Honestly: My Life and Stryper Revealed

by Michael Sweet

  As we come out for the encore, “C’mon Rock”, I notice half-a-dozen yellow roses lying at the front of the stage so I pass them out one by one to the girls in the front row. I’m loosening up quite a bit at this point and wish we could continue on. At one point I even jump on Robert’s drum riser, grab his gong mallet and just start beating away at one of his massive gongs. I may as well give it some use, we paid good money to fly it across the Pacific. We close the show with “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and head back stage all smiles from a rough, but successful night.

  The other shows on this tour went much better, but unfortunately this is the one that is captured on video.

  We then head to Osaka, back to Tokyo for two shows at Yubin Chokin Hall, and then wrap up our first tour of Japan in Nagoya. We pound out the last shows as a professional rock band would. I get more comfortable on stage in Japan as each show proves to be as successful as the last.

  On the train ride back to Tokyo in preparation for our return to the states, we’re all proud of the job we’ve done here. God granted us an opportunity to bring His message to the masses in a way never before done, at least never before done in yellow and black spandex.

  The adulation we receive in Japan will later only be rivaled by that of Puerto Rico.

  I’m curious as to why we are so popular here. There are very few Christians in this country, so each time we step on stage during this tour I’m slightly skeptical as to the reception we will get, yet as the shows progress, I’m pleasantly relieved to always feel more-than-welcomed. I can only assume our music is about to cross big boundaries.

  I’m tired yet excited to get back to Amigo and listen to the final mixes for Soldiers Under Command. I sit next to Kyle on the plane ride back to Los Angeles.

  SEVENTEEN

  “The Church of Satan Welcomes You” was scribbled backwards in red lipstick on the mirror in my room at a low budget motel we were staying at one night during the Soldiers Under Command tour.

  That tour was my first realization that being in Stryper could become difficult mentally at times. Fortunately I was still young in my faith and I was eager to take on whatever challenges might be thrown my way, without complaint.

  Today, if I saw strange messages mysteriously written on my hotel room mirror, I’m not sure how I would handle it. My immediate reaction to this backwards lipstick message was laughter. I assumed that one of the guys in the band was playing a practical joke on me. How else would someone know this was my room? It had to be Rob, Oz or Tim.

  But after inquiring further, I discovered it was not a joke. I was a bit thrown off by the whole thing and I suppose I became even more uncomfortable when I realized that this was real.

  How could someone have known this would be one of the rooms we’d be staying in? Furthermore, how did they get in the room before I arrived? I never did find out. And surprisingly, it didn’t scare me enough to do anything about it. I just grabbed a paper towel and cleaned it off without giving it much thought.

  It was on this tour that I realized I would encounter some strange people in my life, for the rest of my life. Ironically, it became almost impossible to predict who would be “strange.” Christians hated us. Christians loved us. Satanists hated us. Satanists loved us. Atheists hated us. Atheists loved us. It was impossible to predict who was going to support us and who was going to curse the very sight of us. We couldn’t spot our enemies visually—therefore, we couldn’t spot our friends either.

  Just because someone was wearing a Motley Crue shirt and a pentagram around his neck didn’t necessarily mean he was our enemy. And someone wearing a “Jesus Saves” T-shirt was equally as likely to throw a rock at my head as someone wearing a “The Devil is my Friend” T-shirt. Although to be perfectly honest, the “Jesus Saves” T-shirts probably cast more stones, at least at the time.

  No other band that I know of has had such an inability to distinguish their friends from their foes. Most bands can spot their antagonists from a mile away. Not us. We had an equal number of fans and enemies on both sides of the religious fence.

  This was a strange and eye-opening reality that came to fruition during the Soldiers Under Command tour.

  Very few people were indifferent about us. If you knew about Stryper at this point in our career, you most likely had a strong opinion one way or another. If you were a Christian you either loved us dearly or hated the very thought of our existence. If you were a non-believer, you were equally as likely to accept us for our music and appreciate our freedom of speech as you were to be upset that a “Jesus Band” could possibly infiltrate the world of rock and metal that you held so sacred.

  Imagine not being able to spot people who may be opposed to you so passionately they are willing to go to extreme lengths to see you fall, even die. Yes, we received death threats. At one point we were receiving several death threats per week by mail. Most writers seemed harmless and immature, but occasionally they knew just a little too much about our personal lives. We would turn those letters over to the police, but to my knowledge nobody was ever arrested for these threats.

  I suppose going into this band, I just assumed that most of the haters would be non-believers. I guess I was naïve. It shocked me the first time I saw Christian’s protesting one of our shows, and this would become a regular routine throughout the Soldiers Under Command, To Hell With The Devil and In God We Trust tours.

  I was young and innocent in my spirituality during this time in my life, and as a result, I was willing to do anything required to keep spreading the message that I felt called to share. There was a sense of true innocence in my faith, and all I cared about was serving God. I believe because of this, God started to bless me and this band on a level we never dreamed possible. We were starting to get a taste of success, and it tasted good.

  I think back on how little I had then, yet how little I complained about it. If I got a PB&J sandwich for dinner at a show, I was happy and content.

  I complain more now than I used to—I believe in part because I forget. I forget that sense of innocence I once had. As I get older, I get tired and exhausted a little easier and that opens the door to bitterness if I allow it. Back during the Soldiers era we just never allowed that door to open. Once it does, it’s a difficult one to close as we would discover in years to come.

  Had it been 2012 instead of 1986 when someone wrote a welcome message on the mirror in my hotel, I likely would have cancelled the show on the spot. But not then. In 1986 I was ready to conquer the world. Today, I’m a bit less tolerant than I once was.

  The tour for Soldiers Under Command started in October 1985 and continued almost non-stop through the end of April 1986. It was the first time we had hit the East Coast and we were playing everything from clubs to small theaters and even a few high-school auditoriums. We loved it.

  A notable stop on that tour was performing at the Dove Awards in Nashville in April. To say the audience looked like deer in headlights doesn’t even come close to describing what I saw when I looked out from the stage when we began our performance. It looked more like a congregation of Southern Baptists expecting to see a film about The Ten Commandments but instead they were watching a Farrelly Brothers movie. They were shocked to say the least. And I even dressed conservatively that night, wrapping a scarf around my waist just before we went on stage so my spandex pants wouldn’t offend anyone in the first few rows.

  I can’t say that I was surprised by the crowd’s initial apprehension. After all, it was artists like Sandi Patti and Michael W. Smith who were the big winners that year. We didn’t exactly fit in. It wasn’t until 1988 with the In God We Trust album that we would win a Dove Award. We’d win two that year—“Hard Music Album of the Year” and “Hard Music Song of the Year” (for the title track).

  Those awards shows are always scripted and often have somewhat embarrassing banter between the co-hosts before and after each performance, but I think our night takes the cake. After we played, the male host Pat Boone, said some
thing along the lines that he would rather kids see Stryper than Motley Crue or The Rolling Stones. I was about 10% offended by that. Basically he was saying, “All rock music is garbage, but if you must listen to it, you might as well be listening to Stryper.” I don’t blame Pat for that statement. I’ve presented at the Dove Awards on multiple occasions and I know that the script is written for you. There’s very little room for ad-libbing. Pat was just saying what was on the teleprompter. He probably thought it was a little offensive too. Pat actually supports us and rock music. He even put out a “metal” album once. So I’m sure he, like many who present at these awards, probably feels a bit awkward about some of the statements he has to read.

  To make matters worse, we had to play to tracks at that show. They wouldn’t let us perform live. They played the recording and we had to pretend like we were performing. They claimed they wouldn’t be able to set us up quickly enough for TV. We weren’t buying it, but we also didn’t complain.

  We went through the motions and put on the best performance we knew how, and afterwards we received a standing ovation. It was unique to play the Dove Awards and receive praise from the Christian community, yet regularly on this tour we ran into protestors from the church.

  As we made our way through The Deep South, Louisiana most notably, I experienced my first moment of feeling deeply betrayed. Jimmy Swaggart had sent his church members out to protest. Remember, Robert and I came to know God through Jimmy. He was our mentor of sorts, although to this day I’ve never met the man. Yet when the tour came through his neck of the woods, it was as if the devil himself showed up in Jimmy’s backyard. I couldn’t believe it the first time I saw protestors from Jimmy Swaggart Ministries with signs saying things like “Stryper: Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing” and “Rock Music is the Devil.”

  This went on for years, Jimmy Swaggart’s contempt for Stryper, and really for all rock music. We were once featured on a CBS News program where Jimmy said that it was impossible for any rock music to be Christian, going so far as to say, “Christian Rock-n-Roll” was no different than “Christian Prostitutes” or “Christian Pimps.” Really?

  “How can it be that Jimmy Swaggart is so against us?” I would think to myself. Supposedly we were on the same team, spreading the same message, loving the same God—yet Swaggart followers seemed to hate us with a passion.

  Each time this would happen, and it happened frequently over the next few years, I, along with Michael Guido, or Kenny Metcalf, or Robert, would go and talk to the protestors. We would not approach them with malice or anger or even resentment, but instead we would approach them in love. We would invite them to the show, and all of them admitted never to have even seen us live. Again, how could it be? Protestors would be standing in front of an auditorium protesting a band that they had never even seen live before. Rarely would the protestors take us up on our offer to attend the show, but on those occasions when they would, they almost always left with a new respect for us. They may not like us, but at least they understood us better.

  To my knowledge, Swaggart himself never showed up at one of these protests. However, the ultimate slap in the face came when I saw a video tape of Jimmy Swaggart holding up a copy of our album The Yellow and Black Attack on national TV, condemning us, telling his followers that we were fakes. He made references to our tossing Bibles into the audience saying that we were casting pearls to swine.

  That hurt. It didn’t weaken my relationship with God, not in the least. But it did weaken my faith in supposed Christians who were so outspoken against us, with Swaggart leading the pack.

  During this tour and subsequent tours it was normal for fans to show up seeing church protestors holding picket signs with bullhorns denouncing Stryper. You would have thought Slayer was in town. These protestors would spew Bible verses in an attempt to convince people that we were phonies yet few of them ever took the time to come witness the miracles that would often take place at a Stryper concert. There’s no denying that people’s lives were changed because of God’s work through the band. I saw it first hand on a nightly basis. People who were living in very dark places with drugs, addictions, suicide, alcoholism and anything else you can think of were turning their lives around because they first discovered God’s power at a Stryper show!

  But the bullhorns kept blasting and the protestors kept protesting. And we kept inviting them to the shows. Some started to take us up on our offers and actually became Stryper fans once they saw we weren’t biting the heads off of bats or making porno films on stage.

  In 1987 Swaggart would dedicate an entire section to Stryper in his manifesto “Religious Rock ‘N’ Roll: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing”—once again denouncing us, saying that we were just in this for the fast cash. How could a band look the way we looked, play the music we played, and still be Christians?

  Sadly it was Jimmy who would take the hard fall in 1988 when he was caught with a prostitute.

  We pressed on, like the young faithful soldiers we were, and continued the course tossing Bibles into the audience and sharing our faith knowing that God would protect us. But I have always felt somewhat betrayed by the man who first led me to God.

  The Soldiers Under Command album definitely reeled in its share of controversy, most notably the album cover where we are pictured in front of a yellow and black van holding guns. We of course wanted to make a bold statement of being soldiers, and this certainly did it. That picture was taken in a church parking lot by photographer John Scarpati. The van came from the 1979 movie Angel’s Brigade in which Daryn’s brother Darby appeared in an acting role. Robert had it painted yellow and black and this would all add up to the infamous and highly controversial album cover. The guns, by the way, were plastic pellet guns we bought in Japan on our first visit there.

  Soldiers Under Command, the album that took us only nine days to record, would ultimately spend thirty-six weeks in the Billboard Top 100 album chart and would reach number 5 on the Contemporary Christian Album charts. We shot one video during that album. It was once again a low-budget video for the title track shot during a concert in Fresno. We went back to Smoke Tree Studios to stage some footage of us singing around a microphone, and that was intertwined with B-roll backstage footage. Although the album, for the most part, was recorded at Amigo, we recorded the song “Together As One” at Smoke Tree. We were looking to get a full, grand piano sound for that song and they had the right equipment for what we wanted to accomplish. John Van Togren played piano and would subsequently play on the To Hell with The Devil recordings as well as the In God We Trust album. We met John through John St. James, the original owner of The Casbah studio in Fullerton, where we recorded the demos that led to our record deal.

  I first saw that video for “Soldiers Under Command” on TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network) and I recall the feeling of knowing we were one step closer to success. The video also had a few late-night airings on MTV as well but it wasn’t until the To Hell With The Devil album that music videos would change our lives forever!

  EIGHTEEN

  Believe it or not, I don’t really like most Christian rock, particularly that from the ‘80s. During the period when we were on the rise (’84-’86) there was definitely a Christian rock movement happening. Magazines like Heaven’s Metal were formed. Entire churches were developed around the Christian metal movement, the most notable being Sanctuary lead by the amazing Pastor Bob Beeman. Pastor Bob is still serving today. This was a time when Christian rock and metal started becoming a main attraction at festivals around the nation.

  Christian rock was, for the first time, becoming a legitimate, or at least noticed, genre of music. And I wasn’t a fan of most of it. With very few exceptions, I didn’t like the genre or the industry that surrounded it.

  If I were to name the top 10 times I’ve been “screwed” in the music business, I would say 9 of those 10 were from people in the Christian industry. Most weren’t intentionally screwing me—they just weren’t responsible business people
and instead relied too much on God to provide, without taking responsibility for their own actions.

  Some of the worst situations I’ve been in have occurred because Christian promoters, record execs, or managers relied too heavily on the term “just pray about it,” at the same time neglecting what God calls us to be—good stewards.

  Stryper stood out from the rest of the Christian-rock-pack, I believe, for two reasons: We had a unique sound with great songs and we didn’t preach to the choir.

  Let me address the first. I’m not here to judge other Christian bands from the ‘80s. Sure, there were a few that stood out in their own way, but most did not. The few and far between Christian bands that really stood out were the ones who were good enough or had something unique enough to cross them over into mainstream.

  It’s sad. You would think someone called to play music by God would have talent and creativity far beyond that of the secular world and would excel far beyond the norm, but that just wasn’t the case, or at least it didn’t seem that way to me. I think a lot of it has to do with competition. Stryper grew up on The Sunset Strip where competition was fierce. We didn’t just have to be better than other Christian bands but we had to strive to be better than the best of the best on The Strip. The Strip had the most critical fan base in the world. So for us to sing about Jesus and appeal to the fans on The Strip was quite unusual. We had to have great songs, a great look, and really shine above and beyond the rest. Our competition wasn’t the church band from down the street. It was Motley Crue, Ratt, and Poison. So we did everything we could to try to be as good as, if not better, than the acts we were seeing on a nightly basis.