Honestly: My Life and Stryper Revealed

by Michael Sweet

  Six days later on April 17, I sent Lisa this email, word for word, typos and all:

  From: Michael Sweet

  To: Lisa Champagne

  Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 11:27:22 AM

  Subject: What you mean to me.......

  Hello My Darling,

  I'm sitting here at my computer and I wanted to take a moment to let you know what you mean to me. You are precious and priceless. You light the darkness within my heart and you have made me believe in the beauty of loving someone again from the depths of my soul. Everything you are is exactly what I would ask for in my prayers to God. The amazing thing is that God knew this already and I didn't have to ask. There you were, my hearts desire in a friend, a companion and a soulmate. I see how much you want to serve The Lord and it inspires me to do the same. You are a gift from God and I want you to know how eternally grateful and thankful I am to know you, and for you to love and trust me! I am yours, Always......

  Michael

  That’s exactly how I felt, and still do feel. I could no longer fight the plan God had put before me. From this point forward, we considered ourselves a couple.

  Several times a week we would meet at The Cape Cod Canal to talk and read the Bible together. It was soothing for me as well as for Lisa. She had been yearning for a closer relationship with God. Our time praying and reading the Bible together on the canal really helped in establishing a strong foundation for our relationship. I eventually ordered a personalized Bible for her and a few other books that we read from often for guidance and direction. Whatever was to happen from here on out, we knew we had to put God first.

  If you had asked me in June of 2007 what my life would look like professionally in a few months, I would never have in a million years dreamed it would include being a singer and guitarist in the band Boston. Even if you had said to me matter-of-factly, “Michael, in just a few months you will be a member of the band Boston,” I would have recommended that you see a psychiatrist. And in March of 2009 if you would have told me that by the summer of that same year that I’d be in love with a woman named Lisa, I again would have recommended you see a doctor immediately, because you must have some sort of psychological disorder.

  This is how God works. His plan is not our plan. His plan does not abide by the rules of business or the rules of society, or even the rules of love. His plan for all of us is perfect and beyond our comprehension, if we will just open our hearts and trust Him.

  I spoke to Mikey and Ellena about my relationship with Lisa and explained how things were getting serious. Of course, I wanted their blessings, yet I understood the sensitivity of the matter. The last thing I wanted to do was to hurt my children. Lisa felt even stronger than I did about this. She often was brought to tears when we would discuss Mikey and Ellena’s feelings and even suggested putting things on hold for a while. I felt that if we loved each other, it was okay to move forward.

  After speaking with Lena and Mikey, I encountered different reactions. Mikey questioned our relationship and felt that we were rushing things, while Lena expressed that she wanted me to be happy. Lisa eventually spoke to Lena and told her that she didn’t want to hurt her or Mikey. Lisa even said that she would walk away from our relationship. The last thing Lisa wanted was to hurt my kids. She really cared for Mikey and Lena and would never do anything to hurt them.

  I also spoke to a number of dear friends and family members from Guido to Daryn to my band mates to Kyle’s personal friends (many of whom accepted Lisa from the start) and my parents. They all expressed their love and gratitude for Lisa and were sincerely excited about the decision to follow our hearts and take our love to a new level.

  On June 30, 2009, Lisa’s birthday, I asked her to marry me. There was not a doubt in my mind by this point that I would be incredibly happy and eternally grateful if this amazingly beautiful woman would take my hand in marriage. Thankfully, she said, “Yes.”

  Lisa is undoubtedly one of the most incredible human beings and accepts everyone with an unconditional and loving spirit. She can walk into a room of 1,000 people and instantly light the place up with an atmosphere of joy and friendliness. She works with disabled and special needs people and has done so most of her life. She is so giving of her time and of herself. She’s the ultimate hostess on every level imaginable. These are the qualities that made me fall in love with her and ask for her hand and her heart.

  We chose the song “Amazed” by Lone Star to be “our” song and the date of 1/8/10 to be our wedding date. We chose that date based on it’s meaning—“1” representing the beginning of a new year and one God, “8” representing new beginnings and “10” representing the number of perfection or completion of “God’s divine order.” It just so happened to have been Elvis Presley’s birthday as well, which was pointed out to me by Oz. Lisa and I thought that was pretty funny since my dad was at one point an Elvis impersonator, and I grew up in a home where Elvis was a daily subject if not the sixth family member. Now what were the odds of that?

  One day while in Nashville and walking down Broadway, Lisa and I were discussing whether or not the date we had chosen for our wedding was right, and suddenly we heard our song, “Amazed.” As we looked around to see where it was coming from, we noticed a statue of Elvis on the sidewalk, in front of Legends Gift Shop. As we walked across the street, we discovered that “Amazed” was blasting from a speaker next to Elvis. We were blown away and at that moment we knew in our hearts that this was a confirmation!

  On January 8, 2010, Lisa and I were married at a relatively small ceremony in Boston with our families and friends present. It was surreal and beautiful. I wrote a song titled “How To Live” for Lisa and sang it for her that night. Aside from not getting to eat my meal (which I ranted and raved over for days), the night was perfect.

  Prior to our wedding, Stryper toured in support of the album Murder By Pride. I wanted my family to be with me, so as I mentioned earlier, we took Mikey’s band Flight Patterns out as the opening act, and Lena traveled with us as our merchandise girl. Lisa came to as many shows as she could, and I think this was a time that we were all able to bond.

  It was a grueling tour logistically that kicked off in September 2009 at the House of Blues in Boston. Immediately upon arriving for sound-check my heart felt comfort remembering my first date with Lisa there just a few months earlier.

  By this time in my life, I was losing touch with some people who were really close friends. My relationship with Lisa was difficult for a select few to understand, both fans and friends alike. Some made brutally vicious comments toward Lisa and me. Others took a more subtle approach to their disapproval by simply choosing to remove us from their inner circle. Occasionally it would make me angry. Sometimes it would make me sad. But it always surprised me as to how little people would take into account that perhaps God’s plan for me was not something that could, or even should, be analyzed or scrutinized. It shocked me as to the sense of entitlement some people felt they had over my life and how I should live it, as though they knew better than I what was right for my life. I had served God the better part of 34 years, and it was bewildering how anyone that really knew me would think I somehow wasn’t seeking complete wisdom and guidance from God through this unique stage in my life.

  I bit my tongue a lot. I turned the other cheek a lot. I said very little, and certainly didn’t say what I really wanted to say. I continued to seek and find happiness in my life with God, Lisa, Mikey and Ellena. With all due respect, that’s all that mattered to me. Those were my priorities, and I was doing my best to keep them in order. If it meant losing a few friends in the process, then so be it.

  All of this isn’t to suggest that I did not understand some people’s confusion over my life choices and the path that I was taking. I absolutely understood it. I was the one living it. At times I was confused right along with them, but I never once doubted that God had a plan and if I would just continue to seek Him, He would guide me to what was best for my life. And
thankfully, and almost miraculously, that path and plan led me to Lisa.

  Lisa is godsend to me in so many ways. Daily I am blessed by her ability to give of herself so selflessly. She has become a wonderful friend to my children, and they have accepted her into their lives and love her very much. I will never be able to express fully into words the love and joy I feel each day for Lisa, and I don’t know where I’d be without her by my side. I love you, Pooh!

  FORTY

  The 2009 Stryper tour was a bit of a financial hardship. Our attendance numbers were starting to decrease somewhat and the sales from the album, although respectable, weren’t where we felt they should be. Overall exposure of the band didn’t seem to be climbing at a rate that we felt it should have been.

  In 2010 we toured overseas in Europe, South America, and Australia. Some tension was starting to mount again within the band over what we perceived to be a lack of progress. All of us wanted things to be better for the band—we just had minor, and sometimes major, differences as to how to go about making that happen. Financially, our bank accounts weren’t growing and neither was our popularity. Upon returning from South America, we encountered some financial setbacks with promoters not paying what they had originally agreed to pay. To make matters worse, our booking agent had decided to declare bankruptcy and refused to pay us money owed after a show was performed. In the world of booking, it works like this: A promoter sends a deposit to the band’s agent. The agent holds that deposit until the date plays and then he remits the balance, minus his commission, to the band within a few days of the performance.

  Well, our agent was in such financially bad shape that he was illegally using these deposits for his own personal use without us knowing about it. He was basically “floating” our deposits. He would wait until he received the deposit from the next gig, and then he would send us the balance from the previous one.

  Again, all this was happening without us knowing about it. We were extremely unhappy with our agent due to bad commitments and lack of follow-through, so we decided to let him go. Artists and agents part ways every day in this business and it’s usually a fairly uneventful passing of the torch, but in this case the agent now had no future shows to collect deposits on from promoters. He had no deposits coming in to “float,” and that’s when we discovered we would not be getting a rather large portion of the money that he had collected on our behalf.

  Although it was a difficult decision, we sued him. We won, but we still never saw a dime of that money. He declared bankruptcy and despite us getting a judgment against him, we never got paid. We probably never will. Things seemed to be going from bad to worse, professionally.

  Dave Rose had remained our manager since 2003. The band felt a change in management was the next possible solution to our problems. Dave’s not really a “big time” manager in the world of management companies—by most accounts his company Deep South Entertainment would be considered a mid-level management company at best. He’s a hard worker and someone we trusted, but he seemed to lack the kind of power we felt we needed to push us through the industry system and get us opening slots with bigger bands, more publicity, and generally more exposure all the way around.

  Oz became close friends with a guy named John Greenberg at Union Entertainment. I knew John as well from way back and had spoken to him many times, but Oz and John had developed a much closer friendship prior to our working together. Union managed some fairly large acts like Nickelback, Daniel Powter, and Cinderella. John started presenting the band with some big ideas for taking us to the next level. I had my doubts, but I wanted to see the band go further, and John led us to believe that we would if he was managing the band.

  John and I had spoken a few years prior about possibly working together. He and I had several conversations and we even met for lunch in Santa Ana with Oz. We had been speaking to John about a Stryper/Union merge for quite some time. What made me feel disconnected with John was an incident that was nothing short of dishonest. John had agreed to work with us and again had all the right words to make the sale, but last minute we were passed on to a B-level manager at the company and John would not have been directly involved. I politely said that this arrangement would not work for us and that didn’t go over too well with the guys in the band. Fast- forward to Oz endorsing John again and obviously I was reluctant, and rightfully so.

  I think the band always felt like Dave Rose was “my guy” and not necessarily the band’s guy, and because of this it was time for a change. I won’t say I begrudgingly went along with it only to keep the peace. I too felt we needed a new energy in the band. I felt Dave had taken us as far as he could and we as a band had to try something new. Whatever we were doing didn’t seem to be working, so new management seemed like the best option at the time. We decided to go with Union and give John Greenberg another chance.

  I made the phone call to break the news to Dave. This was a guy who had given a toast at Lisa’s and my wedding. He had been to Kyle’s funeral. He had believed in my music without any hopes of Stryper ever reuniting. So, when I called to say, “Dave, we’re going to let you go and take on new management,” it wasn’t an easy call to make. Dave had become my friend over the years, and firing a friend is never easy. To show my loyalty and belief in him, I asked if he would remain on as my personal manager. He agreed to do so.

  Meanwhile, we as a band moved over to new management with all the hopes and promise of a bright future. In February of ’11 we released The Covering, an album comprising 12 cover songs by artists that had inspired us from our early days and one new original, “God.” I’m really proud of that album’s production and musicality, and it gave me the opportunity to show what I can do as a producer. Charles Foley, my longtime keyboard player and vocalist for solo projects, and Stryper’s touring keyboardist and vocalist, really helped in giving authenticity to the songs that required piano and keyboard parts. He also sang all the background vocals with Oz and me. Everyone really stepped things up on this album, and it was met with great critical acclaim. It sold well by today’s standards but failed to meet our expectations.

  We toured in support of that album and did our best to spread the word and self-promote the band. Sadly, the tours were losing money and I personally, as the bandleader, was not getting along with John Greenberg very well. Our communication methods were entirely different. In less than nine months with John, we were making less money as a band than ever before and our fan base was not growing either. The carrots that were dangled to convince us to go with Union seemed to continually remain just outside our grasp. Frustrations continued to mount.

  Once again, it was time to regroup. We parted ways with John and Union just a little over a year after we started working together, and for us that couldn’t have come a day sooner. It was not a healthy relationship and things were getting really bad. Tour numbers were down. Sales were down. Finances were all but nonexistent.

  Fortunately, Lisa is an incredibly bright businesswoman and excels at finances and budgets. She helped us orchestrate a plan to bring Stryper management in-house, saving tens of thousands of dollars a year in commissions. She helped in delegating the duties a manager would normally handle to within the current Stryper business team. We brought Dave Rose back in to oversee finances. Lisa brought in an assistant, Marilyn Becrelis, to help with travel and administrative duties. Our tour manager took on a few extra responsibilities as well. We also hired a new booking agent named Sullivan Bigg, owner of Bigg Time Entertainment. As far as management goes, I have basically managed the band since 2003, only now we’re not throwing 15-20 percent into the fire by hiring a manager to do what I’ve done for more than 10 years. If we ever find the right manager, maybe we’ll reconsider.

  Thankfully as 2012 began, we started to see a turnaround in the right direction. Our finances are growing again. We signed a major, multi-record deal with Frontiers Records, which enabled us to release three records and a DVD within two years. I signed a new multi-album and book
deal with Big3 Records and so much is happening now. Our touring entity has become a more refined operation and things are only going up from here. Truthfully, prior to this regrouping and reorganization, I was beginning to think it was the end of the road for Stryper. Thanks to Lisa and her business skills, she managed to help get us back on the right path. We’re heading in the right direction now, and for that we are grateful.

  I don’t deserve all that God has blessed me with over the years. From all of my musical success with Stryper, solo and with Boston to the incredible blessings in my personal life, I am thankful God has remained faithful to me despite my occasional straying from Him.

  If I’ve learned anything in my adventures through life it has been to not predict what God has in store for me. I have learned to accept what He brings into my life and to do my best to remain faithful when He takes something or someone away. More so than I think ever before, I wake up each day thankful for all that He has done. I may not always agree with it, but ultimately I find that God knows best. What He has in mind for my tomorrow, I will never know. Nobody can predict the future. What I do know is that I want to follow His leading and direction, and if I can stay strong on that course then, the sky is the limit.

  Conclusion

  The three greatest moments in my life as they relate to Stryper are as such:

  1983—Forming Stryper

  1992—Departing Stryper

  2003—Reuniting Stryper

  That’s simplifying things a bit, but here’s the bottom line: I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with my feelings about being in Stryper. I never, even in my worst moments, deny what God has done through this band, and I am forever grateful for the opportunity to serve Him through music. That said, I can’t help but wish from time to time that I could do the same service without Stryper.