Honestly: My Life and Stryper Revealed

by Michael Sweet

  Songwriting was and still seems to be the black cloud that hangs over the head of Stryper. I’m a bit of a perfectionist. Well, not a bit—I’m an extreme perfectionist when it comes to music. I want the songs to be brilliant—every single one of them. Unfortunately I seemed to be the only one in the band who felt that way. With the other guys, it was as if it didn’t really matter if the best songs made the album, just as long as everyone was contributing and everyone was equal. Who cares if a sub-par song makes its way on the album, as long as everyone gets a fair shake?

  That’s a fine philosophy for fairy tales, but in the brutal, and fickle, world of music, it’s nonsense. And in this ruthless world of music, there are usually managers and labels involved who can tell the band “Look guys, here are the 10 best songs. I don’t care who wrote them. These are the ones going on the album.” We didn’t have that. We had my mom, who just didn’t seem to have it in her to say these sorts of things, at least to the band as a whole. Or perhaps equally as possible, she just didn’t know how to say this.

  So, I was the bad guy. I was the one saying “Nope, that song’s not good enough for the record.” And, honestly, I said that to myself more than anyone. For every good song that I wrote, there were dozens of ideas that never saw the light of day, all because I knew I could do better. It was somehow okay to say to myself, “Michael, you can do better. You can write a better song than what you’ve got here.” It was just very difficult to say those things to my band mates about their songs.

  Even to this day there’s dissention within the band over songs, but today it’s less about the songs and seemingly more about the money those songs generate. Sadly, today they generate a small fraction of what they once did, but still the black cloud of songwriting lingers in the Stryper camp. Despite my best efforts to deliver the best songs possible to the band and for the band, the songs don’t always seem to be a welcomed addition with everyone.

  If you’re a professional race car driver and your livelihood depends on your car’s engine running flawlessly, it would make sense that you would hire a mechanic who had successfully built and repaired many cars in his lifetime. If you were a professional racecar driver, you wouldn’t trust someone who had only built three or four engines in his entire life.

  The number of songs I’ve written in my life, not to mention the success that many of them have had, seems as though it should make my input as a songwriter a welcomed asset to the band. Instead, even today, and despite having released seven solo records, several of which appeared on Billboard and radio charts, I feel like the enemy sometimes when I bring in a set of songs for Stryper to record. I’m often made to feel as though I should allow the others to have songs on Stryper records, even though there’s no real track record representing their ability to successfully do so.

  At times when this has come up for discussion, Oz has been quick to point out “The Way,” a fan favorite that he wrote. I will give him that. “The Way” is a good song that the metal heads love, and it’s the type of song that would have probably been a number one for Iron Maiden. But those types of songs are few and far between. As talented as Oz is, that doesn’t always translate in the ability to compose material that’s worthy of making the cut. Hopefully my steadfastness and determination is part of what sets us apart and makes us who we are today.

  Next up on the business agenda for Stryper was for us to incorporate. This need for incorporation had been lingering for years. Here it was 1988. We had sold millions of albums and toured the world several times over, and yet we weren’t even a legal corporation.

  So we set out to finally address this elephant in the room. With our same attorney doing his best to give our mess of a business some structure, we began discussing incorporating. We all agreed to make this happen and when it came time for the final, and merely symbolic, moment of determining the officers of the corporation—president, vice president, secretary, etc.—we once again found ourselves at opposite ends of the playing field. We couldn’t decide on a president. Everyone felt like he should be president. A simple and insignificant title put the brakes on the idea of incorporating.

  Anyone who has ever formed a corporation knows these titles mean nothing. We all would have equal shares in the corporation. Not one of us was going to have more power than the other. The titles were simply something we needed to put on a piece of paper to be filed with the state and in the attorney’s file cabinet.

  But we went back and forth for weeks trying to determine who would be the president of Stryper, Inc. We simply couldn’t come to an agreement, again, even though the title meant absolutely nothing beyond the walls of our attorney’s office. At one point Stephen even said “Guys. I don’t care if f**king Winnie-The-Pooh is president. It doesn’t matter. It’s just a piece of paper. Just pick someone and let’s write it down.”

  But we couldn’t pick a president. And we didn’t. So we continued on with no sense of business structure to our organization. Years later this would prove to be one of our worst financial mistakes as a “business” that we ever made.

  Despite our failure to incorporate, it was time to go do a tour to support In God We Trust. I was tired. I was burned out. I was worn out spiritually. The brotherhood that we once had was no longer palpable. The peacekeeping was wearing me out. But I needed to set all of that aside for the moment. I needed to go put on a yellow- and-black costume and sing songs that I was creatively, and physically, struggling to embrace. Somehow I needed to rise above the waste and find a way to keep the fire burning.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Our outrageous spending on In God We Trust continued with the two videos we shot to support the album—“Always There For You” and “I Believe In You.” We spent more for those two than we had spent on our other five videos combined.

  The largest plane ever constructed, with the widest wingspan in aviation history, was stored in an enormous hanger in Long Beach. The plane was the Hughes H-4 Hercules, nicknamed the “Spruce Goose.” Disney had acquired the plane and the hanger where it was being stored and subsequently moved the Spruce Goose to Oregon, leaving a ridiculously large climate-controlled hanger completely empty.

  We felt that hanger would be the right place to rent for shooting our next video, “Always There For You.” “Bigger is always better” should have been our slogan in 1988. Bigger hair, bigger homes, bigger cars, bigger shoulder pads, and bigger hangers to stage bigger videos.

  I was the guy overseeing our music, and Robert was the guy overseeing the production of videos, album covers, and the image of the band. The problem was that Robert was also really good at spending money. Obviously I was too. We all were, for that matter. I could have lived out many years of my life on just a portion of the money we spent making IGWT. Combine that with what we spent making the videos and we all could have lived comfortably for quite a while. But why do that when we could spend it on a helicopter flying us onto a Stryper landing pad for the opening scene of a video? It was eye-catching, no doubt. But was it worth all the money? I don’t think so.

  I watched the crews building the set for this video and thought, “God, how much is all this costing? It must be a fortune.” Roughly $260,000 was the answer to my question. But who was I to argue? Michael Jackson had shot several of his videos here, including his infamous “Dirty Diana.” If it was good enough for Michael, it was good enough for us.

  The stage in that video lit up from underneath flashing the words “In God We Trust.” We had flown platforms that hung from the ceiling. They even custom-made the Stryper logo so that it would protrude from the stage floor. And all of these exorbitant video amenities were accented in the irony that the stage was a replica of a $100 bill. It wouldn’t surprise me if that were made out of real hundreds.

  As much as I quietly played along with this wasteful spending, in the back of my mind I kept thinking, “We can’t keep going down this path. This is not going to end well.”

  The video for “Always There For You” peaked at #1 on
the MTV countdown. It was released almost simultaneously with the album, helping to continue the momentum of the band as we prepared to hit the road.

  The album was released in June of 1988, but we didn’t hit the road until September, kicking off that tour at Disney World. That run took us all over the country playing arenas, back to Japan, Australia, New Zealand and wrapping up on April 9, 1989 in Honolulu.

  The spending spree would continue as we toured to support the album. We traveled with three semi-trucks and three tour buses. Granted, in the big picture of rock 'n' roll, that may seem like more than normal, but some bands were taking five, six, or even seven semis and buses on the road. It wasn’t necessarily that three trucks and three buses were too much, it was just that our income wasn’t lining up with our expenses. We had the income that may have warranted one or two buses, but were spending for three. But that seemed to be the Stryper way. Spend the money and figure out how to make it back later.

  The In God We Trust tour should have been dubbed The Practical Joke tour. It was on this tour, with White Lion as our opening act, where we came into our own as practical jokers.

  I loved touring with White Lion. They were an incredibly talented band, particularly Vito Bratta, the guitarist. All the guys were nice, and we enjoyed hanging out with them.

  Oz and I discovered CB radios on this tour, and at each arena during the day, we’d walk around the venue talking to each other in trucker lingo. “Breaker, Breaker One-Nine. What’s your twenty?” One day as the crew was on stage sound checking, I started into my CB routine and I noticed it was blaring through Vito’s guitar amp. So that gave me the wise idea to try it during the show. Right in the middle of White Lion’s show I keyed up, “Breaker One-Nine,” and it came out through Vito’s amps and through the entire sound system. The whole crowd heard it and Vito’s head spun around quickly looking at his amp. He kept walking back to the amp adjusting knobs. I eventually confessed and Vito thought it was funny, at least so I thought.

  This started a back-and-forth scheme of practical jokes between White Lion and Stryper. The next night of the tour was Rob’s turn to be the brunt of the joke. He would climb up to his kit using a striped pole that always reminded me of a yellow-and-black stripper’s pole. On this particular night, Rob jumped up on the pole and slid right to the ground. We had an intro tape playing and he had only a moment before we were supposed to start the show at the end of the tape. He kept trying and trying to get up to his kit, but the White Lion guys had smeared Vaseline all over the pole. It got all over Rob’s hands and he couldn’t get it off. He finally made his way up to the kit using the rear steps, but after the show he was pretty upset. He didn’t find it too funny, but that didn’t deter the prank war between the two bands.

  We decided the next night, moments before White Lion took the stage, that we would peel the backs off the backstage passes that are printed on one side and sticky on the other. We literally covered every inch of the stage with these passes, sticky side up! Have you ever seen a cat when it gets tape stuck to its paws? As White Lion ran around the stage, the stickers kept collecting to the point where they were sticking out several feet on each side of their shoes, and they kept raising their legs and kicking their feet, trying to shake the stickers loose. I don’t know if I’ve ever laughed harder in my life.

  This went back and forth for a while until it really started to get out of control. At one point, White Lion ran out during our set and unplugged our mic cables. While the cables dangled from the mic stands, our pre-recorded backing vocals continued to blare.

  Now wait a second—don’t get righteous on me here. Yes, we had pre-recorded backing vocals during In God We Trust. We sang live with them, but we had tracks to help us. And truth be known, we weren’t the only ones using tracks. Practically every band was using them in the ’80s, or at least most bands that had big vocals and big production.

  Anyway, what started out as innocent play seemed to turn into pre-planned sabotage.

  We called a truce when Mike Tramp came on stage one night mocking our Bible-tossing by wearing a devil’s mask and tossing Penthouse Forum magazines into the audience. It felt like we were all going down a darker path, and it wasn’t about having fun as much as it was about embarrassing each other. We spoke and ended the back-and-forth prank war. It didn’t stop us from playing jokes within our own band—it just ended the Stryper vs. White Lion battle.

  The internal pranks continued on that tour. Sometimes we would put duct tape over a guy’s bunk so after sleeping all night and being completely out of it, he’d try to perform the simple task of climbing out of his bunk and he couldn’t get out without a fight. Another favorite involved putting shaving cream all over someone’s sheets in their bunk, so when they’d climb in it would blend in with the sheets, and they’d splat in a bed of foam.

  One time we sneaked into Oz’s hotel room before he checked in, and we unlatched the window that was in his shower (you got it, it was a biker motel) and. When Oz showered, we opened the window and dumped all the old food from the bus on his head—yogurt, fruit, deli tray, everything.

  Some bands broke TVs and destroyed hotel rooms. We, however, threw lunchmeat on our guitarist’s head while he showered.

  I enjoyed that tour with White Lion, although I do recall a “what-the-hell-was-that?” moment between Mike Tramp and us. Not long into the tour, Mike came back to our dressing room after he had performed and before we went on and in his thick Danish accent told us what we really needed was to get some style. He shared with us very directly that if we wanted to be big, we needed a new style. He made his point and then left the room.

  We didn’t really know what to say. It was hilarious to us and we all laughed about it, but it caught us off guard. Whether you liked our sense of fashion or not, it was most definitely memorable. But Mike felt it needed change and wasn’t shy about telling us so. The funny thing is I actually agree with him now.

  Mikey was two years old at the end of this tour, and for the better part of those two years I hadn’t seen him or Kyle much. It was killing me. I was asking God for wisdom and guidance on a regular basis as to what my next move should be with Stryper, if anything at all.

  Despite the fun we were having on this tour, there was still some obvious tension among us all. In God We Trust had respectable sales numbers, but in the big business of music, respectable isn’t good enough. You’re always expected to surpass the sales of your previous album—otherwise you know your future with the label is going to be on shaky ground. We had the best label I could have ever imagined for a band like ours. Enigma was incredibly supportive, but still I knew change was coming and at the top of the list would likely be our spending habits.

  I had a family at home. I had an album that had not done as well as it needed to. And sometimes I felt like an outsider within my own band.

  “What should I do next, God?” was a daily question within my prayers.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Over the years of hundreds of interviews, inevitably I get the common question, “Can you share any crazy stories from the road?” My go-to story happened during the In God We Trust tour and is truly a standout moment in my memory.

  We were almost at the end of our tour, March of ’89, in Sydney, Australia, at the Sports Arena. Little did I know that night would be a topic in interviews for the rest of my life.

  The crowd was enthusiastic and the front section was general admission so everyone was packed against the barricade. Our fifth song of the set was “Free.” Right in front of me I noticed a guy with a beard, long hair tied back with a red bandanna, earrings, tattoos, beard stubble and missing teeth. A modern-day pirate. He was pointing at my feet. Actually, he was creating a scene frantically pointing and yelling at my feet. He was obviously upset about whatever it was he was pointing at.

  I continued to play and sing trying to ignore this guy the best I could, but every time I looked his way, he’d yell even louder and point even harder.

  I
did however notice something at my feet. It looked like a wadded up piece of gum. It looked as though someone had chewed their gum and spit it out on the stage.

  I thought, “This guy is trying to warn me that I’m about to step in gum.” Still though, that was a lot of effort just to keep me from stepping in gum.

  So I glanced at him and gave a thumb up, as if to say, “Okay, I got it. I see the gum. Now stop acting crazy and let me concentrate on the show.”

  But he didn’t stop.

  Despite him knowing that I knew about the gum, he started yelling even louder, pointing at my feet even more aggressively. This guy just wasn’t going to quit until I dealt with the issue at hand.

  So I struck a power chord during the second verse of the song and leaned down with my right hand to flick it away. I sent it six or seven rows back into the audience and when I did, my middle finger felt the pain. It was more like flicking a marble then a piece of gum.

  Keep in mind we’re a loud band—a seriously loud band. But the moment I sailed whatever it was away, I could hear this guy even louder than before. He was yelling at the top of his lungs, so loud I could hear him above everything else.

  I tried not to focus on him but he was impossible to ignore. Finally, I was able to make out what he was screaming. “That was my f**king eye!” he shouted as he pointed to his empty eye socket.

  At that moment it hit me. I had just sent this guy’s glass eye into the crowd! Apparently he had been banging his head so hard that his eye popped right out of the socket and rolled over to where I was standing. I had just destroyed any hope of him getting it back. With a flick of the wrist, it was gone forever.

  He was furious. He continued screaming at me throughout the show, occasionally taking breaks to look around the floor in futile attempts to find his eye. I felt terrible, but what could I do? “Hey guys. We need to stop the show for a moment, turn on all the house lights, and take a moment to look for this guy’s glass eye that I just flung into the crowd.” No, there was nothing I could do.