Skillet drummer Jen Ledger will release her first solo EP, titled “Ledger”, on April 13 through Hear It Loud, a label imprint launched by Skillet frontman John Cooper and his wife, Skillet keyboardist Korey Cooper. Ledger told Billboard about the project: “I feel I’ve just been growing and changing over the last few years and I feel the time is now. It just feels like everything is lined up all at once. It’s super exciting because it is a little bit of a destiny moment.”
Ledger credited the Coopers with mentoring her and helping her develop her own sound, explaining: “Over the last couple of years, the Coopers have really been training me, helping me on my writing and really helping me find my own unique style.”
She added: “I’m not just mini-Skillet. I’m edgy and rocky, but I’m also soft and got a little bit of pop in me too. They’ve been helping me find out not only who I am musically, but also who I am as a person and what do I want to say.”
Over the past decade, Ledger has contributed co-lead vocals to certain Skillet songs. John Cooper told The Pulse Of Radio a while back how he determines when a song needs a feminine voice. “Some people say, ‘You know, that’s really cool you do it, you just don’t do it enough. You need to do it more,'” he said. “Some people are more thinking of, ‘It’s really cool, and if you did it all the time, it might get annoying.’ I’m kind of more along the lines of, if we’re gonna do it, I want to write a song for that purpose, as opposed to we have a song and going, ‘Oh, hey, you know what? You can come in and sing that line,’ or something like that. That to me seems a little random, so when I do it, it’s something that I’ve written for it.”
Ledger is not leaving Skillet, saying: “We’re all on the same team and we’re all kind of mixed into everything… I get to do everything I want and have the best of both worlds.”
Ledger, together with a full band, will serve as opening act on Skillets‘s upcoming tour and then take her usual place behind the drums for Skillet‘s headlining set. The trek kicks off on April 12 in Amarillo, Texas.
Skillet‘s latest studio album “Unleashed” has been released In Aug. 2016 through Atlanticdebuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 album chart and has sold more than 160,000 copies in the United States.
“Unleashed” marked Skillet‘s third visit to the survey’s Top 10, following the No. 2 debut of “Awake” in 2009 and the No. 4 landing of “Rise” in 2013. “Unleashed” also entered the Top Christian Albums chart at No. 1.
Our review of “Unleashed” can be found here.