Rock
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With its 30-show Dead Forever residency at Las Vegas’ Sphere, Dead & Company has written another entry in the Grateful Dead’s 60-year legacy of live music reinvention. Beginning in late May, the band – comprised of founding Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart, alongside John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge, Jeff Chimenti and Jay Lane – has delivered a series of three-night runs, each without song repeats and featuring a rotating carousel of visuals ranging from diaristic photo collages to abstract technicolor animations.
For Dead Forever, which wraps this weekend with three shows Aug. 8-10, the jam band turned to Treatment Studio, the agency that has handled creative for Dead & Company and Mayer solo tours alike. Co-founded by Willie Williams and Sam Pattinson in 2009, Treatment had another critical qualification: It also spearheaded U2:UV Achtung Baby Live, the 40-date residency that opened the venue last fall.
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“It is very sweet how so many of the principles of the U2 show have become kind of boilerplate for all shows in there, because that’s what works,” says Williams, who as U2’s creative director has been responsible for the band’s tours dating back to the ’80s, including its groundbreaking “Zoo TV” outing in the early ’90s. (In fact, Treatment’s connection to Sphere predates even U2’s residency: When the venue was still just a concept, the agency created a promotional video about it to circulate among touring professionals, and Treatment consulted about how touring shows might adapt themselves for Sphere.)
But even given its familiarity with the cutting-edge venue and rapport with the third artist to perform there (Treatment wasn’t involved in April’s four-show Phish run between U2 and Dead & Company), Dead Forever still proved daunting. “They play different versions of songs, different durations, the setlist is always different, and they wanted the visual aspect of the show to vary as well,” says Pattinson, who served as Dead Forever creative director alongside Mayer. Deadheads, he adds, will see multiple shows, so the band “wanted to see variety between the three, so there was a new offering every night.”
Dead & Company at Sphere
Chloe Weir
Treatment began ideating Dead Forever with Dead & Company last November, and according to Pattinson, Mayer took the creative reins. “The whole concept came from John,” he explains of the show, which begins and ends at the Dead’s late-’60s home on 710 Ashbury Street in San Francisco and, in between, transports audiences to distant psychedelic realms as well as historic venues from the band’s past. “The show you see today is the show that he outlined in November; it was a very strong concept.”
Such a strong concept, it turns out, that Dead Forever was still adding to its robust stable of visuals –which already included core pieces like the San Francisco liftoff and touchdown, created by famed Bay Area agency Industrial Light & Magic, and a pastoral, paint-by-numbers world designed by London company Art & Graft – as late in the residency as its penultimate weekend.
Treatment isn’t involved in Sphere’s two upcoming music bookings, Eagles (starting Sept. 20) and Anyma (starting Dec. 27), and the firm has its hands full with other projects far from Sin City; when Billboard connected with Williams and Pattinson, the latter was in Munich, putting the final touches on Adele in Munich just hours before the singer’s German residency kicked off. But, Pattinson says, Treatment would “absolutely” like to return to the space in the future. “You really want to work with a band that, like U2 or Dead & Co., really sort of begins to understand the space, or are open to understanding and learning about the space and what that means for them and their performance,” he says. “Someone who’s got a lot of time to put into it.”
Dead & Company at Sphere
Chloe Weir
What was your reaction when U2 first approached you about its Sphere residency?
Willie Williams: Many things about it, initially, I was either suspicious of or wasn’t very excited about. Bono particularly was leading the charge; we talk a lot and part of his point was, “Look, what else are we going to do? Are we gonna go out and reinvent stadium rock again?” When you’ve got not only a new venue, but a completely new kind of venue, surely, if you’re going to try and put music in there, the people that need to do it are the people that have been blazing that trail for 30 years. The journey was extraordinarily uphill. Because, of course, the building didn’t exist when we were conceiving the show. So not only did we have to conceive the show, we had to conceive the building as well – I had to imagine what the building would be like. It was a long journey, but we had time. We’ll be the only people who had the luxury of having several months in the building prior to the first show. But we really were making it up as we went along.
Based on your experience with U2, what are the guiding principles for a successful Sphere show?
Williams: The big takeaway, for me, was understanding that Sphere is a three-dimensional audio-visual space, and what works in there are the kind of visual things you would make for VR rather than for cinema. It sounds so stupid, but the fact that there are no corners really was a revelation. And for me, when I started playing with very simple graphic things, I realized that your brain has no sense of where the visual plane is. And not only are there no corners, but we could introduce virtual corners and shapes of our own and your brain absolutely buys it – I was really shocked at the degree to which your brain buys the environment that you’re in.
Dead & Company at Sphere
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Sam, in a nutshell, how would you describe the concept that Mayer brought to you?
Sam Pattinson: John’s overall concept was a perfect framework for the culture of the band and their history. And it was this idea of “We start in a sort of historically relevant place, and then we could start this journey. And we use a series of portals that transport to different worlds and environments and scenes and animations and bits and bobs.” It’s a very flexible structure that we could change. Because every show, we get the setlist the night before, and we have to rebuild the show to the new setlist. So obviously it needs to be versatile – which it is.
What challenges did switching the show up night to night present? And did you see that as an opportunity?
Pattinson: Absolutely – it was great. I mean, it was added work and stress at times. The initial commission from the band was they wanted us to produce 30% to 40% more content than we needed for a show; obviously, the shows are three hours long. To date, we’ve made almost six hours worth of content. We had lots of choices, and very strong pieces within that. So actually, it wasn’t difficult to refresh the show every night – it was quite good fun.
The show begins and ends in San Francisco, but in between goes to both the cosmos and important venues from the Dead’s history, like Radio City Music Hall and Cornell University’s Barton Hall. Was balancing those elements difficult?
Pattinson: We had to nod to the big moments in their career and venues and so on, and the characters and their graphics, and all those things that the fans are familiar with. But [the band has] always been open-minded and they’ve always tried new stuff. That was very much the case in Vegas. They were open to content that we thought probably wasn’t right for them [and] was probably for more of a contemporary band, perhaps, or a younger band. So actually, combining some of their historic content with the more abstract and more contemporary stuff was quite an easy balance to strike.
Dead & Company at Sphere
Chloe Weir
What advice would you have for an artist considering playing Sphere?
Williams: To have a lot more time and a lot more money than you could possibly imagine you’d need. My takeaway is imagine you’re making material for VR but without a headset. That’s how you get the real magic out of the space, rather than it just being big, big films. I’ve had artists ask, “How many nights would I have to do at the Sphere to make it break even?” and “What sort of budget would I have to have?” Those questions just can’t be answered really, because there are just so many other factors involved. [But] it would have to be a residency and you’d have to look at the whole thing in a very overall sense.
Even beyond Sphere, stadium and arena shows are becoming more complex and immersive. Do you think that’s becoming more important for fans as they choose which artists to see in concert?
Williams: I think the only thing the audience cares about is making an emotional connection with the performer. And if the technology can assist that, then great. And if not, I don’t think they care at all. The intrusiveness of big visuals is a really, really delicate balance. I’ve always admired U2 for having the confidence to understand that it’s OK to let go of being the center of attention for a moment – something very big and visual is going to happen, and everyone’s going to look at it. And it cost a fortune, so they better look at it! And at that moment, they’re not going to be looking at you, but that’s OK, because they’ll get back to you. It’s a brave performer that has that much confidence.
Everyone’s Getting Involved, the star-studded tribute album celebrating Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense concert film, debuts atop Billboard’s Compilation Albums chart (dated Aug. 10) thanks to the set’s arrival on CD and vinyl. The effort boasts acts such as Miley Cyrus, Lorde and Paramore covering songs performed by Talking Heads in its celebrated 1984 film […]
Australian duo Royel Otis earns its first entry on the Billboard Hot 100 chart (dated Aug. 10) thanks to its viral cover of The Cranberries’ classic single “Linger.” Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Released May 31 as part of a live session for SiriusXM’s Alt Nation, […]
Ghost’s soundtrack to its film Rite Here Rite Now makes a splash across multiple Billboard album charts (dated Aug. 10), as the live concert set makes top 10 bows on Top Album Sales (No. 2), Top Hard Rock Albums (No. 1), Vinyl Albums (No. 1), Indie Store Album Sales (No. 1), Soundtracks (No. 2), Independent Albums (No. 3), Top Rock Albums (No. 5) and Top Rock & Alternative Albums (No. 6). It also arrives at No. 21 on the overall Billboard 200 – the band’s sixth top 40-charting set on the tally.
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The live set, recorded over two nights at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif., in 2023, includes one studio-recorded track: “The Future Is a Foreign Land.”
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Rite Here Rite Now arrives with 27,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Aug. 1, according to Luminate, with 26,000 of that sum in traditional album sales – supported by its availability across 10 vinyl variants (whose combined sales totaled a little over 16,000). It’s the sixth top 10-charting set for the rock band on the Top Album Sales chart.
Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Top Rock & Alternative Albums, Top Rock Albums, Top Hard Rock Albums and Soundtracks rank, respectively, the week’s most popular rock and alternative, rock, hard rock, and soundtrack albums by equivalent album units. Vinyl Album tallies the week’s top-selling vinyl releases. Indie Store Album Sales measures the top-selling titles at independent and small chain record stores. Independent Albums ranks the most popular independently released albums of the week, by units.
As for the rest of the top 10 on the Top Album Sales chart… Stray Kids’ ATE holds at No. 1 for a second week (48,000 sold; down 79%), Grateful Dead’s latest live archival set Dave’s Picks, Volume 51: Scranton Catholic Youth Center, Scranton PA (4/13/71) debuts at No. 3 (21,000), ENHYPEN’s Romance: Untold falls 3-4 (15,000; down 42%), Ice Spice’s debut set Y2K! enters at No. 5 (12,000), Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department climbs 12-6 (nearly 12,000; up 34%), The Red Clay Strays’ Made by These Moments debuts at No. 7 (11,000), Forrest Frank’s debut album Child of God enters at No. 8 (10,000), the Deadpool & Wolverine soundtrack starts at No. 9 (nearly 10,000) and Jimin’s MUSE falls 2-10 in its second week (nearly 10,000; down 87%).
If there’s one thing that everyone knows about the Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ Flea it’s that the veteran funk-punk bass slapper is never shy about letting it all hang out. And while 61-year-old rocker doesn’t hit the stage in the all together as often as he used to back in the band’s sock-only days, while chilling with his pal actor Woody Harrelson on this week’s episode of the Woodman’s SiriusXM Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast with former Cheers co-star Ted Danson, Flea told a chillingly hilarious story about a naked adventure he had with the Triangle of Sadness star.
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Flea opened by asking Harrelson is he remembered the time the two of them went on a nude snowboarding run. “He and I snowboarded naked. I have footage of Woody Harrelson and I snowboarding stark naked down a big snowy mountain,” Flea told Danson about the trip to Utah by the two pals.
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Harrelson said the footage is “great,” with Flea noting that he was ready to post it on Instagram before Woody’s wife, Laura, “cautioned me against it.” Always a gentleman, Danson joked that it was cold, after all, so the footage might have come up short, if you know what he means. Woody added that he and Flea always have a great time and good laughs when they hang out, some of his greatest times, in fact, even though Flea balances his Zen nature with a competitive side.
That explained how a friendly buff bomb down the mountain almost ended in fisticuffs.
Flea confirmed that he is super-competitive, though he doesn’t really care if he wins or loses, before throwing friendly shade when Harrelson said he also doesn’t care whose on top when they play basketball or race on their snowboards.
“I’ve seen you sulking after losing. I remember one of the last times we went, we were racing, and we were both reckless ’cause let’s face it. We go very fast, but we’re very average snowboarders. We have to admit that we’re average,” Flea said. “Wo we’re racing and I’m like out of control rocketing down this mountain and I nearly take a lady out, but I don’t. I see her and I’m like, ‘Whoa.’ Swerve out of her way and I miss her. All’s good. We’re racing. I can’t remember who won. Probably me, probably me, and we get down there, but then the lady, we’re getting ready to get on the lift and we’re laughing and yelling at each other, and this lady comes up and she’s infuriated.”
Flea said the woman chewed him out for nearly running into her, saying he was out of control and prompting the bassist to apologize and admit she was right. “‘I’m so glad that I didn’t hit you, but I’ll be much more careful next time. Please forgive me. I’m very sorry,’” he said he told her. “As you know, I’m neighborly. I’m polite, I’m considerate.”
When Danson asked if Flea meant it, the Chili Pepper said absolutely, acknowledging that it was probably a bit scary to see a naked man ripping by her on the mountain. “I didn’t even touch her, and she was like, ‘Well, you’re an a–hole.’ Blah, blah, blah, and I was like, ‘Ma’am, I’m very sorry,’” he reiterated. But then things got weird when Flea said the woman stuck her ski pole in his face, which agitated him. That’s when Harrelson skied up and saw the tense pole dance and came to his pal’s defense.
“And then she goes, ‘Well, my husband’s gonna come down here and he is gonna show you what for,’ and then that’s when you’re like, ‘Bring the f–king husband. I want to see her bring the husband,” he said Harrelson told the woman. The pair decided to exit the tense scene and hop on the lift, but not before Harrelson, “itching for a brawl,” started yelling, “‘I’m waiting at the top of the lift. I’ll be waiting up top!’”
Harrelson, who says he’s much more chill now, told Flea at the time, “nothing could make me happier,” than if the woman’s husband joined them at the top of the mountain, acknowledging back then — they didn’t specify when this adventure happened — the time the actor used to derive great joy from “impending chaos.”
Watch Flea and Harrelson tell their naked ski skirmish story below.
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Just like the phoenix, Jack Black says Tenacious D will rise again. The singer/actor hinted that the comedy rock duo he fronts with longtime partner Kyle Gass will return at some point after announcing an open-ended break and cancelling dates on an Australian tour following Gass’ controversial on-stage joke about last month’s assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump.
“We need to take a break. Everybody needs a break sometime,” Black told Variety at the red carpet premiere of the film Borderlands on Tuesday night (August 6). “And we’ll be back.”
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Black apologized and announced that the group would be taking a break after the pair were lambasted by Australia’s right-wing following the ill-timed joke from Gass. During the band’s show in Sydney on July 14, Black rolled out a birthday cake on stage for Gass and when asked to make a wish, Gass quipped, “Don’t miss Trump next time.” The comment was in reference to the assassination attempt on Trump the day before in Butler, PA, where a 20-year-old gunman opened fire on a Trump rally, grazing the one-term former president’s ear and killing a rally attendee.
Gass initially apologized in an Instagram post, saying, “I don’t condone violence of any kind” and adding that he was “incredibly sorry for my severe lack of judgement”; the post has since been deleted. Gass was dropped by his agent and the remainder of the group’s Australian tour — as well as a planned fall run of shows in U.S. swing states in the lead-up to November’s presidential election — was cancelled. Black also posted an apology on Instagram, writing, “I was blindsided by what was said at the show on Sunday. I would never condone hate speech or encourage political violence in any form.”
At the time of the tour cancellation, Black’s statement said that “all future creative plans are on hold.”
On Tuesday night, Black said he has spoken to Gass since the tour was called off. “Yeah, we’re friends. That hasn’t changed. These things take time sometimes… And we’ll be back when it feels right,” he said with no indication of when the group might return to stage. Black also happened to have a bit of Tenacious D hardware with him on the carpet for the premiere of the action/sci-fi movie in which he plays a wisecracking robot named Claptrap alongside stars Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis and Cate Blanchett.
Pulling out the magic guitar pick from the D’s 2006 big screen comedy, Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny, Black said, “Look what I wore today: I wore the Pick of Destiny. I love Tenacious D. It’s probably my favorite job, if you can call it that. It’s a work of art, it’s my baby.” Black and Gass have been rocking fans’ socks off since 1994, releasing four albums to date.
Rammstein frontman Till Lindemann is taking legal action against a German news outlet for their coverage of the sexual misconduct allegations that have followed him since last year.
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The controversy began in May 2023 when a female fan publicly accused Lindemann of misconduct, alleging she had been drugged at a pre-concert party in Lithuania.
Shelby Lynn, from Northern Ireland, told the BBC she was recruited and “groomed” for sex with the singer after a concert. Lynn claimed her drink was spiked at the show, but said she was not sexually assaulted.
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Lindemann denied the allegations, with lawyers calling the accusations “without exception untrue”.
Despite Lindemann and Rammstein’s firm denials of wrongdoing, the allegations led to serious consequences. Lindemann was dropped by his publisher, and the Berlin public prosecutor’s office launched an investigation.
The investigation was concluded and dropped in Aug. 2023.
The prosecutor’s office stated at the time, “The statements made by witnesses in the press reports have not been confirmed by the investigations.” Following this announcement, Lindemann briefly commented on social media: “I thank all those who have waited impartially for the end of the investigation.”
In Aug. 2024, Rammstein released a statement addressing the past allegations:
“Since last summer, we have been actively dealing with the accusations made against the band. We take this dispute very seriously, even if much of it is unfounded and excessively exaggerated. It is an inner process that will accompany us for a long time to come. Each of us does this in our own way and deals with it differently,” the statement read.
The band also expressed gratitude, saying, “At this point, we would particularly like to thank our families and loved ones for their unrestricted support and love; they too were hit hard by the allegations made and the media’s handling of them.”
“We thank our crew, our management, all our employees and everyone who has supported us and remained loyal along this journey. This massive stadium tour with this great show and this extraordinary stage has now come to an end after 135 concerts in 5 years with 6 million fans.”
“It’s not Rammstein. It’s not us. It’s not you. The path continues.”
Lindemann has now filed a criminal complaint against executives at the German publication Der Spiegel, with an Aug. 2 press release from Lindemann’s legal team revealing that he has filed a criminal complaint with the Hamburg Public Prosecutor’s Office against Der Spiegel’s executives, as per LoudWire.
The complaint alleges that the publication’s reporting included falsified documents and an attempt to commit trial fraud.
Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson has provided fans with an update on the injury that led to the cancellation of the band’s 2024 tour dates.
On Aug. 7, Manson took to Garbage‘s Instagram to share more about her condition, following the band’s Aug. 1 announcement that all remaining 2024 performances would be scrapped due to an injury requiring surgery and rehabilitation.
In her post, Manson described her state upon returning home: “I returned home from tour an absolute hot mess. So broken that my poor husband had to push me through Heathrow and LAX airports in a wheelchair. I also had a dose of laryngitis and a massive cold sore on my lip.”
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Addressing concerns about her vocal health, Manson shared an image of her vocal cords, stating, “I was freaking out that I had somehow managed to damage my vocal cords on top of everything else but yesterday I was scoped and everything is as it should be.”
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“These are my vocal cords. My doctor said they were beautiful,” she added.
Manson did not initially reveal the nature of her injury when the band announced the cancellation of their shows.
In a statement posted to Instagram on Aug. 1, they said: “It is with great regret that we announce the cancellation of all our remaining dates for the rest of the year due to an injury that [frontwoman] Shirley [Manson] sustained on our recent tour in Europe that will require surgery and rehabilitation to correct.”
“This is not a decision that we have taken lightly, and we apologize to our amazing fans and supportive promoters,” they wrote. “We look forward to playing for you all again in 2025.”
Manson also took to her personal social media account to share her disappointment in having to cancel shows.
“No one is more crushed about this than I am. You know I would push through if I could,” she wrote in the caption accompanying the band’s announcement.
Among the impact dates were several high-profile festival appearances, including Ohana Fest in Dana Point, CA, and HFStival in Washington, DC. Liz Phair will now step in for the band at HFStival, while DEVO will be added to the bill for Ohana Fest.
Timothée Chalamet‘s anticipated turn as a young Bob Dylan in the upcoming biopic A Complete Unknown is getting an A-list release date. Searchlight Pictures announced on Tuesday (August 6) that the anticipated film from director James Mangold (Logan) will hit theaters on December 25. That Christmas release date falls in the heart of what is […]
After nearly 20 years on Atlantic, Skillet has left the label and is ramping up its Hear it Loud imprint to independently release its new single — “Unpopular,” arriving Friday (Aug. 9) — and new album, Revolution, coming Nov. 1.
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“After this long, we’ve learned enough about our audience to know what they want to hear,” Skillet frontman John Cooper tells Billboard of the Christian and mainstream hard rock band. “We have a pretty good handle on that now, so it’s time for us to be pushed out of the nest, or maybe jump out of the nest.”
Cooper admits making the leap wasn’t totally comfortable for him. “There’s a part of me that didn’t like it because I don’t like new things. I don’t try new food. I don’t like going to new destinations. My wife makes fun of me,” Cooper says with a smile as he sits in the living room of his spacious new hilltop home south of Nashville, where he and his wife/bandmate Korey relocated from their home base in Wisconsin.
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“I had some really good relationships, so that was the hard part is that I liked the people that I worked with a lot and learned a lot from them,” Cooper says of leaving Atlantic. “But it just felt like a new season. It just feels like it’s time for a change.”
That confidence is well-earned. Since launching in 1996, the Grammy-nominated and multiple Dove Award-winning band, which also includes Jen Ledger and Seth Morrison, has placed three albums in the Top 5 of the Billboard 200, two No. 1 on Billboard’s Alternative Albums chart and a pair of chart toppers on the Top Hard Rock Albums chart. They have one of the most streamed rock songs of the 21st century with the five times RIAA platinum-certified “Monster,” while their 2016 hit, “Feel Invincible,” made Skillet the first Christian act to top Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Songs chart since the chart’s launch in 1981. They also scored 11 No. 1s on the Christian Rock Songs chart before that chart ended in 2018. The veteran rockers tour relentlessly in the U.S. and abroad and their songs have been licensed by the NFL, Marvel, ESPN and WWE.
The Coopers and Skillet’s manager Zach Kelm formed the Hear It Loud imprint a decade ago. Artists LEDGER, Colton Dixon and Fight the Fury all released albums on the imprint through Atlantic Records (Dixon and LEDGER remain on Atlantic through Hear It Loud). Now, as the imprint morphs into a full-service label handling all aspects of Skillet’s marketing and promotion, Kelm has hired independent radio promotion, social media and marketing teams to work the new music. Vydia will distribute Hear It Loud.
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Cooper says the band didn’t consider signing with another label. “If we were going to do that, I would have just stayed [at Atlantic] because we had 20 years of very successful history with good people,” he says. “They knew the band and liked us.”
Cooper says one of the factors that made Skillet, whose last album was 2022’s Dominion, opt for independence was the desire to move more quickly in terms of recording and releasing music. “One of the things about being independent is being able to make quick decisions,” he says. “There’s not this chain of people that need weigh in on it. The system takes a really long time. Instead, I wrote a song and we recorded it eight days later. That is a huge benefit. With the change in pace of technology and of the industry, that was important to me to be able to make quick decisions.”
Securing a larger piece of the pie was also a factor in going the indie route, especially when it comes to streaming. “We were looking at the amount of international streams that the band gets from touring, doing festivals and shows all over the world,” Kelm says, “and just by picking up the international piece, it was going to be worth it from a financial standpoint to go on our own.”
“The international stuff is really a big piece,” Cooper agrees. “I don’t know how Skillet became an international band, but it happened. It was like we woke up one day and went, ‘Oh my gosh we’re streaming like crazy overseas.’ We’re trying to catch up and that is a major upside of what we’re doing now.”
As to whether they plan to sign additional acts to Hear it Loud, Cooper says they haven’t decided yet. “Let’s see what happens,” he says, “but if it goes good, there’s sort of a natural progression that seems obvious and I like that.”
Cooper’s immediate priority is launching “Unpopular” to pave the way for Revolution. “I think that people hear a song like ‘Unpopular’ and they feel the same way,” Cooper says of the single, which encourages the listener to stand up for what they believe even if it isn’t popular. “That’s one of the things I hope people get from the record is courage. I think when people know that they aren’t alone then they go, ‘Oh okay, then I can stand up.’” Fans can pre-order the song here.
The 10-song album, produced by Brian Howes, Seth Moseley and Korey Cooper, is a mix of the incendiary rockers Skillet is known for alongside poignant moments such as “Happy Wedding Day (Alex’s Song),” which Cooper penned for his daughter. “As I started writing it, I was like there’s no way I could sing it at the wedding. But the day of the wedding I woke up and felt like, ‘I can do it,’” Cooper says. “Korey never even heard it. Alex had never heard the song. My manager was at the wedding, and the next day I said, ‘You aren’t going to hurt my feelings at all, but I think we should record the song. What do you think?’ He was like, ‘Oh definitely!’”
Cooper says the title track reflects the spirit of the album. “‘Revolution’ really is the overarching theme of what we want to say. We really need a revolution of love,” he says. “That song sounds a little different for us too. It’s a little alternative. The cool thing about doing an independent project is going, ‘All right, let’s try something new! Why not? And don’t be afraid.’”
The band, which is also launching a new app, addresses these fractured political times on “All That Matters,” which Cooper describes as a patriotic song. “Thirteen or 14 years ago it was a very different time, and part of the message of the song is saying if we could go back to that time, it really wouldn’t matter if you’re on the right or the left, because people got along,” he says. “There were things that we agreed on, like faith, family, freedom. There were things that mattered in life, and we were going to stand up for those things, wave the flag and be patriotic. We live in a country where you are free to chart your own course. Free to worship the God you want to or to not worship God and to raise your family. That was just kind of a live-and-let-live kind of thing. It was really wonderful, and that began to change.”
Cooper says being independent had a big impact on the way the new album was written and recorded. “It was a really incredibly liberating feeling,” he says. “We only wrote songs that we loved, and we only recorded songs that we loved, and we did it all super-fast. If this wasn’t independent, I feel it would be another year before we’d be releasing new music. If you look at Skillet’s timeline, you’ll see that it was every three or four years. It was a long time between albums.”
The band will perform music from the new album on their fall U.S. tour with Seether. Then in November, they’ll embark on their first tour of the Middle East, then will conclude with dates in the U.K. “It’s just really weird that 27 years into our career, we are opening up new markets around the world,” he says. “We’re spending half of the year overseas now, and I never would have dreamt that in a million years.”
Nearly three decades into their career, Cooper is happy with Skillet’s journey. “I always tell people, ‘We’re the biggest band you’ve never heard of.’ I laugh about it,” he says. “In no way do I live in frustration about it, because I’m just so blessed. The truth is I can’t believe I’m still playing music. I’m so lucky. How can I ask for more?
Cooper believes the band’s underdog status has helped their longevity, noting that, according to their Instagram data, Skillet’s No. 1 audience is the 25-34-year old demographic. “That just plays into the strangeness of the Skillet story,” he says. “That’s why, in some ways, this move to go independent is not the most shocking thing in the world, because we’ve always done things out[side] of the box. So why not try to crank it up and be the underdog again? That’s the Skillet story.”