Christian heavy metal pioneer Michael Sweet has been one of the most successful musician’s of not just this genre but in metal period. Having sold millions of records as the primary contributor to Stryper, that wasn’t enough, he needed another outlet. One more outlet wasn’t enough as he would not only produce solo material, Michael would also team up with guitar great George Lynch for the Sweet & Lynch project. On the heels of his latest solo release, One Sided War, RockRevolt had the pleasure of speaking with Sweet about his latest solo release, Stryper’s To Hell With The Devil 30th anniversary tour and his take on bands that continue with one or sometimes no original members.
You just released One Sided War on August 26th, take us through the writing process and how that might differ from writing a Stryper record.
You know I kind of dive into each album the same way. I don’t sit, dissect it and try to figure out a method as to how to write it or how to put it together, I just do it. I didn’t give any thought to the solo album, in other words I wasn’t sitting thinking are these Stryper songs or are they Michael Sweet songs or should I save them for a Stryper album? That thought didn’t cross my mind once, I just started writing. Twelve songs came out and once they were done that was it. It just so happens, of course, some of them will have similar qualities to some Stryper songs because I’m doing a hard rock album. I write for Stryper, I sing for Stryper so there are some of those qualities that are similar of course.
With your latest solo record, One Sided War, you mention it’s your heaviest solo record and after 
listening to it I would agree. What influenced you to go so heavy on this record?
You know I’m just in a heavy mode lately, with Stryper or without Stryper. I’ve been listening to heavier music. I look back on the history of the band and my history and I think that’s really our roots, that’s where we started. And I hear the fans asking for that. I try to listen to the fans and give the fans what they want. I don’t want to comprise what I want or what I don’t want but at the same time the fans are important and they’re the ones buying the albums and coming to the shows. I love getting heavy, I enjoy it.
It definitely has that heavy vibe to it. Now the first single “Bizarre”, why did you choose that particular song for a video and are video’s worth making in today’s environment compared to maybe twenty, thirty years ago?
I think so. You can make videos much cheaper nowadays. We made three videos for I think ten grand.
Take us back to the 80’s and how much you would spend on a video?
Easily a hundred grand for one video, easy. We make albums now for $25,000 instead of $250,000.
Well that’s interesting with everyone saying the music industry is tough to make money but with being able to produce albums for much less these days doesn’t it correlate with sales? Is there really that much of a difference between what you made twenty-five/thirty years ago and today?
Well I mean it’s just different. I can give you an example; back in the day if we got a budget for a new record for $200,000, $250,000 or more, which is what we got, we would spend it all on the album. Going out to eat every night, ordering take-out, staying in the studio for twelve hours and living in the studio for 3 months and it would all go to the recording process and not one dime would go in our pocket. Nowadays if we get a hundred grand to go make an album, pretty realistic, we’ll go and make the album for $25,000-$30,000 and put the rest in the bank. So when you really break it apart we’re actually making more money on albums in terms of an advance than we did in the past.
So you can still make a good living in the music industry?
We are one of the few bands and I can only say that it’s because of God opening doors and blessing this band because it’s really not the way it should be. We talk to our peers who can’t get record deals, if they do they’re not getting paid much at all. They’ve got to go make an album for twenty or twenty-five grand. You know Stryper’s been blessed in the sense that we’ve been able to get decent budgets to be able to afford to make quality albums still, not comprise, make a little money and be able to pay the bills as well as continue doing what we love to do.
That’s great to hear, the typical story is the other way around.
I know man, trust me I hear it all the time. And local bands trying to get a deal, forget about it. They most likely will not get a deal, if they do they might get five or ten grand to make an album and I think to myself oh my gosh how do they do it.
For your solo record you brought in Joel Hoekstra (guitar) of Whitesnake and formerly of Night Ranger; Will Hunt (drums) from Evanescence, John O’Boyle (bass) and Ethan Brosh (guitar), how did you go about assembling the band?
It just fell into place. I knew exactly who I wanted to drum, obviously Will. I knew who I wanted to play bass. Then I started working out solos and I felt it was taking on too much of a Stryper sound and direction. That’s when I made the instant decision to bring in Ethan and Joel. I was actually going to have Nuno Bettencourt (Extreme) play on a few tracks as well, that was worked out and arranged but he was working and starting on an Extreme album. Obviously and rightfully so that took precedence over a Michael Sweet solo album so that didn’t work out. It just fell into place, I just knew who I wanted to work on the album, I have no regrets at all. I feel like it’s the perfect line-up. The guys all killed it and did such a fantastic job. I couldn’t be more pleased.
You also added a bonus track, you re-recorded “Can’t Take This Life” as a duet with 16 year old up-and-coming female vocalist Moriah Formica, how did that come together?
Yeah, she’s a 16 year old singer, songwriter, guitar player and she is so talented. I am super thrilled and blessed to have her on my album. The way it came together was she opened for me, in New York I was doing an acoustic gig and I heard her and couldn’t believe it. Then my wife suggested working with her, so I called her and asked her. She said yes and the rest is history. I think she’s a rockstar, I think the world is going to be hearing a lot more of Moriah Formica in the very near future for sure.
We’ll have to keep her name on the radar. Are you working on putting together a solo tour and who your backing band will be?
No dates, no band put together. I’m hoping I can do it with Will Hunt and Joel or Ethan or both. Exactly when I don’t know. I know I have a Stryper album to do and a Sweet & Lynch album to do. After we record those I’m going to start touring, that’s the plan. I want to go out and do some Sweet & Lynch dates, I think that’s important. Hopefully those will be with the original line-up with Brian Tichy, James Lomenzo, George Lynch and myself.
You’re getting ahead of me here Michael, so there’s obviously some things going on with the Sweet & Lynch project then?
Yeah we’re going to do another Sweet & Lynch album right after we do a Stryper album. The Stryper album starts February, Sweet & Lynch will probably start April and be turned in by the end of May. Both albums should be done in June and that’s when I really want to hit the ground running with some solo dates and some Sweet & Lynch dates as well.
Speaking of Stryper you are finishing up the Fallen tour then you go right into the 30th anniversary tour for To Hell With The Devil, what can fans expect from that upcoming tour?
We’re going to put on the old outfits and play the whole album, start to finish. We are going to be looking at 40 plus dates. We’re excited about it, we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of that album. It’s our most successful, most popular album of all time. Everyone is excited, the band is excited, the fans are excited. I’ve been announcing it at every show we’ve been doing lately and people are just going crazy. It’s going to be a lot of fun, it’s going to take you back to the past in a really cool fun way. You’re going to get to see the band, close to what we use to look like back in the 80’s. And it’s going to take you back to ’86 all over again.
You might have already somewhat answered this but what would be the noticeable difference between a Michael Sweet solo album and Stryper album. You mentioned bringing in some of the other guys for your solo album. Why do a solo album?
Well because you can’t put out two Stryper albums in a year that would be overkill. Even every couple years is borderline overkill. But I can’t sit after doing a Stryper album for a year and not do anything else. I’ve got music flowing out of me non-stop and I have to have a way to express that, be creative and express myself. That’s why I do solo albums and Sweet & Lynch albums. There are some songs on Sweet & Lynch that could be Stryper songs, “Recover” is one of them, that could have been a Stryper song. People are like why wasn’t it? Well because it wasn’t, it was a Sweet & Lynch album. You know I like doing different things. There are still those flavors and similarities to Stryper, there’s always going to be because I’m the singer of the band, the writer and a guitar player and there’s this very unique style that Stryper has and that I have when I’m in Stryper that you’re going to hear with Sweet & Lynch and my solo that’s undeniable and that’s never going to change. I just love to record and make music, if I could do four or five albums a year I would do it.
Well it sounds like you are quite blessed to have all this creativity that constantly flows out of you.
I am man, it’s my personality. I’m an extreme overachiever, OCD, ADHD, perfectionist, anal retentive, all that stuff you want to throw out there that’s me. I’ve got a lot of energy man. People are hanging out at midnight, 1 am wanting to go to bed. My brother’s like I’m tired and I’m like lets go (laughing), it’s just the way I am.
In this day and age of the internet, there’s opinions everywhere. You being a perfectionist, how do you deal with those opinions, especially the negative ones, do you just ignore them or do they bother you?
I don’t think I’m a man that’s known for ignoring opinions lately. I took a turn a while ago, I use to ignore everything, then about 10-12 years ago I started voicing my opinion. Now I voice it on everything. If something rubs me the wrong way, like this situation with Ratt recently, it just kind of rubbed me the wrong way and I voiced my opinion on that.
Yes, I read that and couldn’t agree more.
Yeah I think a lot of people couldn’t agree more. Then this thing with rockstars trying to be country stars, I’ve voiced my opinion on that.
That doesn’t work to well does it.
No, nor should it. Sometimes on a rare occasion it might be real and sincere but I think most of the time it’s not. I mentioned on Eddie Trunk to reverse that coin and kind of imagine if country became unpopular and rock and metal became as popular as country is now in terms of radio and sales and then all the country stars tried to become rock and metal. Everyone would sit their scratching their heads thinking this is just weird.
To me it’s a money grab.
Well people are smart enough to determine that one on their own. And when you have a lot of rock guys who aren’t doing it in rock and they start going to the country side you’ve got to kind of stop and wonder what’s going on here? And the fans, once again, are smart enough to know what’s real and what’s going on. The projects that are successful and determined by the fans as being real because they buy it. The ones that fail are obviously determined by the fans as being insincere because they don’t buy it. Fans aren’t stupid.
You mention the Ratt situation, how do you feel about these bands that are still out there sometimes with only one original member and that member may be the drummer (no disrespect to drummers). You already kind of answered that but could you expand on that?
It’s not cool as a fan and when I’m asked the question I have the right to give my opinion about it. If it pisses people off, who cares, it’s not cool. You’re ripping the fans off, plain and simple. There are still fans going and buying tickets so I guess for whatever reason they want to go see it for what it is and for what it may be for the drama, I have no idea. I know when I go to see a show, and I’ve seen many, and I’m looking at one original guy up there or no original guys. I went and saw a show a while ago where there wasn’t one original guy, I felt ripped off. I’m a fan too and I spend money to go to shows and when you do that and there’s not one original guy there. It doesn’t sit well with me.
It’s a cover band at that point, right?
It’s a cover band at the point where it’s one guy. Love it or hate what I’m saying it’s true. You could say whatever you want about what I’m saying but it’s true.
Well it’s good to hear the truth, most artist like to be political but you’re telling it like it is, speaking as a fan.
I’m speaking as a fan. I get the whole thing, people got to make a living and when your bread and butter is taking away from you because of legal issues and things are tied up in court that sucks, who wants that, nobody. But at the same time have a little decency and respect for the fans and the brand and the name of the band to at least not try to pull the wool over the fans eyes. You can’t go out with one guy of a big band and put the name on it, that’s not what it is.
I was actually talking with my brother earlier and he mentioned he was going to see Ratt and Dokken and I said you’re really not seeing Ratt, you are seeing the drummer from Ratt and he had no idea. Just an example of pulling the wool over the fans eyes. You at least need to be up front, like you said and call it what it is.
Of course and the guys that go out and say so, I respect that a lot more. But when you’re going out as the name of the band and it’s not that it just doesn’t sit well with me as a fan, I think that’s wrong. We will never do that, yeah we’ve had lineup changes, yes I’ve left the band before. All that is true. Let’s just say for example if I leave Stryper I’m never going to go out and tour with three other guys replacing Oz, Tim and Robert and call it Stryper. That’s never going to happen. Now if we have one guy in the band that can’t do it anymore or doesn’t want to do it anymore and something happened like that and the other three guys decide to continue on as Stryper that’s a different situation. Again it’s my opinion and you know what they say about opinions, I’ll let you figure that one out (laughing).
Well I like your opinion Michael, I stand with you on that. Now changing gears with the current Presidential election going on how would you feel if one of the campaigns used your music?
Well that’s a fine line, it’s tricky. It depends on who, if it was somebody I strongly oppose I probably wouldn’t be in agreement of and would want to change that. You know that’s tough, it really is. I guess what I would have to do is cross that bridge when I got to it. If it were to ever happen it would depend on the circumstances, the candidate and what they stand for.
That makes sense. Final question, what is Michael Sweet doing when not on tour or making music?
Oh man I haven’t known that, for the past few years I’ve been touring or making music. I would love a real vacation, where I go away for a month and do nothing.
At this point I think you deserve that, you’ve earned it.
It would be pretty cool. I went to Aruba recently with my wife and daughter, we were there for 5 days, it was a short sweet vacation. But I love going away for a while and just getting away from it all. Maybe that day will come sooner than later, maybe it won’t. I’m not complaining, I love being able to do what I do and all these opportunities and I’m very grateful.
I appreciate your time today Michael. I look forward to seeing you out on the road and everything you have going on with your different projects and best of luck with the new solo record.
Absolutely my friend, thank you and God Bless You. I look forward to seeing you out on the road.
