John Cooper: "You know, I'm gonna say I had a not great life as a kid. Uh, it wasn't terrible, I wasn't
like physically beaten by my Dad or anything. The thing that was really strange about it is my Mom died from cancer when
I was 14, and my Mom was the one that really held my family together. After that, my Dad got remarried 2 months after my Mom
died and it just became a bad situation, from that point me and my Dad just fought and fought. I think the reason it was so
hard is that everyone looked at our family like we were model family, even though it was actually really bad, haha... terrible,
and I just felt betrayed by my Dad and stuff. The reason I finally wrote a song about it, honestly, is because things are
going well with my relationship with my Dad. It's a relationship that has been healed in the last few years and so I thought
okay, it's time to write a song about it 'cause I know there are lots of people out there that feel the same way but is under
the pretense of a really great family, and that's what always bothered me so bad, was that it really wasn't all that great."
Question: About the line 'the enemy sleeping downstairs' I guess that when you're a kid you're laying
there and that 's.o.b.'......
John Cooper: "--Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like in this situation my Dad and my Step-Mom fought and he
would sleep on the couch, and when I was growing up we didn't have all night tv, haha. You'd go down stairs and the tv
at midnight would just go to static or go to those little colors and I remember just thinking anything to get away from him."
Question: So did you make the move to patch things up or did he?
John Cooper: "I did actually. I had been trying for about a year and just trying to be faithful to that.
And then next thing I knew, he began to get a divorce with my Step-Mother, then he made a step towards me and just said he
appreciated me understanding and all of a sudden wanted a relationship. I was very glad about it because I had forgiven him
at that point - taken me a few years, you know. So at that point I was like great, let's do it, and all that's in
the past, don't care anymore."
