INTERVIEW: Skillet Breaks Down Their New Album 'Unleashed' | Music You Should Know
By Nicole Mastrogiannis
August 5, 2016
Christian rock band Skillet, which is comprised by husband and wife John (lead vocals & bass) and Korey Cooper (rhythm guitar, keyboards, backing vocals), Jen Ledger (drums, vocals), and Seth Morrison (lead guitar), has been continuing to create hit songs and tour all over the world for twenty years. The Memphis-based band released their debut self-titled album in 1996, and now -- two decades later -- the band is releasing their tenth studio album Unleashed. The new record is the follow-up to 2013's Rise, which hit No. 1 on the US Top Alternative Albums, US Christian Albums, US Top Hard Rock Albums, and US Top Rock Albums charts, and featured hit singles like "Rise," "Not Gonna Die," and "Sick of It." Skillet's new album Unleashed, released on August 5th via Atlantic Records, features 12 new songs including their singles "Feel Invincible" and "Stars." We recently caught up with Skillet, and they told us all about their new record during an exclusive interview.
Unleashed is Skillet's tenth studio album, which is a milestone all on its own. And this time around, the writing process for the record was approached differently than their previous albums from over their 20-year career thus far. John explains that they wrote these songs over the last two years, and just had fun with it instead of trying to please anyone else.
On how John and Korey wrote the songs on 'Unleashed'
"The writing process for Unleashed was quite fun this time. We began writing almost right after the last record came out and we were on the road. It was fun just to start writing without having too many opinions and having people say, 'Yes. I like that. No, I don't [like that]. Change this lyric. I don't like that chorus.' We just were writing for fun. And my wife and I, I bet we wrote thirty songs for this record over a period of about two years, and just trying new things. Even if it felt silly or felt like there was not a whole lot to it, but it was just fun and cool. Then we just wrote it and we didn't spend too much thinking about it, and I think that's what makes this record so much fun to listen to."
After twenty years and ten albums, Skillet is extremely thankful to their life-long fans who have been there from the beginning. "Makes me feel thankful to them that they've stuck with us for so long. It means that we've kept a lot of our old fans as the years have gone by, which is kind of hard to do for a band. Keep old fans and gaining new fans is tough to do, so it's a real honor. It's humbling to be able to have done it this long."
If you've been following Skillet over the course of their career, you'll notice that most of their album titles come from a title track on the album. For their latest record, they went a different route, and chose their album title because they felt that fit their new collection of songs the best. And as they put it, it's Skillet "off the leash."
On why they chose their album title to be called 'Unleashed'
"We named our record 'Unleashed' because that's what this record felt like to me. It felt like Skillet off the leash. When we were writing the songs, we weren't trying too hard to please a certain group of people. Whether it was a certain type of fan that desperately wants it to sound like an older record, or even a fan that wants it to not sound like an older record, or just to desperately please the label or desperately please radio. We just were writing what we were wanting to, and it was kind of like, who cares what the consequence is. Also, there are a lot of songs on the album that deal with either facing your fear or just not being afraid in general. [There are] a lot of fight songs on the record: 'Feel Invincible,' 'Back From the Dead,' 'Lions,' 'Undefeated.' They're all songs that were kind of like facing your fears head on and that's why I think this record, in general, just feels like a fight song album. Like songs that you would have at football games, and songs hopefully that inspire people in their lives to not be afraid. So all those things kind of go into why we called it Unleashed. It's also the very first album title we've ever had that was not also a song title. Usually we get pressured to always have titles be names of songs because you gotta tie a theme together for publicity, and I just was really excited about having a title that wasn't that way, that kind of encompassed the message of the record."
The first single Skillet released off of Unleashed is a song called "Feel Invincible." The single was able to reach No. 1 on the US Christian Rock charts, and was used as the official song for WWE Battleground. And John, being a wrestling fan growing up, explains he loved partnering with the WWE. He tells us, "The energy, the energy of rock music is great for sports and athletics. So, that was a really cool thing. I was really honored that they used it for that."
On the meaning behind the lyrics of their single "Feel Invincible"
"'Feel invincible' is a song that's about finding that one thing in your life that helps you wake up tomorrow morning, even though this whole world is going crazy. Every week or every few days, there's another terrible tragedy or attack. There's so many terrible things happening, and it's easy to lose faith. It's easy to just kind of give in to that fear. And 'Feel Invincible' is about finding that one thing. What is it that helps you believe in yourself? One thing that helps you believe and hope for the world. And it's kind of an escape. That can be lots of things. That's the beauty of music, is that it can mean one thing to someone, and you know it could be about a wife or a husband or a girlfriend or whatever. It could be about a friend, it could be about God, it could be spiritual. In my life, that one thing that gives me hope is my relationship with God. But, that's the beautiful thing about writing poetry, is that it can mean lots of different things to different people."
A photo posted by SkilletMusic (@skilletmusic) on Jul 28, 2016 at 8:49pm PDT
Aside from "Feel Invincible," Unleashed features 11 other brand new songs, including a song called "Out of Hell," which John explains is his favorite. He describes "Out of Hell" as the "heaviest song" the band has ever recorded, as well as the fastest. In fact, the latter aspect of the track is one of John's favorite moments from recording Unleashed.
On the story and making of their song "Out of Hell"
"My favorite song on the record is called 'Out Of Hell', and I think it's my favorite probably because it's really heavy. It's the most aggressive song on the album. Maybe the heaviest song we've ever done. It's really fast, probably the fastest song we've ever done, and it's just got a really great guitar solo in it, and it's very reminiscent of old metal that I grew up with. Also, the lyrics are very kind of Gothic. A lot of Gothic imagery in the song, which I personally like, and kind of emo-ish. It's a really cool picture of reaching out for help for somebody to pull you out of a terrible situation.""My favorite moment recording the record probably would have been whilst recording 'Out of Hell.' It was such a fast tempo, and so rock, and I was just really thrilled of the prospect of having a song that heavy on the record. Sometimes I feel a pressure from from the label or whoever, to not have those kinds of songs on the record because they don't sell as big as radio songs, or that as commercial or broad. I was just really, really excited to have something rocking that hard. So that was a really cool moment. And I also got to work with Kevin Churko, the producer on that. I'm a huge fan of his, and it was just, a great moment for me on the record."
You can check out the complete discography of Skillet’s new record Unleashed below:
1. "Feel Invincible" (3:49)2. "Back From the Dead” (3:33)3. "Stars" (3:47)4. "I Want to Live" (3:28)5. "Undefeated" (3:35)6. "Famous" (3:18)7. "Lions" (3:24)8. "Out of Hell" (3:34)9. "Burn it Down" (3:16)10. "Watching for Comets" (3:29)11. "Saviors of the World" (3:46)12. "The Resistance" (3:52)