Like cold weather breezing through our city this time of year, you can bank on the Winter Jam tour doing the same.

On Thursday, Feb. 6, the touring contemporary Christian festival returns to Memorial Coliseum with a show headlined by rockers Skillet alongside country artist Anne Wilson, hip-hop artist KB, singer-songwriter Colton Dixon, and pop artists NewSong and Micah Tyler. Pre-jam performances will be supplied by SEU Worship, The Band Table, and We Are Vessel, while Zane Black will be on hand as a speaker.

All of this for $15, which is taken at the door. No advance tickets are needed for this diverse show of Christian artists.

“What’s really cool about (Winter Jam) is that it’s extremely diverse,” Skillet frontman John Cooper told Whatzup. “I like that, because that means there’s going to be a lot of people there that maybe rock music isn’t their main thing they listen to. So, you’re getting a chance to get some new fans. There’s some gospel artists, some pop artists, hip-hop artists, rock artists. You’re getting all these things. It’s a chance to win over some new fans.”

Promoting new album

The tour that since 2011 has included East Coast and West Coast legs was the brainchild of NewSong in 1995. 

There have been many repeat performers, with Skillet being among those. In fact, they also headlined the tour in 2022. This will be their seventh appearance on the tour, but this Winter Jam will be a bit different for Cooper & Co., which includes his wife, Korey Cooper, along with Jon Ledger and Seth Morrison.

“We’re going to be playing new music,” Cooper said. “We just dropped the new record, which is called Revolution. I need everybody to go out there and check out Revolution: See if they like it. Listen to the songs.

“I think this is the first time we’ve done Winter Jam with a brand-new album. That kind of makes it unique. I’m super-energized by that.”

Skillet released Revolution on Nov. 1. It became the band’s fifth album to top Billboard’s Top Christian Albums chart. It also reached No. 14 on the Top Rock Albums chart, which is what Cooper likes to see.

“I never wanted to be a band that only sang music to religious people,” he said. “I never wanted that. I just wanted to be a rock band, but I wanted to sing about what I want to sing about, and a lot of times that’s my faith. You write songs about what you believe and you write songs through your worldview. So, I might be writing a love song about my wife or I want to write about the war happening or XYZ. But I also want to be able to talk about my faith.”

Broad appeal

Cooper’s faith has always been front and center for him, even while growing up listening to mainstream music with his friends.

“All my friends were listening to metal,” he said. “So, I was constantly at my friend’s house. I was constantly at the gym or shooting hoops, and we always had the radio on or we were listening to cassette tapes back then. It was all hair metal: Skid Row, Bon Jovi, Mötley Crüe, Metallica, AC/DC. All the good metal stuff. I loved that music. That’s still what I listen to to this day. 

“At home, I was listened to a bunch of great Christian artists like Petra and Stryper and a whole slew of Christian artists that I loved and still listen to to this day.”

Working through the music scene in Memphis in the mid-90s, Skillet came to be almost by accident.

“There were several bands at this time in Memphis,” he said. “Lots and lots of metal bands, and even Christian metal bands starting up. 

“So, Skillet was a side project of two different bands in town. That’s why we called it Skillet. A friend of mine was like, ‘It’s like cooking. Taking these different ingredients out of different bands and throwing it together.’ I tell people that we were like a supergroup, but none of us were super.”

After forming, Cooper had his sights set on not being labeled as only a “Christian band.”

“When we first started, we wanted to be signed to a mainstream label,” he said. “When we first signed, it was to an independent label called Ardent. Ardent had distribution on the Christian side and on the mainstream side. So, I thought, ‘Oh, that’d really be cool, because I’m a Christian, I’m very open about my faith, and we can do both.’ I don’t want to be pigeon-holed to only do Christian music and Christian events. Not because I’m embarrassed by it, but just because it’s limiting, and that’s not what I want to do.”

Despite his intentions, Cooper said that four months after signing, Ardent ditched their mainstream distribution.

“We just found ourselves on a Christian independent label, and we could not get signed,” he said. “It took us years and years. 

“We finally got signed to Lava in 2003. Then we got moved from Lava to Atlantic in 2006, but we still couldn’t get on radio. It was very hard to shake the sort of ‘Christian band’ label.”

They found their spot in the mainstream with their seventh album, Awake, which reached No. 2 on the Rock Albums chart. 

The success of the album came from hit singles “Hero,” “Monster,” “Feel Invincible,” and “Awake and Alive.” 

“Finally, in 2009, the song ‘Monster’ broke out on radio,” Cooper said. “But it took us a long time. It took about eight months to get it into the Top 5 (on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart). It was a long haul, but we had a lot of people to thank. WWE picked the song up and the ACC football league picked up. It just really made the song viable and credible. We had a couple believers that radioed it, and it finally broke out. Then Skillet became like a known band. That took 13 years into our career. It was a long haul.”

Not only did WWE use “Monster,” but they also used “Hero” for promotions.

“We owe a lot to WWE, honestly … a lot,” Cooper said. “I love them. I appreciate them. I’ve tried to always brag on them when I could. I really think they were the biggest kind of thing that happened that gave us that credibility. I think we’re a good partner for them because we’re hard, we’re heavy, we’re energetic, but we’re also positive. I think they like that positive slant. We’re family-friendly, and I think WWE is striving to always be inclusive in that way. You’re not going to listen to Skillet and all of sudden your kids are hearing cuss words or violence.”

Like-Minded artists

Since Awake, Skillet have been mainstays on the Billboard charts, and have shared the stage with some of the industry’s top acts like Korn, Shinedown, and Theory of a Deadman.

But unlike those shows, Winter Jam is much more tame.

“We live in such a diverse and inclusive culture,” Cooper said. “You really do have a lot of crossover. There are metal fans than listen to a lot of bands that are Christian artists. They may or may not even know it. And even if they do, they don’t really care. If it’s good, it’s good.

“There is a different audience, but there is a lot of crossover. That’s pretty cool to me, because there are some young fans whose are parents are like, ‘Hey, I’m not really sure. I don’t think I want my kid going to that event with those bands to see Skillet, because we don’t know who else is going to be there.’ I always understand that. I say, ‘Well, good. Then bring them to Winter Jam.’ ”

Winter Jam also affords Skillet a chance to interact with bands that share a similar worldview, although they may deliver their message in different ways.

“We know most of the people we’re touring with, because we’ve done gigs with them before or toured together. We’re all friends,” he said. “There is that like-mindedness. You come together and we’re all about the same things. There’s a bit of a feeling of camaraderie that you definitely get in a tour like this because we all know why we’re here.”