Interview: Michael Sweet (Stryper)

Photo credit: Pedro Blanco

Interview: 9th February 2025

Hotel Hobbies: Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. First, and most importantly, how are you and how is your health?

Michael Sweet: I'm doing good. I've got thyroid cancer in my right thyroid. They removed my left thyroid, so this side's intact. There was a nodule there that developed into cancer and they're just keeping an eye on it. They're calling it active surveillance. And they're going to check me again in June. They feel confident that there’s something we can do at this stage because it's a slow growing, self-contained for the most part in healthy tissue. I'm not real comfortable leaving any kind of cancer in my body but I'm following their lead. They're really great doctors. I'm in the best care possible. We'll see what happens in June. I think they're concerned about me as a singer because this one particularly is closer to the vocal nerve. So that’s where I am.

Hotel Hobbies: It sounds like you're doing the right thing anyway.

Michael Sweet: I'm trying to, absolutely.

Hotel Hobbies: If we look back before we come up to date. You have been making music for over four decades now. What drew you into music and which early influences do you think still echo in your work today?

Michael Sweet: Oh, wow! Well, going way back to the very beginning, my parents have always been a big influence on me and an inspiration to me as a musician. My dad was a writer, a singer, and a musician, my mom as well. I was born in 1963 and I was born into a world of music. I always say I never had a choice; not that I would have made a different choice but I never really had a choice because music was my life from day one. My first inspiration would be my dad, for sure. He taught me how to play and I always looked up to him and wanted to be like him.

As I got older, believe or not, I used to air guitar to Chuck Berry on my bed when I was a little kid. I grew up on fifties music and then I eventually got into stuff like Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Bee Gees. I've got a very eclectic mix of music from the time I was a youngster. Then, I started getting into rock bands like Bad Company and Foghat. Those are two of my favourites. Then I got a little older and I started getting into more metal: Ozzy Osbourne, Van Halen, Dio, Maiden and Priest. I would say probably Van Halen and Priest are still the two most influential bands for me, musically speaking.

Hotel Hobbies: You have been incredibly creative over such a long period of time. You are still pushing yourself as singer and a writer. In recent years, you have released music with Stryper, Sweet and Lynch, Iconic, Sunbomb and solo material. Obviously, you still have an incredible hunger to create music and be part of different projects.

Michael Sweet: Yes, and I think you said the perfect word – hunger. It feels like that. If I don't make music, I feel like I'm starving and I need to eat. That's when I do a new project or start helping others with a project.  But to me, it also just feels like a part of life. You know, like I get up every day and I have my coffee and I brush my teeth and I take a shower and music feels that way to me as well. It's just such a part of my routine. It isn't routine in the sense that I never want to become stale and just do the same old, same old but it's just part of who I am every day of my life. I think I would probably lose my mind if I couldn't do music. I don't know what I would do with myself, to be honest. There's always a song in my head and in my heart. I'm very blessed to say that I've had the opportunity to express those ideas because I've got labels that want to work with me and people that want to work with me. I don't know why, to be honest but they do. I'm very thankful for that. That's amazing. I'm a blessed man because I'm going to be sixty-three and I'm still doing music. That's my only job and I don’t even count it as a job.

Hotel Hobbies: Over so much time, you have gone through changes of trends, shifting technology and the evolution of rock through different eras. How has it been negotiating those changes?

Michael Sweet: Well, you know, it's a balancing act. What I mean by that is when we stepped into the digital realm with ProTools, everything changed at that point in time because it became more of a computer-helping versus a human-helping approach. But there's a fine balance between that and the humanistic side. I don't ever want to lose sight of that. And now we have AI. I can hear what's AI and what's not in a heartbeat. I can read and see what's AI and what's not in a heartbeat. There are certain clues. AI uses a lot of cliché phrases and words, and I know right away that's AI. I think AI is a great tool, but it should never replace people. That's where the heart and soul comes from. AI doesn't have a heart; it doesn't have a soul. And as smart as it is, you have got to have that or you lose the emotion, you lose the feelings that touch people. I think that's super important to balance that. Don't cross that line.

Hotel Hobbies: To touch on Stryper, a band I have followed for a long time. I think you have been on an incredible run of form recently, particularly since No More Hell to Pay. You must be incredibly proud of the band's longevity and the fact you're still producing great albums.

Michael Sweet: I am. I'm very, very pleased. When I look back on the last fifteen to twenty years, I am shocked when I see the amount of work we have done and the level of productivity we have had. It's mind-blowing to say the least. But at the same time, I do sometimes get a little depressed and frustrated because I feel like it's limited in the sense of who it gets out to and who sees it. Some of these songs - and how do you say this without sounding like you have an ego? There's really no way to do that, so I'll go ahead and say it. Some of our songs are really good and they deserve higher numbers. They deserve to be heard. They deserve to be, instead of a million views on YouTube, one hundred million views on YouTube. And there's no rhyme or reason to it, because you'll see us at a million views, and then you'll see this song that may not be as good but it's got a hundred million views. Obviously, some of it is about marketing and the big machine behind it.

But considering all that, Stryper has defeated the odds. We have broken ground that no one else really has or may never do again in the sense that we've been so bold about our faith. Yet despite that, we've crossed over and got platinum and gold albums from different countries around the world. It shows me there are people out there who are listening, people who care and people who get it. I just wish that some people were more open-minded. What I mean by that is, I read all these comments online about how we suck because we sing about Jesus or we have the yellow and black and we look terrible. I feel that’s shallow. I wish they would listen to the music. Do you like it? Is it good? Is it bad? I could never agree with anyone that says Stryper's music is bad. We work hard. We've got some great stuff, but that's my opinion.

Hotel Hobbies: I will be honest with you. I am not a Christian myself, but I have followed Stryper for forty years after a friend told me I had to hear To Hell With The Devil back in 1986. For me, even the lyrics that are more overtly Christian still carry universal messages - togetherness, sacrifice, standing up for what’s right. You do not need to be a Christian to feel that. I think there are a lot of rock and metal fans that could still enjoy the music itself purely for the musicianship, regardless of the lyrics.

Michael Sweet: I wish there were more people like you. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there that just won't give it the time of day because they hear the term Christian. That's just kind of the mentality, which is really interesting to me. My little brain can't wrap itself around the fact that those same people will listen to darker metal but they don't believe in the devil. That's perfectly fine but they can't listen to Stryper. I always find that very interesting. So God bless you; that's amazing. I know Stryper does have fans that are agnostic, don’t believe in God or are Satanist so that in itself is awesome.

Hotel Hobbies: At the moment, you are in the midst of creating a new Stryper album. How is it going?

Michael Sweet: It's going great. We went and did the Christmas album. That was a blur as it happened so quickly. That has come and gone and now we're working on a new album. We started tracking December 29th, and we tracked all the basic tracks. Now I've got a few weeks of singing to do, and then we'll mix the album. I can tell you this; it is really great. I can't believe how it's turning out. It is different enough that it's got this freshness to it. It's definitely not a stale Stryper album. It's not repetitive. It's got its own signature to it, and I can't wait for people to hear it. It's going to be really cool.

Hotel Hobbies: Like I said earlier, you have been on a really good run of form. Fallen, God Damn Evil and When We Were Kings are particular highlights. You are not just keeping Stryper going because you can; you are still pushing forward.

Michael Sweet: I love trying different things and throwing some curve balls. It comes from my love of music. It’s in my DNA and I was taught how to do this from the time I was born. Everyone in the family plays music or sings, everybody. And it's part of who I am. I'm OCD, and I'm ADHD, and I would never release anything that wasn't up to par. I would just pull the plug on it and it wouldn't come out. I'm happy to say that we work hard and we put a lot of thought and effort into every album. I'm very pleased with everything that we've released over the past twenty years. I think it's a better run than the first run. The diehards won't admit to that or accept that, and that's okay. I get it. We've turned out a lot of albums. It pretty cool and insane that I have been able to release Stryper albums, solo albums and side project material since 2005. I'm very blessed to look back and look at the legacy and see what we've accomplished.

Hotel Hobbies: I think regarding this second run, there is a difference between favourite and best. I think To Hell With My Devil will always be my favourite but there are others you might point at as being objectively better. Speaking of To Hell With The Devil, it is hard to believe we are celebrating its fortieth anniversary this year.

Michael Sweet: It really is crazy. It's so surreal. It feels almost like a dream. It just doesn't feel real. But it's true, we are celebrating forty years of To Hell With The Devil and if you go back even further, we first formed as a band in 1983. In seven years, we will be celebrating fifty years. That’s an incredible accomplishment for any band. Do we have the original line-up? No - we're missing one guy. But we have been blessed with a guy by the name of Perry Richardson playing bass. He’s an amazing musician.

Hotel Hobbies: To come right up to date, in April, you will be releasing your new solo album The Masterplan which I have been sent to listen to. It is obviously a very personal and very spiritual album, worship based album. You have said it is the album you have been waiting to make for a long time. What made you realise that now was the right time?

Michael Sweet: I've been wanting to make this album my entire life. It's been a lifetime that's gone into that album in terms of thought. The reason why it never happened is because the schedule of Stryper doesn't really permit an album like that. First of all, I've got to get a label that's interested in taking a chance and a risk of releasing something like that because it's totally different. It's not a rock record. It's not a metal record. It's just an eclectic mix of everything I grew up on and showing my musical roots, more-so from the seventies and eighties than anything else. I finally had the opportunity to do it because of COVID. When we got hit with COVID, that's when I wrote that album. I started writing it and I said, I'm doing it now and I did it. I hooked up with the co-producer, Jeff Savage, and we made that album. I'm so glad I did. It's just so unusual. It won’t be for everybody. Some people won't get it or like it. The diehard metalheads may not like it. I don't know. Some of them may. I love it, though, because it's just a breath of fresh air for me. I could try different tones and do different things with my voice. That was the mentality.

Hotel Hobbies: It feels like an album on which everyone is just having a great time.

Michael Sweet: Definitely. Everyone was and I will tell you why. Some of the musicianship on this album is so incredible. Jeff's doing all the keyboards and it really was a special time. It has a very unique feel. It's certainly got its own thing to it. It's unlike any other album I've ever done. The closest thing might be an album I did called Him, but even that's very different.

Hotel Hobbies: It is very different to Stryper, which makes total sense for an album of this nature. It feels like you let yourself go with flow rather than necessarily sticking to decided direction.

Michael Sweet: Yeah, totally. That's what's beautiful about doing a solo album. You can do whatever you want to do. Some of my solo albums have been metal albums like Ten and I’m Not Your Suicide. The reason I went more in that hard rock and metal direction with those albums is because I got tired of hearing people say, his solo stuff is rubbish. It's not as heavy as Stryper. So I made those albums and then they said oh yeah, he can get heavy. I think they thought what makes me heavy was being in Stryper. That just that couldn't be further from the truth. So for those albums, I was proving a point. For this new one, The Masterplan, I didn't want to follow any rules or regulations. I just wanted to go and do whatever I wanted to do. Every song is different. It does take you back even to the sixties. There was a band called Spiral Staircase. They had a big hit that I loved. There's a song on here that has a similar feel. Everything that you hear on this new album comes from my roots and what I grew up with.

Hotel Hobbies: Thinking about the lyrics of the title track, it comes across as you are almost in a place of awe and wonder and you write about the importance of the big and the little things in life.

Michael Sweet: Yeah, and it's so true. I think both big and little things can pass us by. We are too hyper focused on the in-between things, which is usually the stuff that doesn't matter. Usually. Not all the time. We need to get caught up in the little things. We need to notice the little things. Going outside and sitting and looking at the sun, looking at the clouds, looking at the sunset, taking it all in, listening in silence to the birds chirping, little things like that. We live in such a crazy, fast-paced world that we never get to notice those things. It's kind of unfortunate because technology is robbing us of what matters in life.

Hotel Hobbies: I completely agree. You also have songs such as Stronger and Eternally which feel written about your own recent battles and the resolve that you draw from God.

Michael Sweet: 100%, absolutely, and especially during that time when those songs were written. They were written in late 2020, believe it or not. And yeah, absolutely, without question, it was a questionable and volatile time for us all. We didn't know what was going on and what was going to happen. In some ways, we still don't. During that time when we were all locked indoors and not knowing where's this going, it was definitely a moment for me where I was just relying on God and dependent upon God and just keeping my faith. And that's what those songs are about.

Hotel Hobbies: You have some tracks, Lord and Worship You in particular, spring to mind, where there is some lovely guitar work and the tempo does rise a little.

Michael Sweet: Thank you! I love any time anyone says there's some nice guitar work because I put a lot into that. I put a lot into the guitar work tones and if you came in the studio with me when I was tracking guitars, you would see that every solo has a different tone and different guitars, different pickups, different pedals. I'm just always experimenting and trying different and new things. I work hard as a guitar player, but some people still don't know that I play. So when I hear someone like you say, the guitar work is good, that's very inspiring for me. With the guitar tones, I wanted to not make them anything like Stryper. I wanted to be the opposite and not do the typical harmonies with the same tone where people are like, ah, it just sounds like Stryper. I wanted to make it a little different. That was a little bit of a challenge since I'm in Stryper and we make so many albums! It's a little tricky. I hope that this album inspires other people because it certainly did me as I was making it. It was therapeutic for me, but I want it to be for other people as well. So I hope that happens.

Hotel Hobbies: As you have mentioned, I think some Stryper fans will listen to it and still enjoy the album. However, do you think that another non-Stryper audience will be drawn to it in a different way – a worship audience, if you like?

Michael Sweet: Well, I hope so because what brings me the most joy is when the music I do affects people positively. I hope they can be lifted up, encouraged, inspired to be better and to rise up if they're depressed or even suicidal. If I can help someone through that, through a song or a lyric, man - I've done my job. That's what I want to do. That's what I want to accomplish.

So if that happens with this album and people that may not know who Michael Sweet of Stryper is, phenomenal; I'll take it. That would be exactly the goal. I could totally see that happening. Absolutely. A lot of people out there don't care for metal; they just want to chill and put on an album late at night to which they can relax. I think this is that kind of an album for sure.

Hotel Hobbies: Definitely. Talking of relaxing, when you do get time to relax, who do you listen to these days yourself?

Michael Sweet: Well, we usually throw on Sonos .We'll put on some sort of mix that they have that's trending. It might be like a jazz mix, a club mix, an indie singer-songwriter mix or whatever. We're not prudes when it comes to musical styles. We love it all. If it's good and we're like, oh, this is cool, turn that up, we're there. We're sold.

Hotel Hobbies: You have talked about collaborations you have done. If you have a dream person or people to collaborate with, who would that be?

Michael Sweet: Oh, man. Well, there's quite a few people. Unfortunately, a few of those people are gone. So it would be impossible to do that this side of heaven. One of those guys that I always wanted to collaborate with was Eddie Van Halen. He was such an influence on me and I respected him so much like so many people. Another guitar player I love to death because he’s such an incredible player and a great person is Nuno Bettencourt. I would love to collaborate with Nuno. That'd be phenomenal. Maybe that'll happen. Who knows? Maybe he'll could play a solo or two on a Stryper album. In terms of other artists, there's so many people I respect. Rob Halford's another one. I respect Journey and Neil Schon and Jonathan Cain.

There's so many people that I haven't worked with personally, but you never know. I am one of those people when I get a call or email that ask if I am willing to work with someone, I say but my first question is, can I see the lyric? Can I see what you want me to sing? If they send me the lyric and it is something that I can’t get behind or I can’t passionately sing about, that’s when I say hold on. I put the brakes on and ask if we can rewrite the lyrics. And thank God that people are willing to do that. With the Sunbomb project, the first lyrics I was sent were rewritten because I didn't want to be singing about burning witches. That was the first lyric I got, a song about burning witches. I've had to do that a few times, but man, I love collaborating. I love working with people. I think it broadens your mind, your musical mind. It just widens the road for you to do more do something different.

Hotel Hobbies: Looking back once more, what do you think over all this time, has been the most valuable lesson you've learned as a musician over all?

Michael Sweet: Oh, that's a great question. That could take some time to answer it properly. But quickly, in the moment, I would say the most valuable lesson I've learned is to stay true to yourself -  who you are as an artist and who you are as a person. Don't get caught up in the trends and don't get caught up in trying to be something other than who you are. We did that. We got caught up in that with an album called Against the Law. We had pressure from the label to do something different, pressure from ourselves to do something different. And we kind of threw everything out the window. Now, a lot of people love that album. It’s not that I think it’s a bad album. It's just that it's not classic Stryper. It's just that everything's different. I always joke and say, we should have changed the name of the band for that album. But my point is stay true to who you are as an artist. Don't cave in to peer pressure to be anything other than who you are as an artist. You know, it's got to be real. Fans aren't dumb. They know what's real. They know what's not..

Hotel Hobbies: I read your post on Against the Law just a couple of few days ago, which was interesting because I do love that album, but I completely understand why you have the viewpoint you do.

Michael Sweet: The sad part is music should never take precedence over your life. If you're in a band and you're married and you have a family, music should never come before your family. It should never come before your God or your faith. There is a priority list that you should follow in life to be happy, healthy, prosperous and successful. We didn't follow those rules for that album, and I regret it. What's done is done. I'll say it over and over again, it's a great album. It sounds killer. It's got some great songs, some great riffs, great performances, but I just wish that we had done it differently in terms of our attitudes and our hypocrisy.

Hotel Hobbies: And my final question is, do you think we will ever see Stryper back in the UK again? I know you are not over in Europe very often. It has been a long time since your last gig in the UK.

Michael Sweet: I'll tell you what, yes, I think for sure, without question, Stryper will at some point be back in Europe again touring. The tricky part is the finances. That's always the tough part. Let's say we are able to book twenty shows in Europe and we get 7,500 to 10,000 per show. You do the math on that. You add it all up. You've got all your guarantees accounted for but then you go, you book your airfares, and you book your hotels and all of a sudden you're in the red. We might have $200,000 coming but it's going to cost you $250,000. to cover expenses. A band like us can't afford to do that. We can't go over to Europe and lose $50,000 or $100,000. We just can't do it. I wish we could, but we can't. That’s what keeps us from confirming a European tour.

I'm really hoping and believing that someday a door will open and we'll be able to go and figure it out, make it work financially. Maybe even opening for a bigger band in Europe. I don't know. It could happen. I've seen it happen and we are going to come back. And boy, when we do, I can't wait to see the fans. We've got a lot of fans in Europe. So it breaks my heart. It really breaks my heart. It's sad. It's terribly sad that we can't get to Europe. I can assure you and everyone else reading who is in Europe that we're working on it. We are working on it every year. One of these years, it's going to click and fall into place.

Hotel Hobbies: Michael, thank you so much for your time. It has been an absolute pleasure. And I really hope the new album finds a home; I'm sure it will, and I look forward to seeing what you have got up your sleeve with Stryper.

Michael Sweet: Thanks, brother. Thanks for taking the time to talk to me. Superb questions and insights. Take care.

The Masterplan is due for release on 3rd April 2026 and will be reviewed at Hotel Hobbies nearer the time.

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