When John Cooper was a kid, he wasn't allowed to listen to any music with a drumbeat.

Even Christian music.

"My parents thought Amy Grant was singing the devil's music," recalls Cooper, the lead singer, bassist and songwriter for Skillet, which will perform Friday at the Chameleon. "They wanted me to play hymns and classical music."

If Amy Grant was off-limits, there was no way in the world his parents would have let him listen to his own band. Skillet is a hard-driving, swirling dervish of rock, grunge, metal and alternative sounds wrapped in a life-affirming, Christian message.

"We're a positive band with a positive message," Cooper, 30, says. "People will go, wow, we haven't been to a rock show where people aren't cussing on stage, where the band isn't asking people to take items of clothing off."

Still, Skillet concerts are scorching affairs.

"The first thing people notice is the amount of energy we put into our show. I lose about four pounds in sweat during a show," Cooper says. "There's a lot of energy in that."

Cooper found the music he listened to back in the 1980s, when he was a kid — often secretly at friends' houses — had a powerful effect on him.

"Hearing anything beyond church music was fascinating to me," he says. " I liked the energy, I liked being able to sing along to it."

More than that, it helped him through rough times.

Cooper's mother died when he was 14 and his father remarried only two months later.

"My dad kind of lost track of me," he says. "There was a time when music was the only good thing happening in my life. I'd go to my room and listen to music to make me feel better."

He loved Bon Jovi and Yes and Motley Crue.

And he was a good musician. His mother, a classical music teacher, had gotten him started on piano lessons when he was 5.

"I was 15 when I was in my first band. We did Van Halen covers," Cooper remembers. "At about 16, I wrote my first song and it wasn't actually that hard, so I figured maybe I could do that."

After high school, Cooper moved out on his own and he started playing in various bands while in college.

Skillet came into being in 1996 thanks to his pastor.

"He was unlike any pastor I had ever met," Cooper says. "He as an ex-hippie who loved rock music. He was the first church leader who would say thing like, being a Christian has nothing to do with your hair cut, the way you dress, the music you listen to."

The pastor recognized Cooper's talent and urged him to get together with another musician he knew, guitarist Ken Steorts. He suggested the band's name because they would be throwing everything together.

"We weren't serious about it, we just thought it would be fun to do as an aside," Cooper remembers. "Within three weeks we wrote three songs and put them on a demo so we could find a drummer."

Before they knew it, Skillet had a drummer (Trey McClurkin) and had recorded its first album on Ardent, a major Christian label.

After a few years, Steorts and McClurkin left the band, replaced by the current lineup, which includes Ben Kasica on guitar and Lori Peters on drums. And Korey Cooper, John's wife, plays keyboards.

The band's latest release is "Comatose," which Cooper says is the biggest record the band has had.

"It's sold twice as many as the last one (2004's Grammy nominated "Collide")," Cooper says. "This record has broadened our audience. A year ago, I'd have said our audience was 11 to 22 years old. But we're seeing more younger kids and a lot of older people. It has become very diverse, kind of like the Nickelback crowd."

Cooper's songs often address tough issues, including his difficult relationship with his dad and depression.

"I have to write songs that are going to affect people," Cooper says, remembering all those songs he listened to as a kid.

"You can sing songs that say everything is horrible, or you can send a positive message," Cooper says. "That's what we try to do. We are a hard rock band that doesn't make you angry."

CONTACT US: jholahan@LNPnews.com or 481-6016

Skillet

All ages. Fri. 8 p.m. $12

Chameleon Club, 223 N. Water St.

393-7133, hotline, or 299-9684, office

www.chameleonclub.net