Honestly: My Life and Stryper Revealed

by Michael Sweet

  I tried to focus for the rest of the show, doing everything I could to not look at this guy, which was impossible. Not only was he the biggest guy I had seen in all of Australia, he was the loudest as well.

  For the remainder of the night I made one mistake after another. I forgot lyrics that I had been singing for years. I fumbled over guitar parts that normally I could play in my sleep. And in between every single song of the set, that guy would yell at the top of his lungs “That was my f**king eye, mate.” He didn’t let up on me the entire set. I thought for sure he was going to jump on stage and get a few shots in.

  I attempted to speed the set up, noticeably so, going from song to song quicker that normal. Usually I have a few scheduled breaks to talk to the audience where I’ll catch my breath as well. Not tonight. The band must have been wondering what was up because I skipped breaks all together, just to get to the next song faster so that I wouldn’t have to listen to this guy or face the humiliation any longer. The crowd also must have wondered what was up because I barely took a pause the entire night, taking one song right into the next.

  I made it through the show somehow, and I must have washed my hands a dozen times afterward. We had three more shows in Australia on that run. I kept thinking this guy would show up out of nowhere and to get revenge or take my eye. You know, “An eye for an eye.” But he didn’t.

  He lost an eye and I got a weird, great story to tell in interviews for the rest of my life. I never did hear from that guy again, but if he’s reading this, I’m really sorry, man! I thought it was gum.

  Over the years fans have heard me tell this story so often, they will occasionally throw a fake eye on stage during the show. By the way, please don’t do that. I might have flashbacks of that dreadful night!

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  From the fall of 1989 through the winter of 1991, there were two notably great things that happened. The greater of the two, to which there is no comparison, was the birth of my beautiful daughter, Ellena. The other was the making and release of our fifth record, Against The Law, which, despite being considered a commercial failure by industry standards, was, in my opinion, a solid album.

  Aside from those two things, most of that time period is somewhat fuzzy. It’s fuzzy primarily because, for the most part, I did my best to suppress the memories from that era. They’re not particularly fond ones. It may also be a bit blurry because we were drinking a lot during that time.

  Allow me to clarify “a lot.” I’ve read other rock-star biographies, and our drinking was mild by comparison. Still, it was enough to cloud my judgment and send me into a downward spiral farther from God than I had ever been since re-committing my life to Christ.

  The break between the end of the In God We Trust tour and the beginning of the Against The Law tour was the longest time we were off the road between tours, although it wasn’t much of a break. I went straight into writing mode, only there was one potential problem—the song ideas and creativity coming out of me were very different musically and lyrically.

  For the past four years or so we had been beat up pretty hard by the church. There’s just so much a band can take from so-called Christians screaming into bullhorns outside their shows, calling them fakes and wolves in sheep’s clothing. It can wear you down after a while, and it definitely got the best of me to the point that I had little desire to write spiritually uplifting lyrics. What we really wanted to say to the Pharisees who had judged us for so many years was, “Screw you. We don’t live by your laws. Who are you to tell us what we can or can’t do, what we can or can’t wear or say, or who we can be?” So I did, in so many words.

  I knew I still loved God—I just didn’t like some of the people who claimed to love God too.

  I was ready for change in a number of ways. At this point thoughts of leaving Stryper came more frequently, but I couldn’t bear the thought of telling the guys. Also, there was still a glimmer of hope in me that the ship just might turn around, that by some miracle I might wake up feeling good about being in Stryper. I felt that maybe we did have one more good record to make.

  But things had to change. I began inquiring more into our finances. For the past several years we’d owned this really large (almost 5,000-square-feet) house sitting on a golf course that was used for the Stryper offices. Rob also lived in this house. I eventually found out that he’d been staying there rent-free, and I wasn’t too happy with that. I had just assumed he was paying rent to Stryper to live there.

  My mom and I seemed to be growing farther and farther apart. From my perspective, it was largely due to my constant questioning of the management of the finances. I didn’t think she was stealing from us—I just felt things had been mismanaged for way too long. It wasn’t as black and white as stealing—it was more like a grey area of questionable spending habits.

  One day I went over to the Stryper house/office and noticed a bunch of new indoor plants and expensive landscaping. Again, I questioned it. Where did it come from? Who paid for it? Come to find out, I paid for it. Well, we as a band paid for it. Why didn’t anyone ask me or the other guys if this was a worthwhile expense? Had they asked, I wouldn’t have agreed to it, which is probably why they didn’t ask. I could understand an occasional small business expense without our consent, but when thousands of dollars are being spent and it’s your money, it’s time to say no.

  Additionally, we had wasted so much money on the In God We Trust tour, there was no way we could be financially sound. I was continually reassured that everything was fine. Still, it was driving a wedge between my mom and me, and to some extent between the band members as well.

  Likely through my persistence, we did manage to eventually get rid of that extravagant house. Robert finally moved into a place of his own, and we housed the Stryper offices there. Robert paid for that house, and we rented a portion of it from him to use as office space as we should have all along. I took comfort in knowing that we had made a small step in a positive financial direction by downsizing.

  I began to write the music for Against the Law and brought it to the band. What came out as I was writing surprised me. We were angry, we were bitter and we wanted nothing at all to do with the part of the church that had given us grief for so many years. So I wrote songs like “Against The Law,” “Lady,” and “Caught In The Middle.” These songs weren’t necessarily anti-Christian, but they weren’t uplifting songs either. I toned down the lyrics the best I could, but in my heart I was basically flipping off anyone and everyone that had ever given us a hard time for the stance we had taken with the band.

  We began rehearsing these songs as a group at Robert’s place. That’s when the drinking started (at least collectively). We’d come in with a case of beer and before the end of the day our rehearsals were useless, so we’d go shopping for guns (read on). It wasn’t as if we were waking up and reaching for a bottle of Jack before breakfast, but each day as rehearsals took place, we started drinking a little earlier. Sometimes, we would just drink and not even get through a rehearsal.

  Somehow, with everything going on, we felt for some odd reason that it was a good time in our lives to start buying guns. Yep, firearms. Robert was really into all types of guns, and he had an entire walk-in closet full of them.

  We’d rehearse for half-an-hour or so and get bored and decide to go gun shopping.

  Kyle thought I was crazy. I’d leave for rehearsals and then come home with a semi-automatic AK-47. She’d say, “Why did you buy this?” and I would try to justify it by claiming protection or our rights as Americans or, better yet, “because it’s awesome!”

  And if that wasn’t bad enough, we’d go out into the desert shooting and drinking. Now there’s a good match. One time we were out shooting near some sand dunes and this guy comes driving around the side of one of the dunes in his Jeep. Apparently he had been there all along and we almost shot him and his girlfriend. He was ready to kill us, and rightfully so. He said he could almost feel the bullets whizzing by his head. They
were probably my bullets.

  We just weren’t thinking. I guess it was all that pent-up aggression over the years and it was coming out in the form of clichés, booze and guns!

  Don’t get me wrong—I am a believer in the right to bear arms. I believe the bad guys are going to own and use guns whether they’re legal or not. Bad guys are going to do what they do, so I believe every American has the right to protect his or her self. But I believe in sensible and responsible gun ownership. I was neither sensible nor responsible then. I’m surprised someone didn’t get hurt or killed during that period.

  By the time rehearsals for this album had wrapped, I bet I had purchased more than 20 guns. And, yes, I too see the hypocrisy in all of this. I’m questioning the money that Stryper is spending yet I was putting thousands of dollars into a gun collection? Nothing in my life was rational during this timeframe.

  As I suspected, when it came time to take meetings with the label about the next record, our budgets were cut considerably. We would be making this next record for about one-third the budget we had for In God We Trust. To me, this was actually a good thing. I was ready for change, in more ways than one.

  All within a series of a few short meetings we agreed to drop the yellow and black, change the Stryper logo, change the image and create a project that was the polar opposite of anything we had done in the past. We wanted a raw and in-your-face approach, musically and lyrically.

  We chose Tom Werman to produce the record. Tom was partially responsible for getting Boston signed to Epic Records in the ’70s and was also known for having produced Cheap Trick, Ted Nugent, Blue Oyster Cult, Motley Crue, and Poison. Tom’s a smart guy. He eventually got out of this unpredictable business and opened a Bed & Breakfast called Stonover Farm in Lenox, Massachusetts. In 1990 he was the most sought after producer in town, and we wanted the best. I give equally as much credit to Eddie DeLena, who was the engineer on Against The Law and who was responsible for getting most of the tones for that record. There was a solid chemistry between Tom, Eddie, and the band.

  As pre-production and songwriting continued on this album, Oz brought in a song called “Not Yo Huggy Guy.” Rob and I talked about it and agreed that the title would not make its way onto this record, so I suggested the phrase “Not That Kinda Guy.” Oz tried to convince me that the phrase “Not Yo Huggy Guy” would become a popular catch phrase, but I just didn’t catch the vision. I never really cared for the song personally, mainly because I was afraid of getting sued by Van Halen for it was too close for comfort to being a replica of their hit song “Hot for Teacher.”

  Eventually the songs came together and we hit the studio with Tom and Eddie to get this record done. To no surprise, the alcohol consumption continued.

  I remember the first night we were in the studio and Tom looked at us and said, “You guys drink? Well, okay.” Here was this Jewish guy who’s probably seen it all from previous bands he had produced, thinking he’d get to take a break from all of that with this Christian band, and we proved him wrong. We had every opportunity in the world to be good examples to Tom and we blew it. I can say with assurance, nobody came to know Christ during those sessions. They came to know Jack and Jim, Bolla and Bud pretty well and that’s about it. It’s pretty embarrassing—here we were a supposed Christian band being as bad an influence as any band Tom had worked with, or so it seemed.

  This was a dark time in my life that I’m really not proud of, yet at the same time it taught me a lot and brought me to who I am today. I look back on it all and wonder, “How did it get to that point?” I can tell you this: it didn’t happen overnight. It slowly crept into our lives, and before we knew it, we were exemplifying the hypocrisy that drove us to this anger and frustration in the first place. That’s the way the devil works. He slowly convinces you that you’re not wrong. He convinces you, without you even noticing, that there’s no longer a need to hold each other accountable. It must be okay if we’re all doing “it,” whatever sin “it” may be in the moment.

  We were an angry band during this era. We were angry at the church, and we were sometimes angry at one another. We were also angry that our popularity and success had started to slip away.

  But we made a record, miraculously, despite all the irresponsibility. And now came time to shoot the videos, again on a much smaller budget than we were accustomed to having.

  During the making of that album, I shared with Tom Werman my frustrations with what I felt was mismanagement of the band. I knew we were at a major crossroads with Stryper and if we didn’t make some drastic changes, it would be impossible to turn things around. We were changing our sound, look and style but it just didn’t feel like it was enough.

  After sharing with Tom my interest in seeking new management, he introduced us to Danny Goldberg and Ron Stone of Gold Mountain Management. They were the biggest management company in the business at the time. The two of them have managed some of the biggest and most respected artists in the business, artists such as Neil Young, The Eagles, Bob Dylan, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Bonnie Raitt, Joni Mitchell and the list goes on.

  We took a liking to both of them, and we felt this was the right fit for Stryper. After our meeting with Gold Mountain, they agreed to take us on.

  Rob and I agreed it was time to let Mom go as our manager. We met with her, and although it was difficult, we let her know that we’d be entering into a contract with Gold Mountain. We told her that we wanted to try something new and that Gold Mountain would be the best place to start.

  Firing a relative, especially your mom, is never an easy thing to do. Rob and I spent a lot of time talking about it ahead of time, wondering how she would take it and how we should tell her. No matter what kind of a job we felt she was doing at the time, she was still our mom. We did, and do, love her. It was a difficult thing, probably more for us than her, to let her go.

  I suppose she took it as well as could be expected. Mom encouraged and supported me every step of the way. Her response to the change was fairly typical of the way she usually responds to conflict. She said something along the lines of, “Fine. I was going to quit anyway.”

  Who knows? Maybe she was thinking about getting out of the business and this was a relief to her. I know it was a relief to me. We also removed our mom of the financial responsibilities by hiring Haber, a business management firm.

  Danny and Ron continued to drop by the studio listening to tracks and they seemed to really like what they were hearing. It felt right. No longer were we under mom’s management, and we now had a solid professional team in place to help us with the next phase in our career.

  Our first video, and single from Against The Law was “Shining Star,” a song on which we had brought in Randy Jackson, now of American Idol fame, to play bass. I still can’t watch that show without thinking of the session we had with Randy, who was a really nice guy.

  “Shining Star” was our first video featuring a group of women dressed to kill. That wasn’t much of a stretch for the typical rock band of that era, but for us it was a totally new approach. Still, it was tame by comparison. The concept of that video was some sort of futuristic roller coaster loaded with women. We had fun making it, and I’m still very proud of our rendition of that song. The video? I could take it or leave it. But I feel our version of that song really pays proper respect to Earth, Wind, and Fire, and for that we’re proud.

  We shot two other videos, the most controversial being “Lady.” Again, featuring a woman that I was supposedly singing to and singing about. But this time we took it a bit further. We put this girl in a bathtub, bubbles and all, and she gave a sultry performance for the camera throughout the shoot.

  The “Lady” video caused some grief between Kyle and me. She was a little hurt that I was a married Christian man singing a song to another woman, or at least that’s how it was perceived. In hindsight, she was right. We wound up taking it on the chin from the Christian community for making that video. It’s a great song that was somewhat tarnishe
d by a questionable video.

  The same day we shot “Lady,” we decided to get our money’s worth by keeping the cameras rolling and shooting another video for “Two Time Woman.” We basically put our hair in ponytails, changed our clothes and kept shooting in the same location. Aside from the extra editing costs, we got two videos for the price of one. But that was the kind of tight budget we were on. Seven years after signing our first record deal, we were just now learning the concept of frugal spending.

  Against the Law was released in August of 1990. How we ever got it finished and maintained quality and productivity, I’ll never know. God was definitely watching over us, despite us not giving Him a second thought at the time.

  Kyle was almost three months pregnant when the record coming out. This seemed like a good time to hit the road and continue a lifestyle of debauchery and sin.

  TWENTY-NINE

  In support of Against The Law, we performed only 23 shows in about five weeks, the least we had ever toured for a release. Part of that run was with the band Bride as support, and the other part with the band Trixter.

  I was impressed with both bands. Bride was a great band who crafted solid songs and delivered them with passion. They were definitely committed to their faith, but they weren’t too preachy.

  They were just regular guys that tried to lead by example. I wish their example had rubbed off on us a little more during that tour, but I really enjoyed the time we got to spend with those guys.

  The Trixter leg was particularly eye opening and humbling. We were playing mostly small clubs and theaters on this run. Most places we played were roughly 1,000-capacity venues. Planning this tour there were catch-industry phrases thrown around among our managers and agents like “getting back to your roots” and “stepping things up.” Sometimes those are proper descriptions of what an artist is doing, but in most cases they’re polite ways of describing an artist’s declining popularity.