It is 2013, twenty-plus years after the hair metal explosion, and who would have imagined that a lot of those bands are still around, still recording albums and still touring. One band in particular, dressed in yellow and black, hair sky-high, soaring vocals and screaming guitars, made a huge ripple in the metal lake when they debuted their first album The Yellow & Black Attack in 1984.
Both praised and vilified at the same time, Stryper headed the emergence of Christian metal into a genre that commonly shouted at the devil and swaggered right down the middle of the sex, drugs & rock & roll boulevard. It was a tough fight but one they went into willingly, knowing what the consequences could be. But they won over many fans and over two decades down the road, Michael Sweet and his brother Robert, guitar player Oz Fox and bassist Tim Gaines are still rocking with the best of them, albeit without all the bottles of Aqua Net.
Michael Sweet, the voice of Stryper, has made a pretty good living in music all these years. He has recorded solo albums, fronted the legendary band Boston on tour as well as T&N, a unit that features the members of Dokken sans Don. He always appears jovial and comfortable in his faith. Hard knocks have not beaten him down. Not even when he lost his beloved first wife to cancer, on which the anniversary of her passing was also the date of our scheduled interview.
But Sweet was gracious and happy to talk about Stryper’s new album Second Coming, which was released last week on March 26th. Containing re-recorded versions of some of their past hits such as “Loving You,” “First Love,” “To Hell With The Devil” and “Reach Out,” the CD ends with two new original compositions, “Blackened” and the first single “Bleeding From The Inside Out.”
I understand this is a sad day for you.
Yeah, it’s just one of those reminders of what happened and this is the day that Kyle, my wife, passed. I’m remarried now and that was four years ago but still obviously we keep her alive in our memories. It’s one of those facts and points and parts of life that obviously is not fun.
You have a lot going on: a Stryper album coming out, a solo album coming out and a book coming out. How did you do it all?
It is crazy, it is really, truly crazy and I don’t know. I’m not used to doing things like this. I, typically speaking, will do a tour, make a record and take time off and put a record out every two or three years, if that, and I don’t know what happened. This year just got filled up with so many different things. Opportunities were great and not wanting to say no to those opportunities; and there’s even more. We’re doing a live album in November. We’re going to record our rehearsals with a live audience and that will come out next year. Then I’m going to be starting a record next year in late January/early February with three guys – I can’t mention who yet – but it’s going to be like an all-star record. That’s going to be coming out on Frontiers Records as well. So there is a lot of really cool stuff going on.
What was harder for you to work on: Writing the book or recording all the music?
I’d say the book. The book was definitely harder because what happened with that is we hired a buddy of mine to co-write it with me and be a ghost writer and he interviewed me for sixteen hours and wound up transcribing and writing it and then sending it to me. And it just wasn’t quite where it needed to be. And that was a little over a year ago. So what we wound up doing was, we wound up having to rewrite it. And in my busy time, my schedule, it’s been next to impossible to write a book while I’m touring. I get so caught up in the moment so when it’s time to tour, that’s all I can focus on the week prior to the tour. So that’s been tough. It’s been hard to write a book. But we got it finished, it went to editing, I’m really pleased with it and I’m excited for people to read it cause there is a lot in there they’re going to be rather amazed by and pretty surprised by.
Do you have a release date?
No release date. Once it’s finished being edited, the goal and the plan is to release it at the same time as the record. I’m really praying hard that it’s this year. I’m sure it’s going to be this year, I just don’t know when. And the plans are for me to go and do a book tour and do a tour to promote the record and perform live and all that good stuff, so I’m not sure when I’m going to do it. Stryper is supposed to tour from June to September and then I’m supposed to tour with T&N, which is the Dokken guys minus Don, and that’s supposed to take place in October. So there is just a lot going on.
That just means that you’re still in demand.
I need two of me (laughs)
You could have your son put on one of those big 80’s wigs and he can take your place.
(laughs) Exactly. That would be awesome. Yeah, my son is in music. He’s not as involved in music as he was a few years ago but he still loves music and can write. He’s got to work a day job just like everybody else and he’s really tied up with some other things going on, but yeah, he still does music, absolutely.
Tell us about the new Stryper album. It’s a lot of your songs that you have re-recorded plus a couple of new songs. Why do it that way?
We were going to basically record it just for us, just because we wanted to retain the legal rights to our old songs, and that’s why we did it initially. Then once we started recording it, we really liked how it was coming out and we thought, wow, this would be really cool to offer to the public, to the fans. And that’s when we started talking to labels about doing that and releasing it. We wound up signing with Frontiers and they’re releasing the record, which we are really excited about, they’re a great label. And it wound up turning into an album, when it initially wasn’t supposed to be an album. It was just supposed to be re-records of our songs for our publishing company to pitch to TV and film.
Then we thought, you know, since this is an album let’s put some new material on there. So that’s why we have the two new songs. It gives the fans something new and it’s exciting. I’m really happy. Everyone I’ve been talking to seems really thrilled with how the re-records have turned out. I don’t know how we did it, but I think we captured that energy that we have live. It’s definitely a better representation of the band in terms of how we sound live and I don’t think any other record has represented us as well as this one has, or does. It just sounds better, especially than the first two albums, much better.
It’s really cool. We didn’t sit down and have board meetings and plan to do this and do that, other than to just stay true to the originals in terms of arrangements. But I’m very pleased that it turned out as well as it did. There’s always that possibility when you re-record your songs twenty-some-odd years later that you can destroy those original songs. I think there might even be some bands out there that have done just that. I think there are some bands that made some great re-record albums and some bands that have made some really bad ones (laughs) and we didn’t want to be a band that made a really bad one. So thank God it turned out better than we expected. So we’re really pleased.
“Bleeding From The Inside Out” is the first single.
That’s the single. I was kind of pushing for the other one to be the single, “Blackened,” cause it’s more up-tempo and fast and energetic and I thought that might be a better single. But “Bleeding” is the one the label wanted to go with and I said, “Hey, that’s great, I agree, let’s do it.” It’s a really cool tune too. I like it. It’s just a little slower paced. It’s a little more retro feel to it and almost a little bit of a Bad Company vibe to it at times, you know.
How did you discover rock & roll?
I wound up being drawn to music because of my parents. My parents were singers and songwriters and my dad used to blast music constantly; everything from Elvis to Chuck Berry to Creedence Clearwater Revival and everything in between. He listened to a lot of different stuff. He even listened to Black Sabbath at times and he liked their sound. My dad had quite a range in his taste of music and that rubbed off on me and I started becoming more and more interested in pursuing music, like he had done his whole life. I guess – what’s that saying – the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. I guess that’s the case with Robert and myself. We grew up in a musical home and family and we wound up playing music for the rest of our lives and I don’t think that’s going to change until we take our last breath.
What was the first concert you went to?
First show I ever went to was Elvis. I saw Elvis way back, just before he passed, at the Forum in LA. Second show I went to was a KISS show. Third show, I went to a Priest show. So I kind of evolved from Elvis to Priest pretty quickly. And I went to a lot of other shows. I wasn’t a big concert attendee. I liked going to smaller shows to see like Yesterday and Today [Y&T] and Quiet Riot I saw back at the Starwood before they closed down. I was into going to Hollywood and seeing bands perform. I saw Guns N Roses before they got signed and Motley Crue, Ratt. We were the house band with Ratt at Gazzari’s. I enjoyed that, enjoyed seeing the bands that were good enough to get signed but weren’t signed yet, in a small setting. It was way cooler than going to a big arena and seeing KISS or whoever.
You’ve always said that no matter who Stryper was playing with that you would never change and do your show and your kind of music. Has there ever been a time when you DID end up compromising?
Not really. I think the closest thing that would come to that, and it wasn’t really compromising, was when I was with Boston. I toured with Boston and was a member for four years. I toured in 2008 with them. You know, if I’m going to wind up being in a band that would probably be the band that I would choose because I not only think they’re classy and very respectful in terms of their lyrical content and whatnot, they’re one of my favorite bands. They really influenced me as a kid in terms of guitar tones and production and writing. So it was really pretty surreal to be touring with them later on in my life. But, no, I don’t feel I’ve compromised anything. I really stay true to my beliefs and my stance regarding my faith and I don’t waver from that. It’s just the way we are. It’s not just me, it’s the whole band. That’s why we’ve stayed true to who we are for years and I think that will always be. And when it’s not that way, if it ever isn’t that way, I think that’s when you’ll see the band break up and we won’t be continuing.
Have you always been a songwriter?
I have. I was writing songs when I was a little kid. They weren’t good (laughs) but I was writing songs when I was a little kid just sitting on the couch bopping back and forth and making up lyrics. I’ve always written songs, always had a song, a melody or a lyric in my head, always.
When tragedy hit you and you had your faith and you had your family and your friends by you, did being an artist and a songwriter also help you to get through?
I think so, yeah. It was definitely a way for me to express myself and get a lot of those emotions out. So I would say, yeah, absolutely. No question about it.
What is harder for you to write about: very personal things or your faith, which all goes hand in hand obviously.
I think that it’s a little more difficult to write about personal stuff, definitely. It’s not difficult at all to write about my faith. That comes naturally and easy and that’s always a given and a no-brainer and very comfortable and easy to do. When I get into the real deep stuff, more on a personal level, like I write on my new solo album about some people in my life over the years that have kind of decided to not support me any longer for reasons I’d rather not go into. It was a real personal song and really deep. That was tough to write about. I wanted to express myself properly but yet at the same time I wanted to also get that out and get out everything I was carrying around in terms of the weight and the monkey on my back. That can be hard sometimes, really hard on an emotional level. But at the end of the day, it’s also therapeutic because you get it out.
When Stryper first came out, you had some naysayers that were talking bad about you or wondering why you were doing this. Did that ever confuse you since you were trying to be positive but also rock out at the same time?
We knew when we got into this and the road we’d chosen to go down, we knew that we were going to get more flak than any other band probably since the beginning of time (laughs). We’ve gotten a lot of flak over the years and we get it from both sides. We get the mainstream flak thinking that we’re fakes or we’re doing it for money or we’re not good enough or we’re wimpy cause we’re a Christian band. Then we have the other side that is saying that we’re fakes (laughs) and we’re doing it for money or we’re not Christian, we’re hypocrites or we’re this or that. It just seems to be the case because of the way we present ourselves: the way we dress, the edge in the music, the style of delivery. It’s just the way we do things. It’s opened that door, the floodgates, to being completely beaten up and put under a microscope. So it’s been ever since 1983 to today. It’s gotten a little better because people are a little more open-minded, things are more accepted now, but not much. In some ways it’s gotten worse.
But we look at it as a challenge. It doesn’t get us down, it doesn’t make us feel like quitting or stopping. It drives us, it makes us want to do it all the more. That’s why we just went to India and Nagaland and we look forward to going to countries like China and Russia and areas of the world that don’t have a large Christian popularity. We’ve been to Japan, which is primarily Buddhist. We love going. We went to Indonesia, which is a lot of Buddhism there as well and we’re up on stage singing words about God. So you would think that we would be booed off the stage and everything would be thrown at us but the kitchen sink but it’s pretty amazing to see these people lifting their hands and singing the songs.
It takes a lot of courage and a lot of guts to get up there because people can be so cruel.
Oh I know and even more so nowadays because it’s an open forum with the internet and people can hide behind their computers and go say whatever they want online. So they can be brutal. People can be really brutal.
Stepping back in time for a moment: Tim’s hair back in the day – I’ve never seen hair so high in my life. Did it take him hours to get his hair like that?
(laughs) I don’t think it took him hours. I think it took Oz hours. I remember Oz having a woman who traveled with us and worked on his hair and literally she would spend a very long time on his hair, teasing it and spraying it. But I don’t recall Tim taking that long to do his hair. He was always pretty quick getting ready (laughs)
