Dominion - An Interview with John Cooper (Special Edition) - GotQuestions.org Podcast Episode 64

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This episode is going to be different than any ones we've had before, in that we're actually spotlighting a

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Christian artist, a Christian musician that I've been a huge fan of. We have today John Cooper, the lead singer of Skillet.

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So John, welcome to the show. Thank you. John, it's great to be with you today, man. So let me tell you a funny story.

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So I came to Faith in Christ in my late teens. I looked you up and we're actually almost the exact same age, so you grew up the same time frame

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I did. The youth pastor, he started discipling me. One of the first things he confronted me about was my choice in music.

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He looked through my music collection, saw Metallica, Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Poison, and all this hard rock, heavy metal type of music, and it's like,

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Shea, this is not the sort of thing you need to be filling your brain with. So one of the first steps you need to take as a new believer is you need to get rid of all this stuff.

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And listening to him, it pained me greatly to see all of those going into the trash.

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And to replace them, he gave me a Petra cassette and a

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DC Talk. I believe it was their Free At Last album. Now don't get me wrong,

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I love me some Toby Mac and Tate, but at the time, based on the music

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I was listening to before, those were not exactly adequate replacements. So my question for you is, where was

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Skillet in 1992 when I needed you guys? I was listening to those same records that you're talking about, you know, man, 1992.

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There actually were a bunch of great Christian metal bands at that time, but they were just so unknown.

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Like you said, if you liked Metallica and Megadeth and your youth pastor said, don't listen to that stuff.

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And to them, DC Talk, who is awesome, of course, which you just said, of course,

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DC Talk's awesome. Toby's iconic Christian artist.

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But if what you like is Metallica and Megadeth, DC Talk's nothing like that. It's a totally different genre.

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But there were these great Christian metal bands, White Cross, Baron Cross, and even like really heavy, like Deliverance and Tourniquet.

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They were some great metal bands, but there just wasn't the platform. And so I always like to brag on Christian music because there'd be no

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Skillet had these bands, Guardian, I love Guardian, they did what they did and there wasn't much of a platform for it.

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And it kept building and building. And now people like me get to have the fruits of all that work they did. So I'm appreciative to them,

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Striper, of course. Yeah. So some of the ones you just mentioned are ones that I thankfully eventually discovered to scratch that hard rock heavy metal itch that I still had.

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So Skillet has a new album coming out soon called Dominion. So tell me about the album. What was your inspiration or motivation for this album as opposed to some of the previous ones?

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Well, yes, Dominion, I'm so very excited. I love the name Dominion. Since we're doing a cool podcast here, you probably don't mind if I give you some of the deeper meanings.

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Sometimes when you do it, you do these rock interviews, you just got to say something really quick. It's great.

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Is this? And you're on to the next question. But there are some really deep concepts in Dominion that I feel really passionate about.

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But I'll just say it like this. We're in a time where there are a lot of forces, a lot of forces trying to control your life.

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That could be, of course, N -word, you know, and of course, good theology. We know what those forces are.

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We're talking about the flesh. We're talking about Satan himself, his disciples, you're talking about all those kind of things.

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And then with this pandemic and all of the polarization from politics and not just, it's not actually really about politics.

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It's really about how much our philosophical underpinnings of the entire world, not just America, have shifted so drastically that now there's all this information in our heads.

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People are really confused about the way we view truth. Is there such thing as truth? Is there such thing as actual history or is history also subjective?

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We're faced with it every day is what I'm saying. Then we have externalities. We have pandemics, vaccines.

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We have mandates. We have people yelling about this. We have protests for racial justice.

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There's so much happening. And I believe we're in a time, namely, that there's this incredible overreach from the government reaching into our lives in a way that it not only is unlawful according to American law, but it is unlawful according to biblical law, in my opinion.

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Government reaching into my life, John, saying, John, you do not have the right to go to church to sing a song to Christ during a pandemic or because of this.

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I don't believe the government has the right to do that. All of that stuff is written in this record.

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It's called dominion because what it means is this. Under the authority of Christ, Christ has dominion over all the earth.

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In the book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar actually says it.

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His dominion is an everlasting dominion. That's what the title of the record really is about.

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But under God's authority, that means that I have a certain amount of dominion over my life under the dominion of Christ, of course.

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And this album is sort of a, I hope, a voice, maybe even prophetic voice, you might want to say, a rebuke.

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It's a rebuke to the power of the state. In philosophy, you'd call it statism, right, that the state is the all -powerful, the state is the

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God, trying to act like the God. It's a rebuke to the state. You do not have the right. It's a rebuke to fear.

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I've never seen Christians living in this much fear, or people in general, just about the pandemic and what's going to happen with their life and triple mask.

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I'm just like, I mean, talk about being ruled by fear. It's also a rebuke to living under that fear.

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If you were in Christ, you don't live according to fear. The Bible says, for I did not give you a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind.

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So Dominion is the title. I'm glad I'm doing a Christian podcast because I can actually go on deep concept.

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All of this is about that. It is about saying this world belongs to Christ. This world does not belong to the devil, does not belong to some sort of pagan deity called history, which is one of the things we hear all the time now.

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It doesn't belong to fear. It doesn't belong to politicians. And it's also based on the last thing

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I'll say this in biblical theology, we call it the culture mandate, don't we? It's to go into all the earth to rule and subdue, to bring dominion to the earth under the lordship of Christ.

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That's what we are supposed to do as the church. So all those messages are on this record. And I hope that it's fun to listen to.

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Yeah, for sure. So tell me about Musically, how is Dominion different than previous

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Skillet albums? I had the opportunity to listen to a preview of it before it was released. That was great.

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Love the album, love the sound. It sounds like Skillet, but it doesn't sound exactly the same. So how would you describe

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Musically, this album, being different from previous Skillet albums? Well, I do think it is.

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It is different. And I think that you even hear that really long explanation of what Dominion is about.

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You probably pick up on the fact that I've got a little bit of attitude these days. I've got a little bit of gusto, a little bit of, hey, we have to stand up for what we believe right now.

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There's a lot, there's a lot riding, I believe, on what the church is going to do.

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And it's not just going to affect Christians. It's going to, I believe, affect everybody. If the church doesn't do our job and stand up for truth, it's going to be bad for everybody involved.

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And so because of that, I think that the record is quite aggressive. It's big.

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It's a little heavier. I think it's a little hard. It reminds me of our Awake album, which

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I know you mentioned earlier. It kind of reminds me of that record in that the aggression of the music has to match the aggression of the lyrics.

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It has to match that theme, like the first single we released was called Surviving the

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Game. I mean, the first line of the chorus, I can be unstoppable.

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Going to walk through hell, going to shake the walls. You've got to have something heavy for that. You know, you can't be, you know, you can't be doing

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Amy Grant to that. Not a diss on Amy Grant, just saying we got to have something heavy.

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So the record is very modern. A lot of digital, a lot of digital instruments, digital guitars.

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Not all the guitars are digital, by the way, but a lot of them are. And I think that that just made it sort of updated and updated the sound of Awake, in my opinion, to where it's kind of heavy.

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And we tried some new stuff. There's a little bit of screaming on the record, which is which is a little bit new for Skillet, a little bit of what

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I would call screaming and even a little bit of I don't want to say rap, but there is a few rap like, you know, there's more of a hip hop influence, but with heavy guitars.

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So that's kind of being shown on the record in a new way. Yeah, for sure. So, again, love the album.

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Definitely recommend people to get it. And it kind of leads into my next question. So. So two of my favorite bands are

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Skillet and Switchfoot, which aren't same musically, both rock bands, but very different sounds.

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And what I love is that a Christian can listen to a Skillet album or a

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Switchfoot album and get deep spiritual meaning from the songs. But people who are not a believer can listen to it and not even really know that the lyrics have a spiritual meaning.

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So how do you balance that as a believer of wanting to produce something that's spiritually meaningful, that points to the truth while also not turning off people who aren't really looking for that in the music they listen to?

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Yeah, I think that that's actually a great question, and lots of people are going to have very different opinions on this.

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And I'm always very I think I'm pretty gracious towards people that disagree with me about this.

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All right. Because I think this is a matter of conscience. But I think the art. In my personal opinion, the best art is is art that I can

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I can watch a film or listen to a song or look at a painting and I can sort of interpret, you know, the undertones of what they were trying to say.

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For instance, maybe I love the book Nineteen Eighty Four. That's a good example.

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Nineteen Eighty Four is just a really fantastic story. You don't have to understand anything about communism or tyranny and totalitarian regimes.

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You don't have to know anything about that just to read the book and say that was really cool, you know. And I think the art is done well like that.

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And I think that there is a place for Christian music that is overt and could be more like like the way we sing hymns at church, you know what

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I mean? The hymns at church or worship songs have a distinct purpose, and that purpose should be to glorify

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God as he is. It should be to sing about his attributes, right, and the things he's done for us.

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And that should be very theologically rigid, I would say. When I get into Christian music,

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I see Christian music as art. And I'm not saying that it's OK to say things that are that are wrong, but I like to write songs that could that could mean something different to you than it means to someone that is not a

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Christian. We have a song called Hero from the Awake album. All around the world,

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I was I was in Russia and some I because during the time, Hero is becoming a pretty a pretty big radio hit at the time.

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And in Russia, in an interview, and he says, so this song Hero, who is your hero? And at that time,

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I had only ever answered that question in America. And so to a lot of people in America, if you say

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Jesus, they feel like you're not answering the question because they assume that Jesus is your ultimate hero.

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But what they mean is, who are your other heroes? Why do they assume that they assume it? Because we used to live in a very

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Christian culture. Well, all of a sudden I'm in Russia and I said, my hero is

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Jesus. And they said he said, Jesus, who? And I was like, oh, oh.

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And so we started having a talk about who Jesus was. And he says to me after and he says, he says, are you saying.

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John, are you saying that you believe that Jesus of Nazareth, who died on the cross, are you saying that you believe that he is also

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God? And that's when I was like, oh, we're not in Kansas anymore. You know, in America, everybody has these assumptions.

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And I was in Russia. I was like, oh, yes, that is what I'm saying. Jesus is also God. And so what

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I'm saying is, is that it's cool. My song got big in other countries and Hero, their hero could be something completely antithetical to what

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I would believe. I think it's a great way to evangelize. It's a great asset for the church to use in order as a supplement.

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But my only warning for that is just when Christian music becomes a way of teaching people doctrine, that's when

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I get really nervous. I think Christian music should be a supplemental thing in your life, but we should be looking at doctrine according to historical sources and orthodoxy.

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Yeah, no, that's an excellent segue to the next question. You've spoken a lot about, it was a couple of years ago,

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I think, where it became big, where several Christian artists deconstructed their faith or whatever, and for some

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Christians who really looked up to those artists, it was devastating to hear of their decision to depart from the faith.

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And Steve, not just Christian artists, but some prominent Christian leaders were doing the same. So as a

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Christian artist to skill, it's been a very popular band for a while now.

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I'm sure you get the fangirl and the fanboy treatment on occasion. How do you respond to that?

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And how do you explain to people that as a Christian artist, you should not be a role model, at least not in the doctrinal sense, or don't look to me as your spiritual authority or end all, be all for all things related to the faith.

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That should be other people. So just tell our listeners briefly, how do you respond when something like that happens?

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Yeah, I think that that's a really great question. I kind of like how you said at the end, which was, don't look to me to be your spiritual authority,

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I think is a great way to say it. Definitely don't look to me to be your spiritual authority.

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I think that I would separate a couple of things here, because I have said a lot of things on this subject and you have limited time, separate a couple of issues.

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Number one, in terms of Christian musicians being role models, a lot of people mean different things with that language.

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I would say this, a biblical precedent for all of us, whether you're a school teacher, a rock star or a plumber,

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I think is what Paul says, imitate me as I imitate

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Christ. We should all be living a life worthy of imitation. So there can be an idea in our culture to where we put preachers or pastors up on some sort of pedestal, meaning that that they are more spiritual than us.

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So their lives should they should have more lordship than we do. Something of that nature. Does that make sense?

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In other words, they should be really serious about sin. I need to be 80 percent as serious about sin and so on and so forth.

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Obviously, if you are a Christian leader, you are under a different standard in terms of what

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God calls you to, but you're not under a different standard in terms of God's holy law and God's holy word.

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We are all under the same standard. So if you're a plumber, you should be living a life worthy of imitation as well.

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So I always accept that responsibility as a as a role model, if you will, in that sense. Yes, that's

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OK. Young people, you can look to me as a role model in that sense, as I'm doing my very best to live for Christ.

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But I would not say look to me as a role model in terms of I'm where you go for your doctrine.

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I'm where you go for your spiritual authority. I am supplemental. But but I think this is part of a larger issue, if I if I may.

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This isn't just in the church. This is in the secular world, too. I mean, this is really just the the sort of culture,

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I want to say philosophical shift that's happened since I think mainly since the 60s, really.

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And it has become so popular that even in the world, secular academia. You know, there is just very popular to not look back at any historical wisdom.

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It's kind of a progressive way to look at knowledge. It's twenty twenty one. So even a teenager now has more knowledge than the ancient wisdom traditions or something like that.

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That is not helpful because what you have now is is a whole generation of people that they know a lot of facts about things, but they don't understand wisdom because they have intentionally ignored the wisdom of the past.

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And we see that with American historical revisionism. You see it in everything.

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And we're seeing that in the church, too. So what happens is that a lot of young people especially don't really understand the

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Bible. They're not really plugged into a church. They don't have a relationship with any church leaders. They don't know what their pastor is talking about.

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Maybe their preacher isn't even really preaching the truth of God. Maybe they're just telling stories. Maybe churches become self -help.

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I don't know their their situation. But what they do is they look to influencers to tell them how to live.

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And those influencers, when they deconstruct or when they fall away, it's just devastation.

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And so I'm splitting that up into a bunch a bunch of things there. And the main thing

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I would say is this. We have to train people to to remember the wisdom, the wisdom of all those who came before us, the incredible 2000 years of church history we have that we should be building upon in our lives, upon the foundation of the absolute truth of the word of God, of the

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Bible. And if we do that, I think we'll be all right. Yeah. So I've heard you talk several times about your fondness for reading old dead guys.

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So what are some of the what are some Christian books you've read recently that you found beneficial, edifying, encouraging to you?

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Oh, there's so many. I mean, I love the Puritans, and I know that's not very popular. Well, I guess the

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Puritans is popular in a lot of reformed theology circles. Yeah. But a lot of people are like, oh, the Puritans were no fun.

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I mean, I read a book called The Mortification of the Flesh. And all of a sudden,

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I can't remember who wrote who wrote Mortification of the Flesh. He's a Puritan. All of a sudden it's escaping me. I found it changed.

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It just changed my life. I mean, it was so radical and so amazing.

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The Puritans are great. And Ryle, that's spelled R -Y -L -E.

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Yeah. So J .C. Ryle. J .C. Ryle. That's right. J .C. Ryle wrote an amazing book called

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Holiness, which is also a life changer. So I really can't get enough of the

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Puritans. On the other side of the theological spectrum, you would have A .W. Tozer. I love

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Tozer. And A .W. Tozer's book, The Pursuit of God, was the first real theology book

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I ever read when I was in college. And it just radically changed me.

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And so I always have a steady diet of Tozer and the Puritans. And that'll give people a good place to start.

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That's awesome. So we're about out of time. But so back to the Dominion album.

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So I don't know. Give me a sales pitch. Why should people want to listen to that album?

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Our audience is primarily Christians or people who are interested in building their faith.

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And I mean, music has been a huge part of my life, as we discussed at the beginning. Just having

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Christian bands to replace the secular ones I was listening to, to start filling my head with truth and love instead of, for the most part, garbage

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I was listening to before. So who is Dominion for? Why should people consider acquiring it?

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You need to go acquire it, everybody. Man, you know,

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I personally love the record. I think that it's one of our best records we've made. It gets hard to choose.

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It's like choosing a favorite kid because you love the records for the times you made them.

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The record is really exciting to listen to. I have a feeling it is going to energize people in their faith in a way maybe that because of the time we're in.

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In other words, I think there's a lot of Christians because of pandemic, because of if they feel the way that I feel, seeing government overreach, seeing that, hey, it could be the case that your religious freedoms could be taken away.

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What would you be willing to do if that were the case? Would you be willing to go to prison for your faith?

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Would you be willing to go to prison to be able to go to church and sing worship songs to Christ?

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Right. So on and so forth. A lot of people are seeing what's happening and they are also seeing the destruction.

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Not that I want to get on a tangent, but they are seeing the destruction of what happens when we do not believe that God's word is true.

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And when the destruction of sexual liberation and the moral revolution from the 60s that now has outworked itself to such a degree that even

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Christian people. I know people, I'm just going to say this, I don't want to say their names.

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I don't want to be rude. People that I know that have served Christ for 20 years, that within the last two years have fallen away to such a degree that they now are in.

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It's actually called a throuple. That's when you have three people married together.

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We now have three people married together that served Christ for 20 years and little by little by little, they began to not believe in the word of God.

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And now they've gone so far. Now, everybody watching this has heard stories like that. And so now when you listen to the album, it's going to mean something different than had it come out five years ago.

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All of a sudden you're going to hear this record. You're going to hear lyrics like in our first song, Surviving the

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Game, that says, I'll give you some lyrics here. All the liars around me, like the wolves at the walls, they surround me.

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And then it says, I come out like a lion. I was born to be demon defiant. You're going to hear these lyrics and you're going to say, oh, that's what this is about.

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This is about not giving in to fear, not giving in to the people online that are trying to shut you up because you talk about Jesus too much.

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Or trying to force you to do something that in your conscience, you know that you're not supposed to do.

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It's going to give you that sort of, I hope, faith encouragement to stand up for Jesus, maybe in a way that you hadn't in the past.

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So and I will leave it at this. The last song on the record is called White Horse.

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And we've never made a song like this before. It's about the book of Revelation.

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Jesus comes back on a white horse, coming to judge the earth, coming to wage war upon his enemies.

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I've always wanted to make a song about repent and be born again. And that's what this song is about.

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I think it's going to really, I just think it's going to fire people up. So go check out Dominion, check out the songs and take it to the gym because it will get you pumped up.

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Sounds great. I was just at the gym this morning thinking, oh, yeah, I need something heavier to listen to. So, so, yeah, the free preview

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I got for Dominion didn't allow me to actually download it. I was going to listen to it online. So, oh, I hate that.

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I hate that. So, John, thank you so much for being on the show again. I'm a huge fan of Skillet and I'm also a huge fan of how you've been speaking out just culturally and the stuff we see going on in the world today.

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And I'm speaking the truth in love. So keep doing it, man. I appreciate it.

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We need more people like you out there. I'm standing up for Christ. Amen.

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Amen. I love it. Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, there's been the

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Got Questions podcast, a little different episode, having a Christian artist rather than discussing the typical directly biblical issues.

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But an important topic to talk about. And again, I love Skillet. I would highly recommend you to listen to the album and consider acquiring it.

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So this is the Got Questions podcast. Got questions? Biblicalized answers.