Continuing a trend started with their 2013 release, “No More Hell To Pay”, Stryper’s 10th studio album, “God Damn Evil” sees the band offering up their heaviest release yet! As soon as you hit ‘play’ you immediately know that Michael Sweet and company have zero intentions of mellowing with age. Stryper also hit Australia in August so we caught up with Michael to find out Stryper’s plans for the year ahead, get beneath the skin of the album and even talk about last year’s Sweet and Lynch…
Mark: Hi, Michael, it’s Mark from The Rockpit, thank you for taking the time to talk to us today. I’ve just been listening to a wonderful new album, “God Damn Evil”, which is out on 20th April over here, you must be pretty happy with the way it’s come out?
Michael: We are, we’re really excited. It’s an exciting time for the band, we’ve said it many times over the past week, we feel like we’re eighteen years old, it’s a rush, it’s like we’re starting all over again!
Mark: It is! As someone who came quite late in the day to Stryper, in some ways I’m lucky I haven’t got that history with the band, and for me the last release and this one are up there with the very best you’ve done.
Michael: Well, you know I said that, I keep saying this is our best, I said that with “Fallen” and I meant it, I said it with “No More Hell to Pay”, and I meant it, and I’d say it again for “God Damn Evil” and I mean it! I really think somehow, some way, we kind of keep getting better at our craft and figuring out how to get better and better with what we do, and most of that is due to the fact that we love what we do still. We’re very passionate, and that comes out, even more so with each album that we do, that we record.
Mark: What do the long term fans say to you? I guess those guys that have been there for the ride over the years, and people I’ve been speaking to, are loving it as well.
Michael: Fans are really loving it, and the response has just been off the chart, and we couldn’t be more pleased with how that’s gone! So far so good, but you’re always going to have those people who don’t like it or don’t get it as much as you expect, and that’s OK too. You can’t please everybody.
Mark: So, where did this album start, Michael, did you start writing as soon as the previous album was out, or do you get together specifically to write the albums?
Michael: Basically, I had a short amount of time to do it, and the way I write albums these days, and this is just my preference, I don’t like to spend that long on the writing process. There’s something to be said for being under pressure, and having a short amount of time to do the album, and write the album in. So basically for the album there’s about a nine day period where the entire album’s written. After the ninth day I took a day off and the guys came out here to my house in Las Vegas, we flew to Boston and we started rehearsing and learning the songs, we spent about 10 days here at my house and then we went to the studio and started recording. I like working like that, because there’s something that keeps it fresh, when you beat a dead horse, when you work on a song for a week or a month, and we’ve done that, many times you lose the energy of the song, it becomes over produced and sterilised, and I don’t want that to happen and so this is the process that we have. We do it quickly and the energy level that comes with that is very high.
Mark: Is that how you write all the time? One of my favourite albums, from last year is the one you did with George Lynch.
Michael: Yeah, all the time, every album. The Sweet/Lynch albums, “Fallen”, “No More Hell to Pay” my last solo album, they were all written in under two weeks.
Mark: Is that something that’s happened over the last few years? Or something you always did?
Michael: It is, because back in the eighties, I would sit and work on songs for say “Soldiers Under Command”, or “To Hell With the Devil”, “In God we Trust”, for 2,3,4, months, I would slowly write the songs, or I’d finish one song and a week later I’d write another, but that was the process back then. These days I like to lock myself in my studio with a cup of coffee and all my gear and once I pick up the guitar, I start until I’m finished. It’s usually about a song to a song and a half a day. A lot of the time, if I start a song, and I spend more than a few hours on it and I’m not feeling it, I’ll literally scratch it, so the songs where I feel the riff and the groove, and I’m smiling and tapping my foot, those are the ones that come together very quickly, and usually it’s about 2-3 hours, and then I move on to another song. There’s something in me, an over flowing well of creativity, that I’m very blessed with and fortunate to have.
Mark: Where did “God Damn Evil” start? I love the opening track “Take it To the Cross”, that’s a great song. What was the first song you laid down for this new album?
Michael: I think the first song that I was working on, was the riff for “Sorry”, and “Take it to the Cross” was song 3 or 4 and very “Stryperish”, it’s something we’ve done before and we like that style, and I added the chorus and thought let’s do something totally different, we’d had people asking us to do something that was heavier, and that was kind of our answer to that. If you notice on this new album, every song is very different, but they all kind of fit and work somehow! There’s not one song that’s the same or even similar really, and I like that, I was never a fan personally of all those albums in the eighties, and there were quite a few, where every song sounded the same! Same beat, same groove, similar melody, and we were guilty of that sometimes too, so these days I love to write songs and albums that are very diverse.
Mark: You’re right, and there is that diversity on the new album that I think will appeal to a lot more people, dare I say, even widen your audience!
Michael: Yes, absolutely! And the tricky part is keeping them all in that same wheelhouse, where all those people like all the songs, in other words where people may not like the real heavy stuff, typically might like the ballads and vice versa. So far this album has got a lot of feedback from people that like “Take it To the Cross” and they like “Can’t Live Without Your Love”, so it’s interesting how it seems to be working on this album, how eclectic and how diverse it is, it seems to be working!
Mark: You’re also taking it out on the road, with the first date at the end of April and the Frontiers Rock Festival, in Milan, and then the US tour through May and June. Are you planning on playing any dates outside of the US?
Michael: Absolutely, and we’ve already booked the Spain date, the festival there, and we have a lot more coming, we have another ground run in the US in October/November, keep your eyes open, and we’re hoping to come in to some sort of tour in Europe, and if that doesn’t happen this year, it will most certainly happen in the early part of next year. So, we’re working on that, and things are coming together great.
Mark: It’s great to see you playing live. The first time I saw you, was at the pre-party for the Monsters of Rock cruise back in 2015.
Michael: Of course, yes. You’re talking about when we played and then there was the Poison band?
Mark: Yeah, and it was great to see you play solo on the cruise afterwards. Can you take it all the way back for us? When did you know you wanted to be a musician?
Michael: Oh, that was really early on, when I was little, and I’m talking two or three years old! Whenever I was sat in a chair or sat on the couch, I used to rock back and forth when any music started playing. My dad would play music, he loved his vinyl, and when he’d play an album, I’d start “bopping”, and I’d rock back and forth and I’d hum along and start making up lyrics and stuff, and that was when I was about three years old! I started to learn how to play guitar when I was five, my dad started teaching me chords, and as I progressed I got more in to it, and when I was nine or ten I started playing acoustic rhythm on my dads’ sessions, because my dad was a musician. Whenever we would have a family reunion, everyone would sing and play, we were a very musical family. So, I knew at a very early age that’s what I wanted to do, I always loved music. I thought about becoming a doctor at one point in school, but I was in a band and I loved music and there was no changing my course, it was destiny, and there’s no running from that!
Mark: So it did start very early for you, was there never that defining moment when you heard a band?
Michael: No, my brother auditioned me when I was twelve, he was fifteen, and he had a band, he was older and I was the punk, bratty brother, who was really too young to relate to him, and he was too old to relate to me at the time, and my dad twisted his arm and talked him in to auditioning me because he was looking for a singer, and when I joined the band at the age of twelve and we started playing backyard parties, that was probably the definitive moment of OK, I’m in a band now! We’re performing and this is the real deal, even though it wasn’t, I thought it was!! And a few years later we started recording and doing demos, and then I started playing clubs down in Hollywood when I was fifteen/sixteen, The Whiskey, at a very young age, it was crazy because I got involved in music at such a young age and I really paid my dues , so to speak, up until the time I signed my first recording contract with Stryper, I was twenty years old, but I worked on that from the age of twelve to twenty, solid, hard core, writing and recording. I spent a lot of time trying to get that big break!
Mark: That’s great, how much do you think your faith has helped you through the hard times? You must have had some moments of doubt in your career and some difficult times through the years?
Michael: Absolutely! No question, and in life, everyone knows I lost my wife, Kyle, after 23 years together, I’m now remarried to my beautiful wife, Lisa, and that was a really hard time, and I was questioning my faith in God and everything. I think that’s just human nature, no matter how deep your faith is or how close to God you are, there are going to be times when you question that, in the dark moments of your life that you walk through the storm, and it’s difficult. But I think going through all the situations I’ve gone through personally, have made me who I am today, and in an odd way have made me stronger. So, my faith has never been stronger, I feel like I could certainly go to church more, and pray more, and be a better person in many ways but I have a very deep faith and I think because of that, beliefs I personally believe, I think that God’s had our back and done a lot for us. We are one of those anomalies; we’re the underdog band, swimming against the tide, but yet at the same time we’re still here.
Mark: And not only are you still here, you’re producing, in my opinion, the best music you ever have! And probably, in April, the best album you ever have.
Michael: Well, who would have thought 34 years ago we would have been saying that? It’s a real blessing, we’re still alive, and we’re still healthy, thank God!! We are still able to play and create music, and have people that want to hear it, it’s really remarkable.
Mark: As well as having a really distinctive voice, I’ve always loved your guitar work, who was it do you think influenced you the most as a guitarist?
Michael: My first rock guitar player that influenced me incredibly was Michael Schenker, he’s one of my all-time favourites and always will be, and then I got in to guys like John Sykes, and then eventually morphed in to, two of everyone’s favourites Randy Rhoads and Eddie Van Halen. I am nowhere near the guitar player of any of those guys, but you may be able to hear little bits and pieces of their influence on me in my solos.
Mark: I actually love the way you play with George Lynch, your styles seem to work so well together.
Michael: Thank you. You know, I’m a big George fan too! I’ve always tried to play with a fire and intensity, and George does that like no one else! And I also try to approach a solo like a singer, and I think that helps me because I am a singer, when I write my guitar solos I try to think melodically and how they’re going to flow, almost like a song within a song, instead of just a spontaneous jam, which works for some people too. I like to think things out, and I like vibrato, Michael has the best vibrato of all time, I think. I’m a hacker, I hack on the guitar, but I give it my best you know!!
Mark: We have just got time for one more quick question, and it’s one we end all our interviews with, and it’s what the meaning of life i?
Michael: To me the meaning of life is loving, loving everything and everyone that you are around, which is crazy right now in 2018, it’s a blur, we live in a very fast paced world and it’s getting faster and faster, therefore it’s very easy not to notice everyone around you, the people that you love and the people that love you, and notice the things that you should care about. We all get caught up in the hustle and bustle, and we lose sight of that, so I think the meaning of life is love, it comes down to that at the end of the day, it’s those who love you, those that you love, and just looking around and acknowledging that, and becoming a better person because of it. There’s no greater gift than love, and that is the meaning of life in my opinion.
Mark: Some wonderful words to close with, and thank you for talking to us.
Michael: Thank you my friend, you were awesome, I appreciate the support, and I’m so happy you liked the album.
Mark: It is great and I think everyone will like it too when they get to hear it in April. Take care my friend, have a good one.
Michael: Take care, bye.
Stryper 2018 Australian Tour Dates
Friday 17th August MELBOURNE Max Watts
Saturday 18th August SYDNEY Max Watts
Sunday 19th August ADELAIDE The Gov
Tuesday 21st August BRISBANE The Triffid
Tickets http://silverbacktouring.com.au/612-2/
