believe that people would do this. I the, it couldn't believe that people would have that much violence and then and couldn't believe that people had that much love in them to come and do this. And then these outlets are making it sound like it's because we are against BLM or a bunch of conservatives. And I was just like, you bunch of bullies, man, I can't stand it. And that's when I was like, we're going. But they didn't have a problem with burning down the community. Like that was justice.

40:41What a stupid time. But I mean, especially being that you were like at ground zero for a lot of it. You know, what happened here in Nashville, they went down to Broadway and they started smashing storefronts on historic Broadway in the name of BLM and destroying stores. And it's like what a stupid time. At the same time, we were told that we couldn't eat at a restaurant. Yeah. And you can go break the windows of a restaurant for George Floyd. You know what was really sad about it was like funny enough. Social justice is actually something that I care a lot about. This is, this is the irony of this. I sang my first song, wrote my first song about racism in 1998. You know Martin Luther King Jr.'s one of my biggest heroes. My particular faith and from what I understand of the Bible, some people disagree. I think that justice matters a lot to God.

41:43If you look in the Bible in the Old Testament, the prophets are constantly, constantly rebuking God's people because they didn't care about justice. They did not do justice for the poor. And it's something very close to God's heart. The question is, is how do we do justice? And so when all that was happening, I'm thinking just like you're thinking, how is this helping anybody? All you're doing is hurting the people that you say you want to help. Plus it was city schools that they kept. They wouldn't let kids go back to school even after we had all that information from, usually from Denmark in places, if I remember correctly. We're reading the information going, this doesn't help. We know now that this doesn't matter. It's not coming after the kids. It's coming after the old folks or people with comorbidities. We know that now. And this is going to hurt the kids. And what's going to happen is all the private school kids are going to get, they're going back to school and they're going to get even, it's going to get worse and worse and worse

42:46but you're looked at as not loving the poor and the marginalized by saying that when in reality, we're the ones that actually, I know that this will help. That stuff really irritates me and you couldn't even have good faith conversations about it in 2020. So I don't know if that's getting better. I feel like it might be getting a little better now or maybe it's just my particular friend group. My friend group, we can have all these discussions and radically disagree and nobody, nobody minds. I don't know if that's that way now but in 2020, it was not that way. Really? So, lose friends during that time that then you reconnected with after a woke one past. In 2020, when BLM burned down, there were flyers going around saying the next night is going to be even worse and we're going after neighborhoods. It was all over social media.

43:49I believe that President Trump at the time had tweeted, I will send the guard in there if the governor will ask me to. And our governor is like, no, thanks. We don't want your help. We are all getting very nervous. I posted something on social media of a sign that made me so sad. I found, boarded up with a sign that said, please kids, we have kids living upstairs because a lot of those shop, those old shops will have, the owners of the shop will live upstairs. And I took a picture of it. I'm just like, I don't know how people think this is helping anybody. And someone from my church, actually, so a friend of mine reposted what I posted and he said, I'm praying for my friends, John and Corey tonight, which could be really bad. And a friend from my church who I have known for 30 years commented under it and said, my

44:53prayers will be with the actual hurting people, not the rich people basking in their wealth. We go to church together. We worship the same God. We break bread together. We take a covenant, meal together to celebrate what Jesus did for us. You helped introduce me to my wife. What the crap is wrong with people? Did you have a conversation with that person? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Did you resolve it? No. No. There was no resolve in 20. Nobody was capable of, they're like, well, I just, I'm sorry, I just really care about these people. And I'm like, so do I, but like we're friends. Yeah. You care about me too, right? Yeah. But they just, they just, they just lost their ability to reason during that time. It was such an emotional, but stupidly emotional time. Like how does that even, there was a lot of craziness at that time.

45:54And I hope that we are through it. I'm not so sure we are. I'm not so sure we are either. Last thing I want to ask you about is we're almost at the one year anniversary. I'm sorry. You're fine. The one year anniversary of the assassination of my friend Charlie Kirk. And somebody who was very faith forward, of course, and somebody who really wanted the younger generation to find God and to find their faith among other conservative values. But he wanted to be remembered for his faith. And as we're looking at one year since his assassination, a young husband and father, what does that mean to somebody who broadcast their faith as strongly as you do? And somebody who, you know, is in a time where that matters. Yeah. I, I, I came, I spoke out after that. I did a little podcast thing about Charlie, Charlie's assassination. And I didn't know Charlie Kirk. I did a few events. I met him a couple of times.

46:55We weren't friends. So I don't want to make it sound like I knew him because I did it. That's, I love so much of what he did. What kind of evil could this be that people could celebrate the assassination of somebody that's not hurting people other than words that people disagree with? That is a very dangerous thing to me. That's the first thing that comes to my mind. And I do not think we're past that. We saw the same thing with, I can't remember, but the whole, the insurance guy that was killed. The lead jujmangeon, yeah. That situation. I don't like that. That stuff makes me very, very nervous. And so I, I personally believe that Charlie Kirk is, you know, in Christianity, we would call him a martyr. I believe he was a martyr for the faith. Not everybody agrees with that, but I do. Because I believe the things that got him killed were things that, that he believed, and I would agree with are things that, that come from his Christian worldview.

48:02And if you didn't have a Christian worldview, then maybe you wouldn't, maybe you wouldn't think those things, you know? And so I believe that that's what got him killed. I've not kept up with the trial. I don't know all the ins and outs, but that's where I was that last year. Still where I'm at. I do believe he was a martyr. And it's really sad that everybody has to say, like, I don't even want to give the caveat of, did I agree with him about everything? Yeah. You don't agree with anybody about everything ever. You know what I mean? I'm sure that Charlie Kirk would not have agreed with everything that I've said. Nobody agrees with it. It doesn't matter if you agree with everything ever. And I think that's the place going back to Dolly Parton. We're not in that time anymore where you can be like, yes, I'm friends with Tommy into, oh, she's the one that, that blah, blah, blah, you know, she's makeup that we're like, it was used on animals. And you know, like, I don't know anything about that. And I don't care. You know, she's a friend. I don't understand why we have to be that way. Yeah. I wish we didn't.

49:02And that's where I think makes Dolly Parton's passing really sad as well. It did not used to be that way, man. It really makes me sad. That sucks. I hope we can return. Me too. I do think that most people are reasonable and rational and decent. I think that the loudest ones who are generally anonymous on social media make it appear that society has lost decency. I don't believe that. But there are enough to wear it. It really is disheartening, I would say. Let's talk about the last thing, which is something fun about October 9th and the new EP coming out. Where can people find your new stuff and is it going to be the same skill that they've always known and loved? So, yes, coming out, the EP is called After the Storm. And I hope people love it. It's heavy. It is a hard rock EP. I think it's a little heavier than some of our other stuff.

50:04It's emotionally heavy as well. It's been a very kind of last couple of years for me. It's been a quite tumultuous period and I wrote from that place. And I don't think I'm the only one that feels that way for all sorts of various reasons. We are at a civilizational shift as well. No, I'm not saying that this isn't why I wrote the record. But I'm just saying all the various things. We're at a civilizational shift. We're at a shift for young people when I think we've seen the experiments of social media. Like, okay, we know what that does to people. We know what living on your phone does to folks and it ain't good and we should stop. We've seen the social media experiment. We've seen the reality TV experiment. It's going to become a YouTube star and how absolute empty that is. You know, that few years ago, like I remember thinking like, you just talk, sometimes you talk to young people and they just have that like glassed over, like kind of glaze over look. It didn't used to be that way.

51:06I think people are realizing that a lot of that's changed. That young people are looking for something to live for. Yeah. It's a very nihilistic time we've been in. But I think that young people want to be part of something. They realize that they need more friends than just social media community friends, which aren't real. And that's a really good thing, but it's causing a lot of depression and a lot of angst and confusion. And of course it is 2020. Can you imagine, can you imagine being in seventh grade and hitting 2020? I would have really gone through some deep emotional depression, you know, as people that are geared towards that stuff. So we're coming out of all of that. Also these young people are being raised in a time where the country is so divided that they might, some people might be happy if someone's assassinated. That is a dark way to live. And that is not the way that we grew up. You know, my parents would have mourned the death of somebody that they did not vote for.

52:11You know, it's insane, isn't it? Well, they have to live with that sort of thing, knowing like, but that's my friend, but is my friend evil now? Like, are they actually evil? That's a terrible way to grow up. And so I think that people will hear this and take, interpret it through their own limbs. And I hope people love it. They can go, a skillet online is skillet music on Instagram or Facebook or what have you. Go check out all the really dumb things we do backstage. We like to kind of show people what it's really like. And I'm kind of quite goofy. And so people, if you want to see something dumb, you go watch skillet music on Instagram. And but if you want to rock out, you go listen to skillet music. I love it. Well, thank you so much for being here and sharing all of that. Hopefully your manager is not too mad that you've diled into a little bit of politics. We kept it, you know, I think, I think we kept it in the mainstream. I think we kept it in the mainstream. I think we kept it in the mainstream. I think we kept it in the mainstream. A good thing. I think it should be in the mainstream.

53:12It absolutely should be. Everybody, go and be friends with somebody you don't agree with politically. It's all going to be okay. You're right about that. And that's a great message. Thank you so much for being here. Absolutely. Alright, that is it for this episode of Tommy Laren. It's fearless. Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, support the YouTube channel at Tommy Laren. It's fearless full episodes on outkick.com and Fox Nation. The Instagram is at Tommy Laren is fearless and audio is available wherever you get your podcast, Spotify, I heart, Apple. And don't forget to watch the big weekend show every Saturday and Sunday, 5-8 PM Eastern on Fox News from Nashville. God bless and take care.