It’s hard to believe that it’s been 30 years since Stryper first arrived on the scene and left their own mark on the metal world. Looking like a bunch of bumble bees, I remember thinking that they looked absolutely ridiculous but after just one listen of their Soldiers Under Command album, it was hook, line, and sinker. I was a fan for life. I was always able to look past the message and find whatever it was that I wanted to find in Stryper’s music being positivity, fun, and just flat out kick ass guitar driven metal with some of the best singing on the planet.
As a long time Stryper fan, if you ever would have told me that I would get to talk to lead singer Michael Sweet not once but twice, I never would’ve believed you. Michael is such an amazing person to talk to and is without a doubt one of my all time favorite people to interview. This time around Michael and I talked about the band’s latest album, Fallen, we talked about what his favorite and least favorite Stryper albums are, and he even took a moment to address the naysayers who still, after all these years, think that Stryper is a gimmick. This was a really fun interview with me so I hope you all enjoy this one.
Michael, thanks so much for taking the time to do this interview today. It’s great to talk to you again.
Hey, Don. It’s great to talk to you as well. How are you doing?
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Happy Friday to you my friend!
[laughs] Thank you. Yes. Fridays are always good!
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You’ve had quite a busy year this year.
I sure have. I’ve been busy promoting the Stryper album and at the same time I’ve been writing and prepping for a new solo album which I begin recording in a few days. I’ll be heading into the studio Spirit House where Stryper does all their stuff. I’m really excited about it.
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Michael, I have to say that the new album, Fallen, is so fucking good. It’s my favorite one to date actually.
[laughs] Thank you, man. We really went out of our way to make it heavy and make it good. You know, Stryper’s roots obviously lie in Heavy Metal. We grew up on Priest, Maiden, and Sabbath. They were all big influences on us and we kind of wandered away from that to a small degree with To Hell With The Devil and even more so with In God We Trust. With Reborn we tried to do a little bit more of a modern thing and I feel that with No More Hell To Pay we kind of came back to our senses and even more so with Fallen. I feel like we’re back on track and we’re going 100 mph down the track. People seem to be liking it.
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No More Hell To Pay really brought back a lot of those classic metal influences but with Fallen you guys really did it even more so. I also know that No More Hell to Pay came about pretty fast. Did Fallen come to you as natural and as quickly?
Fallen came about so naturally and it came together faster than No More Hell to Pay. No More Hell to Pay came together in a couple of weeks in terms of the songwriting and pre-production but this one came together in even less time. It was just so natural and it fell into place so quickly. I think because of where we were back in the late 70’s and early 80’s, the type of music we were playing and covering and listening to, that’s really who we are. We do ballads and poppy stuff on occasion because we grew up on bands like Journey and believe it or not Loverboy. We dug those bands and still do but the majority of our roots lie with metal and that’s what we wanted to show on this album. “Oh, you think we’ve wimped out? Well here’s a sucker punch to the face.” [laughs]
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Fallen also seems to have a much more loose quality to it. Dare I even say “jammy” at times? I mean, it’s not like you guys were going Grateful Dead on us or anything but do you know what I mean?
[laughs] Oh yeah. I think what’s going on is that when everyone is happy, it comes across in the recording and it translates over to the tracks. I don’t want to speak for Oz (Fox; guitarist) but I feel pretty confident saying this but I don’t think Oz was so much into No More Hell to Pay. He wasn’t feeling it as much and I think part of that is that he wasn’t as involved. He was a little more involved on Fallen in terms of songwriting. He co-wrote a couple of songs but he didn’t on No More Hell to Pay so maybe because of that, he feels a little more involved and he’s having a little more fun and he’s a little more loose. I think everybody had that vibe and that spirit on No More Hell to Pay but even more so on Fallen. It was just a lose vibe. We were hanging out in the studio together for two weeks and we just enjoyed every minute of it.
That really shows because I felt that the overall performance of the album just felt so natural. As a music fan and a fan of a band in general, it’s always great when you can hear a band like Stryper who, while they have a vast history, still has their best years ahead of them.
Thanks, Don. Absolutely. It’s pretty amazing to see it that way and I agree with you. I feel like the band is doing some of the best music we’ve done in our career. I say this very humbly but I honestly feel like I’m on fire as a songwriter. The songs are just flowing out of me and I’m not sure where they’re coming from. I mean, I give glory and credit to God, everybody knows that, but I just feel like something is going on with me where the songs just keep coming. I just cranked out 12 tracks for a solo album. It remains to be seen if people are going to think they’re any good but I think they’ll be blown away. There’s something happening. Back in the 80’s, and in the 90’s more so, I don’t want to say that the well went dry but the songs weren’t flowing out of me as quickly. Now, here I am at 52 years old and I can go and write an album in a week or 10 days. It’s just kind of crazy and I’m very happy about it. As for the band, we’ve got a lot left in us. We’ve got to outdo Fallen which is going to be tough but I think we can do it. I also love the idea that, as a metal band, we just continue to get better.
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I want to touch on this just a little bit about how you said that maybe the well might have been running dry a little bit. How much of that do you think has to do with the fact that there’s not as much stress put on you or Stryper in general from the powers that be like MTV or the record company. With those expectations not being there any more, is it easier for you to just be an artist?
That is a very interesting way of looking at that and there’s a lot of truth to that as well. There is pressure applied to you when you’re on a major label. We were with Enigma, who was an independent but a very successful independent who had a deal with Capitol Records but yeah, we did have a lot of pressure. “C’mon guys. We want you to write the next ‘Honestly’ and it better chart of else.” There was a lot more pressure then. There’s still pressure these days but it’s a different type of pressure. That being said, back in those days, when I wrote To Hell With The Devil for instance, I would spend a couple of months working on it. There would be times where I would spend 3 or 4 days on a song and I just wasn’t feeling it or it wasn’t coming. Now, 3 or 4 hours on a song. It’s almost like the pressure now to write an album helps me to do so. It’s like, for some reason I work well under pressure.
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But it’s a different kind of pressure. Maybe self pressure is different from say pressures from the powers that be in the industry that you can’t control.
Totally. It’s a blessing and curse but my personality is to say to the powers that be, “Piss off.” If we have a clear vision to do something, we’re doing it. I don’t care who at the label is saying, “We want you to do this.” You’re going to get a big fat, “No.” It’s not me being stubborn or a jerk. Stryper knows what we want to do better than anyone else. Because of that clear vision, we’ve been able to go from Reborn in ’05 to now, Fallen, and kind of rebuild who we are and re-invent ourselves so to speak because we know what we’re doing. Nobody knows better than us. People have suggested producers and what not. Why would we bring in a producer and spend another 50 grand to put in his pocket only to release the album and have it do the same as the one we just sold?
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There’s also something to be said about maintaining that amount of control. I talked to Jeff Keith from Tesla who, again, is another band that I feel just put out one of the best records of their career. He said in order to keep control and do it the way that they wanted to do was such a sense of freedom.
It really is and I agree with you by the way. That really is such a great album and I love the Tesla guys. Sadly, that album just did “ok” but if we were back in the 80’s it would’ve been a platinum album. It’s just that we live in a weird time. That being said, there is something to be said about the creative freedom. It’s not to say that there are many bands who don’t need a producer [laughs]. There are many bands out there who need a producer. It’s just that with Stryper, we grew up in studios. We know what we’re doing and we know how to navigate our way through a studio and now to produce an album.
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On Fallen, lyrically, the album wasn’t nearly as ambiguous as No More Hell to Pay but musically it was heavier. Was it a conscious decision to be a bit more transparent lyrically on this album?
Not really so much. I really just tried hard to write the lyrics that fit the music. I took each song one at a time, “Yahweh” for example. The music was written first and I was listening to it thinking, “This music is epic and powerful. What is epic enough lyrically to fit this music?” and the first thing that popped into my mind was the crucifixion of Christ. That’s just what popped into my head. That’s just such a bold, powerful, horrifying story and it just seemed perfect. Once it was done it just made a statement.
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You and I also talked about this before about how Stryper always seemed to ride this line of delivering it’s message but not being preachy. This time around with Fallen, even though the lyrics were a bit more transparent with the message, it still didn’t seem preachy.
I was just saying, “Screw it” and not really thinking that much about it. The funny thing about that is that 3 or 4 of the lyrics from the album, “Let There Be Light”, “Fallen”, “Heaven”, “Yahweh”, those are all right out of the Bible. “Marching Into Battle” from No More Hell to Pay, that’s right from the Bible. I don’t know man. I don’t think that there was an effort to try and tone down or anything like that. It was just one of those things where I wanted to write from the heart and have the lyrics fit.
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I have to give you some big ass props for covering “After Forever” by Black Sabbath. How ironic is it that it’s pretty much a Christian Metal song and you didn’t even have to change the lyrics.
[laughs] That’s what sold me on it. Once I heard all the songs for Fallen, we were thinking about a cover because we love doing covers. It’s fun. We love Sabbath and we grew up on Sabbath. I listened to the song and I’ll be honest, it’s not my favorite Sabbath song. It’s a good song but it’s not my favorite but the lyric is what sold me on it. Once I read the lyrics for that song I was blown away. I was thinking, this is more Christian than any lyric we’d ever do [laughs]. It’s crazy and here it is, Black Sabbath and the Prince of Darkness. I don’t know how they got that label of being evil and Satanic. If you dive into their lyrics, most of their lyrics are about war, politics, and even faith.
That reminds me of Dee Snider’s speech that he gave at the PMRC hearing back in the 80’s where he said that if you go into a song looking for something in particular, you’re going to find it. I love that because, I always thought that Sabbath was pretty heavy shit but when I heard you guys doing “After Forever” I was like, “Holy shit that’s a Stryper song.”
[laughs] We didn’t change one lyric. It’s a powerful song and matter of fact, I’ve been referring to Sabbath as the first Christian Metal band [laughs]. I’m taking some heat for that but I think it’s funny. All I have to say is, “Read the lyrics” and they shut their mouths.
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Another song on the album that I really dug quite a bit was “All Over Again.” That is a great song and I loved that it had a lot of cool elements from Southern Rock to Queen/Beatles influence in there.
Thanks man. I’m glad. Look, you can’t ever argue with a song if it’s a good song regardless of it’s a ballad or a pop song or whatever. If it’s a well crafted, catchy, memorable, well written song, you’ve got to give it props. Yeah, it’s a ballad but who doesn’t like a good ballad every now and then. I grew up on Journey and man, I’m going to say it again, I love Loverboy. The songs were great and that guy could sing.
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So based on the lyric of this song, would you do it all over again or do you look back on Stryper’s history and go, “If I could do that differently…”
Oh, I have certainly said that throughout my life. I talk about that in my book that one of my biggest regrets was that we didn’t let Tim (Gaines; bassist) play on To Hell With the Devil. That’s a big regret of mine. When I say, “I would do it all over again”, what I mean is that everything I have done, all the decisions I have made both good and bad through the years have made me who I am today. I’m pretty happy with where I am today. I really am. I’ve gone through some really tough times, I’ve lost a lot, but I’ve gained a lot. I’ve been up, I’ve been down. You know all the clichés, I’ve been there but I’m alive, I’m still making music, I’m married to a beautiful woman, my kids don’t hate me, and my dog and cat love me [laughs]. I just feel like I’m at a good place in life.
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Stryper has had quite a lengthy touring career. What is one Stryper song that hasn’t been played in a while or ever that you would love to see in the set lists?
Oh man. One of my favorites is a song that we played briefly on the In God We Trust tour and that song’s called “The Writings on the Wall.” It’s one of my favorite songs and I want to add that to the set lists this coming year and we’re going to. We might tune it down a step or so because it’s so flippin’ high [laughs]. I love that song. We also want to do some more tunes from Against the Law like the song “Against the Law” or maybe “Rock the People.” I’m also excited to do some of the ones like “Yahweh.”
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That’s such an epic song.
Thanks. Yeah, and I’ve talked about this openly but for that song we’re going to need some help from our good ol’ friends “the tracks” [laughs]. There’s so much going on in that song that we can’t pull it off live with just four guys. We’ve done this on occasion. We just started doing it last year. We added the song “God” to the setlist last year and that one is just so epic we had to have a little bit of help to pull that one off.
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This year W.A.S.P released their album, Golgoth. For years, there was this press induced battle of W.A.S.P vs. Stryper, Heaven vs. Hell. Have you talked at all with Blackie (Lawless; W.A.S.P frontman) regarding his acceptance of Christianity?
I’ve heard that album and I love it. I saw him in Spain last year and we were staying at the same hotel. We were having a late breakfast/early lunch at the same time and we sat and talked just for a 10 or 15 minutes. I didn’t get into anything deep with him but I’d love for our paths to cross again so I can pick his brain a little bit. Who knows? Maybe there will be a Stryper/W.A.S.P tour someday. We’ll have to call it the Heaven and Heaven tour though [laughs].
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I’d love to see that tour manifest into something. That would awesome.
Or, what we could really do just to become controversial is that Stryper could become and evil band and then we can really call it the Heaven and Hell tour [laughs].
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That’s so funny that you say that. There is a website out there that’s sort of like an ONION for metal news and it had a story that Stryper was recording an album of all Black Metal songs but changing the lyrics to be Christian.
[laughs] Just to put the disclaimer out there, I hope the people know that I’m kidding about Stryper becoming an evil band. I’m sure that there’s people out there reading this going, “Nooooo!!!!”
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Or people going “YES!!!!”
[laughs] That’s so true.
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Michael, of all the Stryper albums, what are your favorites and least favorites?
Ok, I’ve done this before and I’ll stand by my guns. My all time favorite Stryper album for a number of reasons is Soldiers Under Command. That album has a spirit and an energy to it. We were young, we knew all the parts, we had been playing the songs out for months and there is just something magical about that album. My 2nd favorite album would either be a tie between No More Hell to Pay and Fallen, maybe leaning more towards Fallen because sonically it’s a meatier album. Then I would go with To Hell With the Devil and then I would have to say Murder By Pride. What I liked about that album is that it was definitely a bit more experimental. I’d say next would be In God We Trust and then maybe a tie between Reborn and Against the Law. I’m not a huge fan of Against the Law.
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I loved Against the Law myself. Why are you not a huge fan of that one?
The fans that did like that album, I can see why they like it. It sounds really good. It was heavy and we kicked ass but it’s not classic Stryper. We lost the yellow and black, we lost the classic sound. The only song that sounds remotely close to the Stryper sound is “All For One.” That’s classic Stryper. Songs like “No That Kind of Guy.” That’s not Stryper. That sounds like “Hot for Teacher” [laughs]. It sounds like Van Halen and we’re not Van Halen nor do I want to be Van Halen. We have our own sound. I’m personally a fan of the classic Stryper sound. Also, it’s the lyrical content and where our hearts were at the time. We were in a dark place. Our attitudes were like, “Screw the church. We’re going to do what we want to do” and whatever. We were out drinking a lot. It’s definitely at the bottom of my list.
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I’m glad you’re bringing this up. As a fan such as myself who isn’t a Christian, when Against the Law came out, I could almost see and feel a resistance there but what I loved is that you guys used your music, your art to express that this is where you were at. That’s why that album made such an impact on me. Do you look back on that album with some regret.
Wow, thank you so much, Don. I mean, I do look back on it with some regret to a degree but I wouldn’t go back and change it because it made me who I am and it made us who we are. We’ve gone through a lot. That was a tough period in our lives.
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So if I may ask, what was it that brought on this need to separate and rebel, so to speak, from the church?
It was just years of built up frustration from getting beat up from both sides. We weren’t mature enough or old enough to handle it and it just all kind of came out. Not that drinking a beer is wrong or anything but one guy would walk in with a six pack to rehearsal, the next day a 12 pack and then next day all four of us were walking in with booze. We just started drinking and drinking and from there we’d go gun shopping. We started drinking and buying guns and going out in the desert and shooting. It was just all these pent up feelings that started coming out. It was like a landslide. I left the band and that was my only way of turning my life around. I didn’t want my marriage to end. We were on rough waters. Oz’s marriage eventually ended and Tim’s marriage ended as well. Robert was in a relationship and they were talking about marriage and that ended. Everyone’s relationships just fell apart and mine meant more to me than the band so I just said, “I’m out of here.”
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Just recently on my Facebook page, when I said that I would be interviewing you today, someone commented, “are they still doing their faux Christian schtick?”. I always thought it was funny that people thought it was a gimmick because back in the day, there was nothing more UN-COOL than being openly Christian, especially in the metal world.
[laughs] The people that do say or have said that it’s a gimmick or that we do it for the money, I think that’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard. If you break it down and think about it for a second, why would we choose to sing about one of the most unpopular things in our society to make money. There’s no sense in that. First off, we haven’t made that many bucks and second of all, if people only knew the heat that we’ve taken and still take on a daily basis because we stand for what we stand for. I’ll also stand by this and say that I feel like we’re bigger rebels than most bands out there because of what we stand for. Metal is all about rebellion and guys who sing about God are a bunch of wimps and they’re not rebellious at all. I’ve been challenging that statement saying that we’re more rebellious than most out there. You go find me one metal band that’s going to go to Indonesia, get on stage, sing about Jesus and throw bibles out in front of a bunch of Muslims. Go find me one.
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In my opinion, if you’re going to sing about something with conviction, you have my respect way more than the metal guy who sings about Satan and warfare but goes to church on Sunday.
[laughs] Totally. Tom Araya from Slayer gets up there with the pentagrams and upside down crosses and the screaming and the evil but then he gets off stage and goes to church. Don’t get me wrong, I think that’s great but it also brings into question the depth of what they’re doing and who they’re doing it for.
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You also do this without making your fans feel like they’re being forced to convert. I used to have friends say, “No way am I going to a Stryper show. They’ll try and convert me into a Christian.” Is that at all an underlying goal of Stryper?
Absolutely not. We never try to convert people. I mean, if there’s someone who’s there that wants to talk to us about God or say they’re just broken and are looking to learn more about God, of course. We’re going to do that. We’ll have dinner with them and talk to them all about it but we don’t get out there and say, “Turn or burn in hell!” A lot of Christians take that approach but we don’t. We’re not about that and we’ve never been about that. That turns me off just like any other person. We’re just all about loving people and hanging out with people. We go and perform in bars. Rob Halford came and saw us in Canada a few years ago. We hung out backstage, had a drink, and he came up on stage and jammed with us. We’re friends with all these guys and that’s what it’s all about. It’s about love and respect.
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Michael, in your opinion, what is one hard rock/metal album that nobody should go without owning?
Man, there are so many that come into mind but one of them would have to be the Van Halen I album. It’s got the energy and it kind of borders on the line of rock and metal. It’s a little bit of both. It’s such a great album. I’d also have to say Judas Priest British Steel. It’s such a classic album. I’d say those two albums are definitely up there.
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What song do you have to sing along with every time you hear it on the radio?
[laughs] I know this is going to bum a lot of people out but for me but I’ll have to say “Dancing Queen” by Abba. I don’t know what it is about that song but if I’m out at a wedding and I keep telling my wife, “No, I won’t dance” but if that song comes on I just get up and dance. I don’t know what it is but it gets me every time.
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What is a song that whenever you hear it you say, “I wish I wrote that.”?
There are so many of those. There’s a song by Duran Duran that was kind of a comeback song for them called “Ordinary World.” I love that song. There are so many. I could go on and on. I just love a well crafted song and a song that tugs at my heart.
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If you could sing for any band of any era for just one night who would it be?
Man, I’d have to go with Van Halen. They’re such a huge influence of mine. They really shaped me as a musician and inspired me. I think I could probably sing the songs from the David Lee Roth era and the Sammy Hagar era as well.
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Which do you prefer?
Oh, I’d have to say the David Lee Roth. That’s the stuff I grew up on but I love the Sammy stuff. Sammy’s a brilliant singer and I love his voice. Technically he’s a better singer than David but David’s got a character and an energy that Sammy doesn’t have. Obviously, he’s one of the best showmen of all time.
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We’re getting close to that time of year so I have to ask you: What’s your favorite Christmas album?
[laughs] It’s the Elvis Christmas album. What’s yours?
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I’ll have to go with Merry Christmas by Bing Crosby.
Ok. I do like Bing Crosby. I also love the Nat King Cole Christmas album but I grew up with Elvis Presley. My dad looked like Elvis, sounded like Elvis, he was even an Elvis impersonator who went by the name of Clint Reno for a while. I grew up around Elvis 24/7. I’m big on Elvis.
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What is in store for Stryper and the fans in 2016? Are we going to see a North American tour?
We’re going to do a tour from April to November of next year. We’re working on dates in South America, Europe, Canada, maybe Japan and/or Korea, and of course the US. We’ll come to Atlanta for sure. It’ll be the 30th anniversary of To Hell With the Devil as well so we might do something cool for that. I also have this solo album that will be coming out in May or June on Rat Pack Records. I’d love to go out and tour for it at some point. Maybe in 2017 I’ll get out there and do some solo shows.
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Michael, that’s all I’ve got for you. Thank you so much for taking so much time to talk today. I really enjoyed this!
Likewise, Don. I always appreciate you taking the time to talk to me and for being such a great fan and being so supportive. I look forward to meeting you when we come to Atlanta. Come see us and we’ll set you up.
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