Dear John, Korey, Jen, & Seth,

First off, I want to share with you all on how I came to know of you band. Seriously, it's hilarious.

My wonderful mother is an avid chef (you can see where this is going). For Mother's Day, when my two brothers and I asked what she wanted, she replied with that she wanted a cast-iron skillet. Now, my dingus oldest brother at the time only heard "skillet". One day him, my other older brother, and I all hop into the car to go buy my mother her mothers day gift.

We found ourselves at Best Buy, so I assumed we were going to get her some new and cool technology or something of the sort. My oldest brother walks up to the CD section and finds the "Comatose" album and headed straight to check out. My other brother, said "I don't think that's what mom meant when she said she wanted a skillet."

My oldest brother replied, "oh no, this is what she meant. She likes this kind of music." I personally thought she wanting the frying pan, but at the time my oldest brother was cooler than the other one, so I agreed with him and told my other brother he was dumb (or something like that). So long story short, we bought the cd and headed back home to give our mother our findings.

My oldest brother hands her the CD and my mom lost it. She laughed so hard because only her kids would get a skillet confused with a band. Turns out she liked the music; however, not for long because this was the origin story of the making of a Panhead who would play your music over and over again, all day every day.

At this point in my life, I was a 5th grader who loved Bon Jovi, Poison, and country music. I was obsessed with Johnny Cash, Shania Twain, and the Dixie Chick. So at first, I did NOT like the music off of the Comatose album. at. all. My brothers were into the rock music and as the logic of a little sister goes: if my brothers like it, I hate it.

However, we listened to the "Comatose" album whenever we were all in the car and one day there was one song that I really liked the sound of. I could not get this one guitar solo out of my head. So I took the CD out of the car, popped it into my CD player and went through each track to figure out which song it was. I finally found it and as it played I read the lyrics along with the song because I could not understand what in the world you all were singing. It was not because your diction was terrible (cause wasn't not), but because I was not used to this style of music.

I wanted to know what was being sung because my brothers told me that Skillet was christian rock, but I understood the rock genre as being secular and more about sex and drugs...Yet, these lyrics were far from "rotten language" as my grandmother would put. To my sweet surprise, the lyrics were poetic, deep, and real.

The lyrics "Despite the lies that you're making/Your love is mine for the taking/My love is/Just waiting/To turn your tears to roses" struck an emotional chord inside of me, and I could not explain why at the time. So I went and listened to the other songs and read the lyrics and my whole world was shook.

The music I was use to listening to wasn't as emotional as this new found genre and as a 5th grader where I was still trying to figure out how to express my feelings in emotionally difficult situations this was entirely new for me.

Growing up, life wasn't rainbows and butterflies due to the fact that my parents were divorced since I was three which caused many emotional challenging situations growing up. Even though times were difficult, and still continue to be, I always had this belief that bad things happen for greater outcomes. That God always redeemed even the most frightening situations.

Whenever life got me down I turned to your music for I found the hope I always knew to be true within your songs. Songs like "The Last Night", "Never Surrender", "A Little More", and so on helped me see that this is life is worth the fight.

I can name countless of times your music has pulled me through the good and the bad times of my life, but the one time that sticks out to me right now is when I realized I was in an emotionally and mentally abusive situation. During this time of figuring out how in the world I was going to address the behavior and deal with the horrific repercussions, the song "Circus for a Psycho" was my anthem for it truly felt like I was apart of a circus for a psycho.

In dealing the coping with the mental repercussions of this form of abuse, I found peace and joy in your music in the times of depression and anxiety. Songs like "Lions", "Stars", and "Hard to Find", "Better Than Drugs" gave me an inner peace and reminded me the truths that life often tries to get us to forget. But of course, there were some anthems that also helped me through the emotions of anger like "It's Not Me, It's You", "Open Wounds", "Sick of It", and "Monster".

The best way I can describe my relationship with music, especially yours, is the famous quote: "when words fail, music speaks". I know I don't speak for myself alone when I say that you as a band has made a major impact in so many lives. You guys always have sent out a message of hope and truth within a genre that is stereotyped as reckless, atheistic, and hopeless (even though, if those people truly listened to this genre would find the complete opposite).

Anyways, on the behalf of the Panheads, thank you for doing what you're doing and continue to do. Your music is being used to transform lives in major ways, I know it has impacted mine greatly. Keep on rocking!

Sincerely,

A crazy Panhead

P.S. Follow @originalskillet_memes (it may or may not be me).

P.P.S. Thank you Jen for reposting one of my memes.