Christian rock star John Cooper is pushing back against the idea that loud guitars, heavy drums and hard rock music are inherently evil, arguing that Christians who believe certain sounds belong to the devil are missing something fundamental about the Gospel.

Cooper, the longtime frontman and co-founder of the Christian rock band Skillet, recently addressed criticism of the genre while speaking with Fox News Digital. For Cooper, the question isn’t whether music sounds heavy or aggressive. It’s what the artist chooses to do with it.

“I would say, I just think that you’re misunderstanding something very basic, which is that music does not belong to the devil. Music belongs to God, and it’s the intentionality,” Cooper said.

“It’s the lyrics. It’s what you do with it. It’s not in a sound. It’s in a heart posture,” he continued. “And I would just say to those Christians, ‘You’re not just getting the issue of music wrong, I would say you’re getting the gospel wrong.'”

Cooper said he doesn’t believe any musical style carries an inherent spiritual evil. Instead, he views music and other forms of creative expression as gifts that ultimately come from God.

Christians believe people are created in God’s image, Cooper explained, and part of that means humans have been given the ability to create.

The ability to write a song, he said, is an “amazing gift of freedom God has given all of humanity.”

“Talk about a God that says, ‘I’m going to give you a very powerful gift, and it’s up to you how you choose to use it,'” Cooper said. “Man, that is powerful.”

That distinction is important to Cooper because he believes Christians can make the mistake of judging music by its sound rather than its message. Something loud and aggressive isn’t necessarily spiritually harmful, he argued, just as something beautiful and soothing isn’t necessarily spiritually good.

“You can have something that sounds incredibly beautiful that is actually offending God in its intentionality, in its lyrics,” he said.

Cooper even suggested that if evil were attempting to deceive people, it might be more effective to package a destructive message in something attractive and appealing rather than something obviously dark.

“You think you’re hearing something beautiful, but it’s drawing you to your death,” he said, comparing the idea to a “siren song.”

The debate is deeply personal for Cooper. Growing up, his own mother believed rock music was demonic.

“My mom very much, very much believed that, like, the loud guitars, anything with a drum beat really was Satanic, was from hell,” he recalled. “She believed that Christian rock music was the devil’s tool.”

Cooper, whose mother died when he was 15, was careful not to criticize her. He described her as “wonderful” and said her beliefs have helped shape how he now approaches Christians who remain skeptical of rock music.

“It was always a wrestle, and it’s the reason I think I talk so freely and, so, I hope, graciously towards people that believe that,” he said. “I don’t hate them. I’m not mad at them.”

That experience has also shaped how Cooper responds when protesters appear outside Skillet concerts and accuse the band of being “servants of the devil.” Rather than confronting them, he said he generally leaves them alone because he knows they sincerely believe they are warning others about a spiritual danger.

“There’s something about that I strangely appreciate, and I know I can’t change their minds,” Cooper said. “And, so, I don’t try.”

Meanwhile, Skillet’s music continues to reach an enormous audience.

The band’s 2009 hit “Monster” recently became the first song from a Christian rock band to surpass 1 billion streams on Spotify, a milestone Cooper said “shocked” everyone. Skillet has sold more than 23 million albums and attracts roughly 12 million monthly Spotify listeners, while “Monster” has accumulated more than 4 billion streams across platforms globally.

Cooper isn’t entirely sure what has given the song such staying power, but he believes its message connects with young listeners who sometimes struggle with anger and emotions they don’t fully understand.

“I always meet kids that love the song,” he said. “I think that they like the idea of feeling like a monster.”

For Cooper, however, the larger conversation goes well beyond one hit song or even Skillet’s success. It comes down to how Christians understand creativity itself.

Music, he argues, isn’t automatically holy because it’s soft, and it isn’t automatically evil because the guitars are loud. What matters is the heart, purpose and message behind it.

“God gave us creative expression,” Cooper said.

And after decades of making unapologetically Christian music with pounding drums and distorted guitars, Cooper remains convinced that rock doesn’t belong to the devil. Like every other creative gift, he believes it belongs to God — and what people choose to do with it is what matters.