Page 26 - Black Velvet Rock Magazine Issue 111

BV111 pg 26-29 Skillet Interview.qxp_BV111 pg 26 13/12/2024 16:10 Page 1

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t’s been really great so far,” John says However, it was the record label’s desire That had already been going on, which I’ve
“Iabout being an independent artist. for the band to churn out radio hits which left probably told you before, but it’s kind of a clas-
Something John is keen to point out is that, un- John feeling stifled after years of writing count- sic Skillet story. In 2008, I wrote ‘Monster’, it
like some artist / record label breakups, there less songs - some that would never see the wasn’t good enough. Six months later, I wrote
was no drama, no falling out. “I always want to light of day - in order to meet their expecta- ‘Hero’, it wasn’t good enough. Six months later,
make sure that I’m clear about this; I had a tions. I wrote ‘Awake And Alive’, they didn’t even like
great relationship with our label, with Atlantic. “I found it to be kind of suffocating, to be it! When they finally let me record a record,
When I say that I’m loving this [being inde- honest,” John reveals. “No one intended that, they were still saying, ‘We don’t think we have
pendent], it’s not because I didn’t enjoy work- they just wanted to make the best records they a radio single, we don’t really think we have a
ing with them, because I did. With us, they could, of course, and I appreciate that. But, I hit yet.’ I had all three of those songs written.
were not controlling in terms of, ‘No, you can- started feeling that it would just drain me of We were almost 50 songs in and I was like, ‘I
not say that.’ ‘No, you can’t do this.’ It wasn’t creativity. We were writing 40/50 songs. When think this ‘Monster’ song is pretty good.’”
like that with them; they were very good with we recorded ‘Rise’, we wrote 76 songs for that The label didn’t agree with John and they
us.” project; nothing we wrote was good enough. were not even going to release the song. The

SKILLET