{"id":16331,"date":"2016-08-24T01:00:06","date_gmt":"2016-08-24T05:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southeastofheaven.com\/?p=16331"},"modified":"2016-09-01T08:26:35","modified_gmt":"2016-09-01T12:26:35","slug":"blowin-wind-with-michael-sweet-of-stryper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/?p=16331","title":{"rendered":"Blowin’ Wind with Stryper’s Michael Sweet: ” We still get heat from Christians who think we’re going to Hell in a hand basket because we tour with secular bands and play clubs.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since starting this blog back in 2009, I have had many opportunities to interview many amazing artists both new\/up and coming and legendary.\u00a0 Michael Sweet of Stryper is hands down one of my absolute favorite people talk to.\u00a0 His awesome, positive (and hilarious) nature makes every interview a great experience and on top of that, the guy is a legend who I feel like I have been friends with all my life.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

You’d think that by the third interview with someone I’d be running out of shit to talk about but not with Mr. Sweet.\u00a0 Michael is one of the hardest working guys in rock and in this interview he we had plenty to talk about.\u00a0 We discussed his new solo album One Sided War<\/a>\"\", the upcoming tour celebrating the 30th anniversary of To Hell With The Devil<\/a>\"\", and just why he doesn’t like Christian rock music.\u00a0 Once again, this was a great chat with an even greater guy and I hope you will all dig this one as much as I did.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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Michael, thanks for taking the time out to talk with the Brainfart yet once again!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thanks so much, Don.\u00a0 I’ve been busy for the past few months but I’ve been busier before so I’m not complaining [laughs].<\/p>\n

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This is our third interview together.\u00a0 I feel like I should’ve brought flowers or a bottle of wine or something.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] That’s funny.\u00a0 You know, the people that I’m talking to over the past few weeks I’ve talked to them two or three times like you mentioned.\u00a0 I think the reason for that is that I’ve been so busy and doing so much.\u00a0 Stryper albums, a book, a solo album, a Sweet\/Lynch album, and another solo album.\u00a0 Man, it’s kind of making my head spin to be honest with you [laughs].\u00a0 It’s just who I am.\u00a0 I have a lot of energy and I just really love talking to you guys.<\/p>\n

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You are about to release your new solo album, One Sided War.\u00a0 This album is a significantly heavier album than I’m Not Your Suicide and it even has a bit of a modern sound to it.\u00a0 Where did this influence come from?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I love a lot of the new bands.\u00a0 I’m instantly drawn to the bands that you can hear were influenced by the 80’s.\u00a0 Like Avenged Sevenfold or Black Veil Brides.\u00a0 There’s some melody, some great guitar soloing in there, and I think that’s cool.\u00a0 That’s the stuff that I am drawn to in the terms of modern music.\u00a0 I try to listen to that stuff and stay up on it and add a little bit of those qualities to what I’m doing when I’m producing a song or writing a song.\u00a0 I don’t go down that path too much though because that’s not who I am.\u00a0 I’m an 80’s guy.<\/p>\n

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This is what I loved about the album.\u00a0 You didn’t sound so much like you were trying to adopt that sound but more so infuse that modern influence into what you’re already doing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thank you, Don.\u00a0 I tried really hard to kind of make it different from song to song.\u00a0 I’m not a big fan of the albums where every song sounds the same.\u00a0 I like albums that are diverse and that stretch themselves.\u00a0 I tried to do that on this album but at the same time, I didn’t want to do what I had done before and get too diverse.\u00a0 For example, you have a metal song and then you get a song that borders on country like with “Coming Home” on my last album.\u00a0 I wanted to keep it consistent and keep the album flowing well and make sure it was all heavy.\u00a0 There are songs like “Radio” and “Only You” that just a little more radio friendly and straight ahead than the others.<\/p>\n

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You just mentioned “Radio” and that was one of the songs that really stood out to me.\u00a0 Do I sense just a tad of snarkiness in there?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh yeah.\u00a0 There’s a load of snarkiness in there [laughs].\u00a0 There’s shovels and shovels of snarkiness.\u00a0 It’s snarky towards myself as well as much as it is towards Steven Tyler and Brett Michaels and all the guys you can list who woke up one morning, had one too many beers or cups of coffee, and decided that all of the sudden they were going to be country guys.\u00a0 They’re going to throw on a cowboy hat and cowboy boots and go to Nashville and write a country song and be country.\u00a0 I did it myself on my last album.<\/p>\n