Musings on My Adolescence: Skillet
In 2001, I was a high school freshman that had recently moved with my family out of an urban neighborhood into a house that once owned acres of farm land surrounding it. By the time we moved in, all of the farm land had been sold and developed into giant mansions for the upscale and removed citizens of Virginia Beach, Virginia. There was a typical suburban neighborhood about a mile down the road and, near that, a small church that sat in a field a ways from the road. This will be important shortly.
At this point, I had been out of public school for almost a year, spending most of my time in my room studying and reading fan fiction. I had left school under ridiculously difficult circumstances revolving around my inability to function in a classroom (I went from the gifted program in 4th grade to all remedial classes in 7th), my inability to connect with my peers (I had no friends), and my inability to get to school without incident (I got beat up on the bus. And at the bus stop. And outside school. And in the cafeteria… ANYWAY!). This exit from society was, for me, the best kind of awesome. I just hung out with my family when I felt like it and the rest of my time I had my computer for company.
When we moved to this little house, there were a lot of changes going on. Firstly, my mother had decided that it was time for me to go out and meet people. Also, it was time for me to go to church more. One Monday evening she asked me to go to the store with her. Instead of going to the grocery store, she pulled into the parking lot of that little church where a group of teenagers were gathering for Teen Bible Study. She had visited the church the day before, spoken with the Youth Leader, and gotten me an invitation to join up. I wasn’t repulsed by the idea of church, I had been before, no big deal. I was mostly just terrified of the idea of hanging out with people my own age again. Up until this point the only people I knew around my age liked to beat me up, or stand around and watch me get beat up. I had friends that were older than me, but I had long ago written off my peers.
That last sentence came out wrong. I didn’t think that my peers were stupid Neanderthals like most teen movies portray the nerds feeling. It was more I just knew I didn’t belong with them. Whether it was something wrong with me or something wrong with the system, I just knew something was wrong and there was no reason for me to try that hard because it never worked.
Anyway, back to the story. So yeah, my mom dumps me out of the car in a church parking lot where a group of teenagers loiter before the meeting Bible study thing. Immediately a girl comes running over and gives me a huge hug. At this point I’m just freaked out. I don’t know what to expect and I’m going with a blend with the herd approach to avoid undue attention. Yeah, that doesn’t work. They’ve all known each other for years and hung out and been on retreats and everything else together, of course I was going to stand out.
There aren’t a lot of details about that first night that I remember other than that first hug from Elizabeth. I’m pretty sure that was the first time in years I had been hug by someone not related to me.
So yeah, they got me drinking the Kool Aid and within a few months I was as much a fixture in the group as any of them. I’ll spare you the details of my religious conversion and all those oddities. What I want to talk about really in this post is how I came to appreciate music as a career and business. I know, we’re taking the long way around for this one. Bear with me.
Elizabeth (hug girl) and her BFF Kristine were really into music, specifically Christian Rock music which was, at this point, really in its prime (in my opinion). Kristine and Elizabeth exposed me to TONS of music. This was a big deal because, as previously mentioned, I didn’t really have friends and thus didn’t really listen to the music my peers listened to. Mom listened to country and had a collection of movie soundtracks I raided, so that was pretty much it. I had a Hanson CD and NSYNC because I was able to figure out at some point that they were a big deal, but what I really wanted to know more about was this alternative stuff. Who was Korn and why was everyone so mad about Marilyn Manson? I had bought a Papa Roach CD at Wal Mart one time by sneaking away from my mom and buying it with a birthday gift card. When we got home and she asked to see what I bought, I had a lot of explaining to do before she would give me back the lyric book. While Kristine and Elizabeth’s music had that sound and style that I liked, it was also acceptable to listen to when my mom was around because, you know, they were singing about God and stuff.
Kristine worked at Heaven and Earth, which was a Christian bookstore chain that also had an extensive music section, meaning Kristine knew all the new releases and could usually get us free demo copies. Elizabeth’s mom worked for CBN, the Christian Broadcasting Network, which was based in Virginia Beach about 10 miles from my house. When the musical guests came to perform on the 700 Club or other programs the network produced, Elizabeth’s mom would get us in to see the tapings. Kristine was the first person to introduce me to the concept of Street Teams. With her, I passed out flyers and stickers for Switchfoot, Relient K, and any other band she happened to be supporting that week.
One week Kristine got word at work that Skillet was putting out a new album called Alien Youth and asking stores to throw CD Release Parties. Now, this was before Skillet moved to a mainstream record label. Alien Youth was released on Ardent Records, a moderate sized label responsible for mainly praise and worship albums used by churches that didn’t have enough members to man a praise band for services. This means Alien Youth was pretty much only going to be released into small Christian specialty stores, so the parties were kind of a big deal. For whatever reason, Heaven and Earth didn’t want to have a party at their location, so Kristine took matters into her own hands and signed up to throw a CD release party AT HER HOUSE. For a big band this isn’t a big deal, but when there are only 50 or so release parties being held anywhere, a band takes notice when one is being thrown at someone’s home. She was contacted by Skillet’s management or some such, who she had already talked to in the past because of her street team work, and was told the band was stoked about her throwing the party and, because she was so awesome, the band was going to call the night of the part and talk to us on the phone.
Now, let’s just take all the weird Christian subculture out of the picture. A 16-year-old girl was just told that she and her friends would be able to talk to their favorite band on the phone. We just lost it. There’s really no other way to describe it. It was madness.
On the night of the big fling, Kristine and her mom had really gone all out. There were alien themed decorations everywhere amongst the frying pans hanging from ceiling pans (Skillet, get it?). They had gotten some local store to paint an alien on a cake and there were Skillet posters and pictures EVERYWHERE. We played the album and watched the videos and talked about how awesome they were and waited for the phone to ring.
I remember I wasn’t quite as excited as some of the other girls so, when the call came, I stayed towards the back. John Cooper was on speakerphone and Kristine had a couple of interview style questions she had prepared. I remember she asked him if the band were stranded on a desert island, who would they eat first? Which he refused to answer after talking for 5 minutes about how awesome a question that was and how no one had ever asked that before.
A few days later Kristine was contacted again by Skillet’s people. They were playing a show in Richmond in a few weeks and wanted to know if she wanted to bring some friends and help set up for the show and do the merch table. She gave the obvious answer.
There were 3 or 4 bands playing that night, but I specifically remember Skillet (obviously), Pillar, and Justifide. The show was at a mega church in their gym and would have most of the high school church goer crowd from a 4 hour radius in attendance. We got there early, before Skillet had arrived, and got to hang out around the church. We discovered in the children’s area a giant Rugrats themed play place that had been donated by King’s Dominion. The thing had a ball pit the size of a swimming pool, it was so amazing. When the bands started rolling in, we went and helped unload the trucks and set up merch tables. A group was also sent to the kitchens to make dinner for the crew, but I stayed out of that group by helping move stage monitors and lighting rigs. After the trucks were unloaded and everything was set up, the bands had to do sound checks. We watched from the sidelines and Pillar went through and made sure everything sounded ok. When they were done, Noah jumped off the stage and came over to us asking “You guys know anything to do? We’ve got hours!” to which we replied “well, we found this ball pit…” Good times were had by all.
When Skillet arrived there was a mad scramble to get their stuff unloaded and set up. I remember one of the girls that had come with us couldn’t stop giggling at the fact that Skillet was RIGHT THERE. I couldn’t stop giggling at her because, well, the entire situation was just a little ridiculous. And Kristine kept shooting dagger eyes at all of us, a silent plea of “be cool, guys!” in her every gesture.
After dinner, the bands went into a private room and had a Bible Study while we loitered about. By now there were groups arriving and people had begun to line up outside. We stared out at them and waved.
I really don’t remember much from the show at all aside from Kristine being front and center all night, Elizabeth mostly staying at the merch booth, and me circulating through the crowd with some of the other girls we had brought. It wasn’t glamorous or exotic or even exciting most of the time, but it was life changing. That was the first time I had felt really involved in a show. I wasn’t just at the concert, I helped. I contributed. I might not be on the stage, or even part of the travelling crew, but I had given part of myself to make sure this show had happened (although admittedly at this show it was a very, very small part of myself).
I still go to shows and help out and I still do street teams and I still giggle in certain situations because it’s all just insane, but I love it. And I’m good at it. Too bad I can’t make a career out of it, but that’s a different post. For now, we’ll just leave it alone and know that that’s how it all started.