Skillet is an American Christian rock band formed in Memphis, Tennessee , in The band currently consists of husband John lead vocals, bass and wife Korey Cooper rhythm guitar, keyboards, backing vocals along with Jen Ledger drums, vocals and Seth Morrison lead guitar. The band has released ten albums, with two, Collide and Comatose , receiving Grammy nominations. Skillet went through several line-up changes early in their career, leaving founder John Cooper as the only original member remaining in the band. They are known for a relentless touring schedule, which garnered them a top five ranking in the Hardest Working Bands of by Songkick.
Skillet formed in with two members: John Cooper , former vocalist for Tennessee progressive rock band Seraph, and Ken Steorts , former guitarist for Urgent Cry. The two bands met through touring together, but they disbanded soon after, so John and Ken's pastor encouraged them to form their own band as a side-project. After, Trey McClurkin joined the band as a temporary drummer. Skillet was only together for a month when they received interest from major Christian record label ForeFront Records.
In they released a self-titled debut Skillet. It was well-received, and the trio continued to write new material as they toured the United States. Cooper has said the band's name was meant to be humorous, as the other founding members had already been in other bands, each with a different sound and style. The pastor of Covenant Community Church in Memphis—where the band was formed as a worship band side project—gave them their name as he felt they were like "southern cooking, where you just toss a bunch of different things into a big ol' skillet and see what it turns out like.
Their second effort was a change in style from the band's first release. With this release, Skillet abandoned their post-grunge approach for a lighter alternative rock and style. Cooper's wife Korey was enlisted soon after to play keyboards live in order to alleviate his performance duties. Shortly before the band began recording for their third album, Invincible , Steorts left to be with his family and launch Visible Music College , a modern music ministry college located in Memphis, and Kevin Haaland joined the band as their new guitarist.
Korey Cooper joined the band permanently and played keyboards for the recording of Invincible. Because of this change, the musical style on Invincible changed to a more electronic sound. The band released their first worship album and fourth album overall, Ardent Worship , in late The band kept much of their sound from Invincible on their next album Alien Youth. In , Collide , the band's fifth studio album, was released by Ardent Records and contained the singles " Savior " and "Collide".
The album was nominated for "Best Rock Gospel Album" in Citing P. Skillet's album Comatose was released on October 3, The album debuted at No. In January , Skillet announced that their drummer, Lori Peters, was retiring from the band, feeling that "it's time for her to come off of the road and start a new chapter in her life. It was shown on the Gospel Music Channel on December 5, Skillet's seventh album, Awake , [15] contains twelve songs and was released on August 25, Contrary to popular belief, John Cooper stated that " Hero " was not the album's lead single.
It was, however, released as a single in March A remix on "Monster" was featured on one of their popular podcasts. Raw In the first week of April , "Monster" was released for the Rock band music store in Rock Band 2 [18] It also tied the record for highest-charting Christian album on the Billboard with Underoath 's release Define the Great Line and Casting Crowns ' release The Altar and the Door , as all three albums debuted at No. On February 14, , Skillet officially announced that longtime lead guitarist Ben Kasica would be leaving the band.
Kasica was with the band for 10 years, contributing to the albums Alien Youth , Collide , Comatose , and Awake as well as the live album Comatose Comes Alive. He played what was planned to be his last concert with the band on March 20 [26] but returned and continued touring until a new guitarist was trained. The remixes were mainly done by Korey Cooper and Ben Kasica. On March 2, , Skillet unveiled the album artwork for the album. John Cooper says the idea was conceived when Korey Cooper and Ben Kasica remixed the song Monster for their popular podcast.
The four-song EP was released on March On June 21, , John posted to his Twitter account that the band rehearsed new music for the first time and that they are getting ready for a new album. However, the band was then scheduled to headline the WinterJam Tour. They planned to enter the studio at the conclusion of the Winter Jam eastern tour, approximately in May, for a release in late He states: "We have aggressive tracks, artsy and musical tracks, which is new territory for Skillet. A couple songs are classic American heartland anthems, and a couple songs are signature symphonic-classical rock Skillet.
Guitars are dirty and edgier, with absolute shredding solos by Seth. In an interview on January 26, , in Beaumont, Texas, John Cooper announced that the new album, Rise , would be coming out in May , [34] [35] but was later scheduled for a June 25, release. The band performed the title track off Rise on the July 11, , airing of Conan. Vital Signs , a compilation album released exclusively in Europe, was released October 13, On February 16, , Skillet announced they were writing material for a new album with recording to begin in June with a potential release in the late half of or early This was available to anyone who pre-ordered Unleashed Beyond from their website.
On May 5, , Billboard ran an article about Skillet's upcoming album tenth studio album, Victorious , where they mentioned that the band had sold over 12 million units worldwide. On June 14, the band released two new singles: "Save Me" and "Anchor. Victorious: The Aftermath , the deluxe edition of the album, is to be released on September 11, The band's style has been described as Christian rock , [63] [64] [65] Christian metal , [66] [67] alternative rock , [63] [64] hard rock , [64] [65] nu metal , [66] and symphonic metal.
In the middle of , Korey Cooper took a break from performing, due to her pregnancy of her and John's second child. They then toured with Luce's Global Expeditions program on a summer missions trip with teenagers to Mexico. The tour started on March 28 and ran through May 11, This tour was called Comatose Tour essentially a second branch of the Comatose Tour. However, they were able to perform the following year, in This was later expanded upon as the "Awake Tonight Tour" named after both artists' new albums. Trapt and My Darkest Days will be supporting acts.
Other supporting acts include Halestorm and Art of Dying. In , Skillet headlined the Winter Jam tour for the third time, making it their fourth appearance to date. Skillet was recognized on February 1, , as having recorded the biggest digital single in the history of Christian music since their song "Monster" had garnered over 2. It was certified 2x Platinum by the RIAA, was the number one streaming Christian song of , and was the number eight streaming rock song of The article also stated that Monster had over 3 billion global audio streams, while hero hit more than 1 billion.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Press photo of Skillet, Christian rock Christian metal hard rock alternative rock nu metal symphonic metal. Main article: Unleashed Skillet album. This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources.
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