Video Premiere: SKILLET's 'Save Me'

April 3, 2020

SKILLET's official music video for the song "Save Me" can be seen below. The track is taken from the band's tenth full-length album, "Victorious", which was released last August via Atlantic.

SKILLET frontman John Cooper told Cryptic Rock: "'Save Me' was a song where I had written the chorus melody… I was thinking I could almost hear [FIVE FINGER] DEATH PUNCH doing that chorus. Then I said, 'I just think that this could really be a SKILLET song.' Instead of moving towards ultra-metal, it can move a little bit towards romantic and sad. Then when we started recording it and working on the parts, I was, like, you know what? It can be sad and metal at the same time. I literally thought, 'If this was a FIVE FINGER chorus, what would they do on the drums?' I know it doesn't sound like FIVE FINGER — it sounds like SKILLET — but for a musician, if they really picked apart the guitar and the drum parts and the chorus, you can hear that being a DEATH PUNCH chorus with his voice — if Ivan [Moody] was singing it. Some bands don't like to admit stuff like that, but I do. I like to pay homage to bands that I love, because I don't have much of an ego — I think it's cool. So, I can hear Ivan sing it.

"I wanted to make the song kind of sad, because the lyric is very romantic, actually. It's dark-sounding, but it's about the fact that intimacy is really hard. We all want to be known and we all want to know someone in an intimate way, but what we're not always prepared for is that intimacy hurts. The second verse lyrics — 'Peel back the skin, exposed to you / Take pleasure in the pain' — what that's saying is that it's really wonderful to be known, but it also hurts because we have a lot of ugly crap inside of us. It's not always wonderful when somebody finds out how selfish of a person you can be, or what a jerk you can be in the mornings when you're in a bad mood; the way you respond to someone you love when you're exhausted and they find out how bad you are. But it's still wonderful to be known, and to still be loved is a really wonderful thing to me, and that is what 'Save Me' is about. And we get to show off a little bit: the bridge on that song has got some riffage. When we've been playing it live, somebody was, like, 'I had no idea SKILLET could play like that.' I was, like, 'Son.' [Laughs]"

Coupled with the production strides made in the previous full-length studio offering, 2016's "Unleashed", John and wife/guitarist/keyboardist Korey took the reins for the bulk of production on "Victorious" — a career first.

"'Unleashed' recharged us, and we returned to what we love about writing," John said. "It was tight and electronic hard rock. We wanted to keep the sound modern and pull in influences from hip-hop drums and keyboards, while staying riffy. 'Victorious' started there. Our confidence was sparked by the last record and all of the other projects. We were feeling prolific. We thought, 'We can produce our own SKILLET album.' It lit a fire. Korey and I have produced in the past, but nothing quite like this. It's a brand new season."

Photo credit: Chrissy Nix

Find more on Skillet
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • reddit
  • email

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).