Michael Sweet (Stryper) | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Michael Sweet of Stryper joins Billy Corgan to discuss the band's unique journey as a Christian metal act on the 1980s Sunset Strip. They ex

Key takeaways

Stryper's 'stripes' aesthetic gained deeper meaning through the scripture Isaiah 53:5.
Producer Michael Wagner played a pivotal role in the band's early success with 'Soldiers Under Command'.

Main topics

Christian Metal history
The 1980s Sunset Strip scene

Notable quotes

If God made me, then how wrong can I be?

Conclusion

A profound look at maintaining artistic integrity and faith while navi

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) I just stay on my path, man. I've got tunnel vision. And it's just how I'm built. A heavy Speaker 2 (0:07) metal band that's singing about Jesus in 1984 or whatever, that is very outside the line that was going. God was doing some great things with the band and through the band. They're really metal. They're really good. They wear stripes, but they're really into Jesus. Speaker 3 (0:24) We got caught up in, you know, the rock music scene. and stop going to church. You've touched the highest heights of the music business. I'd go home every night, I'd take a shower, there's spiders washing out of my hair. That freaks me out more than anything. What do we need to know about the cranberry business? It's like, is there a secret? Oh my gosh, there's a lot. Speaker 2 (0:47) Michael Sweet, thank you so much for being here. A real pleasure to have you on my podcast. Incredible honor to be here. Truly. So you just met your lovely wife. You guys are busy. I mean, you just put out a Faith album, which is Master Plan. Yep. That came out. These don't always come out so... We're talking 2026, but by the time this comes out, this stuff is out. So Master Plan is out. And then as we're speaking, the Striper album is about to come out, which is called Throne of Thorns. Yeah, it's Speaker 3 (1:15) a tongue twister. Throne of Thorns. Say that Speaker 2 (1:17) fast three times. And you're also doing a lot of touring on the Isaiah 53.5 tour. Is that accurate? Well, if that's the Speaker 3 (1:27) name of the tour, I'm learning that right now. But that's a great title for a tour. That's what it said. Speaker 3 (1:34) Also, most Striper fans know that that's a scripture that we found to go along with our... Do you know the scripture off the top of your head or can I read it? Speaker 2 (1:46) You can read, absolutely read it. I know it, but please read it. Okay. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our inequities. The punishment that brought us peace was on him. And by his stripes, we are healed. Yeah, meaning, obviously, what Christ went through on the cross. We are healed. We are saved. Sorry to interrupt you. I didn't know what stripes meant in a biblical context, but I looked it up. Am I right in understanding? It's basically the marks that he got in his weight. The lashings that he Speaker 3 (2:18) took being Speaker 2 (2:19) beaten. Speaker 3 (2:19) And that's, you know, interestingly enough, before we were Striper, the stripes had no significance. They were just stripes. Everything was yellow and black and we had stripes. We were called Rocks Regime. This is back in 82, 83. Right. And once we became Striper, when we signed with Enigma Records. We found that scripture and everything started to make sense. I always thought it was connected. It wasn't originally because we weren't. We became Christians at an early age, walked away, got out of church, got into the whole L.A. club scene, sex, drugs and rock and roll. Don't skip past that. We'll get to that Speaker 2 (3:00) in Speaker 3 (3:00) a Speaker 2 (3:00) second. And then we became striper. We dedicated our lives and that's when it all made sense. Speaker 2 (3:08) So you came into my life, Soldiers Under Command. Yeah. I had that record. Because I heard there's this new band. So this is what I heard on the street when I was a kid. So what year was this, 85? 1985. So all I heard was, there's this great new band. And they wear stripes. Oh, and they're really into God. Oh, yeah. Can you imagine? So I was like, whatever, 17 years old in that year. So all you hear is like, hey, they're really metal. They're really good. They wear stripes, but they're really into Jesus. It was a weird thing to hear in Chicago. I can imagine. Very weird. Yeah. Speaker 3 (3:54) And Michael Wagner produced Speaker 2 (3:56) that. Speaker 3 (3:57) Michael Wagner produced that album. And that was a moment in our musical career journey that blew our minds that we got to work with Michael Wagner. Because he was the guy at the time. He was the Speaker 2 (4:10) guy. In Speaker 3 (4:11) many Speaker 2 (4:11) ways, he still is the guy. Absolutely. Because in my opinion, no one's ever kind of bested his vision. Speaker 3 (4:18) No. Of almost Speaker 2 (4:19) kind of melodic metal. Speaker 3 (4:20) Is that a fair thing, do Speaker 2 (4:22) you Speaker 3 (4:22) think? I think so, absolutely. And at the time when we first met Michael, I mean, we were intimidated. We were kids. We were young. We were like, oh my gosh, Michael Wagner. Even his name has a kind of... It was very intimidating. He came to see us perform live at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park. And I'll never forget, we were so nervous. It was unreal. We could hardly perform, at least speaking for myself. And having met him, he loved us. We loved him. We went in and we recorded at Amigo, which is where our favorite band of all time, Van Halen, huge influence, recorded. So we were like, Speaker 2 (4:56) what is happening here? Speaker 3 (4:57) Yeah. And we made an album very quickly. We recorded that album in about a week, a little over a week. Drums were done in one day, one night, you know, that sort of thing. And it was interesting. I remember, I recall, I can see it now in my mind. We were playing that album out every night for a good year. So everything was one take. And Michael would hit record and we would do the track and he would go, yeah, great. Speaker 2 (5:27) And this was how the whole album was made. But I watched a clip of you guys from back in the day and you guys played really good live. So I can see it because you sound very record-like and like a lot of the other bands. that really benefited from that type of production. You guys sort of had your stuff together. We work hard and I'm the slave driver. We'll get to that too. I have a similar reputation. I just want to make a sort of interesting point because, you know, when I'm putting together the questions I want to ask guests, you know, there's a sort of kind of flow, but I thought this is a good way to sort of set the whole conversation up. Right. Going back to me as a kid hearing. Like, they're really into Jesus. The only other time I'd really heard that from a musician that I was interested in was Mark Farner of Grand Fun. Oh, yeah. Because at some point Mark had, you know... Became a Christian. Born again or whatever. And I remember people talking about it dismissively. And I even remember some metal fans talking about you guys dismissively. Like, you know, yeah, but they're into God or whatever. You know, it's like this vibe. But I always think it's funny because... As somebody who listened to Mercil Fate Slayer and Striper at the same time, it strikes me odd that nobody really blanches at listening to death metal or scary or satanic metal or, you know, whatever. But somehow God in the mix is like, whoa, hold on, let's slow down. Speaker 3 (6:56) You're preaching to the choir, and I've said this in interviews in different ways. And my little brain will never comprehend that. And yet at the same time, I understand it because we Speaker 2 (7:07) live in a Speaker 3 (7:08) world that is sinful and somewhat closed-minded. There's something about once God is introduced into music, people, not all people, but many people tend to instantly do this. I don't want to hear it. Speaker 2 (7:25) What do you think it is about a teenage mind that, because I guess I'm going back to my own. times in the 80s, but this idea that it was cool to listen to something that was scary, but somehow it was instantly repulsive to some, not all, obviously, that somehow embracing biblical themes or Jesus or anything like that was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second. That's not for me. Speaker 3 (7:50) Is Speaker 2 (7:50) it the idea that something is being preached? Speaker 3 (7:52) I think so. I think the scary side isn't telling you that some of what you're doing is wrong. And you might want to or need to change your ways. But the godly side is telling you that. And as a teenager who Speaker 2 (8:08) wants to do Speaker 3 (8:08) that, you're rebelling. You want to go have fun and party it up. And I know because I did that. And I get it. But that didn't stop us. We made a decision to do that at the age of 20. I just started rewriting the lyrics. There's a lot to the story. Speaker 2 (8:28) Can we just, sorry, because I think it, I find these moments fascinating. Yep. Speaker 2 (8:36) Let's start here because Sunset Strip, right? I mean, that is a legendary time and you were there. Yeah. Like you were there during those halcyon days of, you know, people hanging flyers and the girls hair and the guys hair teased out here. And, you know, I mean, so just take me back to that moment just from a musical standpoint. I mean, the sex and drugs part is interesting and sometimes it's in movies, but I'm more interested in the musical component because as I made the point when Tommy Lee was here and in private conversations I've had with Nikki Sixx, this idea of like glam metals kind of underpinnings and somehow into hard rock. Yep. This idea of kind of on some level simplifying some of the hard rock that had come before out of bands like Rainbow and whatever. Like, sure. Because Richie Blackmore, like, you know, who I love Rainbow, I don't know if you're a Rainbow fan. Huge Rainbow, Deep Purple and Rainbow. I mean, amazing, right? So, but if you think about Rainbow and you think even like deal with Rainbow, even... in other iterations. Speaker 3 (9:37) You Speaker 2 (9:38) know, it's melodic in a way that's almost like, you know, Renaissance fairish at times. You know, there's a lot of melody going on. Speaker 3 (9:46) And Speaker 2 (9:46) I'm not saying there's not melody in what became classic Sunset Strip metal, whether it's you guys or Dokken or Rad or whatever, but there's a simplifying down. Totally. Where you stop moving the bass around. It's simplified. You've got a riff that's moving around like crazy in A, but the bass is... The bass was like just A to no, staying on the root, just Speaker 3 (10:06) driving. Michael Anthony. Which is awesome. Speaker 2 (10:09) Yeah. But that's my point is something about that change and where glam came in. So you got almost like glam melodies on top of complicated metal riffs, but somehow simplifying the bass. And suddenly it all congeals in LA. Right. In this unique moment. Just take me back to that atmosphere musically. Speaker 3 (10:25) Well, I mean, I just happened to, I'm from Los Angeles. I was born in Whittier. So I was in the scene. I was born into the scene. And at the age of, you know, 16, 17, 18, I was there with my brother. My brother's three years older, Robert. He's the drummer. And we were just, you know, brought up in a musical family and always taught to work hard. and don't give up. My dad used to say all the time to us, you're on the brink of superstardom. And we used to laugh at that because it sounded funny. But dad was always the ultimate encourager. But he had success in music. My dad did. He wrote a number one song in 76 called I Don't Want to Have to Marry You with Fred Imus, Don Imus' brother. Oh, okay. And he worked for the railroad. And my dad's dream was always to pursue music, but life didn't allow him to do that. So he was very supportive of the dream. Incredibly. That's amazing. Gave us every garage, bought us gear. He encouraged my brother to try me out when I was, you know, 12 years old, almost 13. I was just a punk kid and my brother was 15. more serious about music, more mature, obviously. And he kept on my brother to do that. My brother said, no, no, no. And finally he did. And the rest is history. I might not be sitting here talking to you. Speaker 2 (11:51) But Speaker 3 (11:52) anyway, ultimately, Hollywood, growing up in that scene, I was just in the right place at the right time. Really. And it was a movement because you saw all these bands. We would perform with Mickey Ratt. Ratt. Early version of Ratt. And then we walked down the street and we would see Motley Crue. And then we'd walk down to the Troubadour and we'd see Wasp. And then we'd go back to Gazari's and we'd perform again. So it was just, we were in it. And it was just an explosive, very special time in music that I don't think will ever be repeated. And the thing about the 80s, as much as I love it, it was simplified. I don't want to say dumbed down, but a lot of the bands from the 70s, it was much more thought out. It was much more Speaker 2 (12:34) complex. I think, in terms of the arrangements. If Jimmy Page was the archetypal guitar god for hard rock and heavy metal, no band had greater gravitas with guitar players and bands than Zeppelin, right? So somehow it got sort of not dumbed down, but simplified into something that made for a lot of popular music to come. But it didn't come from a desire to be popular in the sense of getting on the radio. Nobody thought they were going to get on the radio. And Speaker 3 (13:05) maybe didn't even care. We didn't care. Speaker 2 (13:06) I Speaker 3 (13:07) mean, we just loved to play and write. All I cared about was writing music. I would sit in the corner of the garage and just write all night. Speaker 2 (13:13) But from your, because, you know, even your earliest music, there's that signature of that sort of what we would call an L.A. sound. Was there somebody that you looked at and said, I want to do that? Or was it a... No. I mean, I'm just being honest. Yeah, you know, I'm just curious. If there was, I would say that band or that artist. Speaker 3 (13:32) No. We grew up incredibly eclectic music. My dad would come home from the railroad, start playing music, and he'd start with opera. Speaker 2 (13:41) Okay. Speaker 3 (13:43) Caruso. He'd move into Mario Lanza. He loved. Then he'd start getting into 50s rock. Then into 60s classic country. My dad listened to it all. And then my dad would end with Sabbath. My dad liked Sabbath too. Loved it. My dad was watching Journey one night. I woke up to go get water and he's watching Journey perform Wheel in the Sky. And he said, hey, Mike, come sit down with me. And he's like, check out this new band. I'm like, who Speaker 2 (14:12) are these guys? Speaker 3 (14:13) But my dad was a big influence. So if I'd have to choose anyone or Speaker 2 (14:17) anything, it'd be my dad. But even if you think about Wheel in the Sky, right? What's interesting is Roy Thomas Baker produced that record, who had produced Queen. When I worked with Roy about... 20 years ago, God rest his soul, he's gone now. I said to Roy, like, that sound that's in the wheel in the sky, that's the sound of that chorus. How many vocals are on that? 24. You know, he'd do three-part harmony times eight. Oh, yeah. And stack them all into one mic. Right? Oh, yeah. We did all that Speaker 3 (14:49) stuff. Speaker 2 (14:50) Yeah. But I'm saying is that's an interesting influence, right? Just poking around in influences. Like if you heard that, like you wouldn't think wheel in the sky would be a big influence on what's to come, but it does. Absolutely. And that's what makes Speaker 3 (15:02) it striper apart. And this isn't to put us on a pedestal or anything like that. I'm just simply stating that we would listen to Judas Priest and Maiden for hours. Yeah. Deep Purple. And then we would move into Journey, Loverboy, Survivor. Yeah. We loved that side of rock as much as we did the metal side of rock. Speaker 2 (15:28) Yeah, there's an interesting balance in your music between high musical integrity and melodicism. Yep. Which, as you know, not a lot of those bands... could find the balance. Yeah. Speaker 3 (15:38) They Speaker 2 (15:38) did when they knew how to write ballads for MTV, but that's Speaker 3 (15:41) a Speaker 2 (15:41) different story. But you also write in your own stuff too. They, you know, you weren't running out and using outside writers. Speaker 3 (15:46) Yeah. And, and I was just, there's a weird, it's my mind is, is just a little odd. I'm kind of, it's a, it's a little bit of a blessing and it's a little bit of a curse in the sense that I'm always thinking about a song. Yeah. If I have to go to the market, my wife Lisa sends me out to get 10 things. I come back with four or five. And she's like, you forgot this. I'm like, darn, sorry. Because I was thinking of a song or humming a melody on my phone. Speaker 2 (16:14) It's just the way my mind works. So I read a story and please correct me, but this is my memory of reading about it. But you said this one night you're sort of on the sunset strip somewhere. You're standing outside. Speaker 2 (16:28) Drink in hand. Maybe there's a cigarette in your hand, too. And this guy comes walking by, you know, the classic street preacher guy or whatever. Yep. Carrying a cross. Yep. And condemning everyone for their sins, you know, not only there, but to come. Yep. And that sort of, that becomes this moment where you stop, you know, stop that moment in time. registers in your brain that something's missing or you need to do something. So if you want to take the story from there. Yeah. Well, basically the true Speaker 3 (16:54) story, we were playing Guzzaris and Troubadour and whiskey and then we were hanging out on the strip every weekend for quite a long time. And having not gone to church in a long time, you Speaker 2 (17:07) know, and coming out of the church. Sorry, but your dad had like Jimmy's under Jimmy Swaggart's influence sort of. Born Again, mid-70s, Southern Baptist. And how did you, as a kid, and you're going to Baptist Church, which is its own heavy metal movie, right? Oh, yeah. Exactly. But the point is, how did you feel as a young Christian? Were you attracted to religion or God or formality? How did you feel? In earlier years before you had your own? Speaker 3 (17:40) I was. I was attracted to it. It was a family thing. We literally, my brother started watching Jimmy Swaggart, then my dad with my brother, then my mom with my dad and my brother, and then the whole family. And we literally started watching him. And what we were drawn to really was, he sounded like Elvis when he sang. Oh! He Speaker 2 (17:59) was Jerry Speaker 3 (18:01) Lee Lewis's cousin. Yep. And he played piano like Jerry Lee Lewis. Speaker 2 (18:05) I used to watch Jimmy Swagger, too. Speaker 3 (18:07) And Mickey Gilley is his third cousin. Speaker 2 (18:09) They Speaker 3 (18:10) all play that style of piano. And we loved the music. So we were drawn to music because we're a very musical family. And then we got into church. We became Christians, dedicated our lives, became part of the music team. And then I got kind of bored with it, my brother and I. We got caught up in, you know, the rock music scene and stopped going to church. And then we got caught up in everything else that goes along with the rock music scene, you know. And after Arthur Blessed came up to me and was preaching to me, I was listening to what he was saying, but I was also saying, yeah, yeah, I know, I know, I know. I already know all this stuff. I know it. Talk to you guys later. I didn't really want to absorb it. Speaker 2 (18:51) Yeah. Speaker 3 (18:52) Because that was my own, you know, whatever you Speaker 2 (18:55) want to call it. I'm smiling because I had a similar experience in the 80s. Yeah. Speaker 3 (18:59) I just didn't want to hear it, but I knew he was right. Speaker 2 (19:01) But I'm like, Speaker 3 (19:02) no, I don't need to hear that. So I went about my way. Yeah. I went about my way. And then at the age of 20, a few years later, another friend came into our studio that we had hung out with, partied with and all that. And he was glowing. He looked like a different person. I can't even describe it. Just glowing. And he said, hey, guys. I'm going to tell you right now. He goes, I'm a Christian now. He goes, I know you guys have gone down that path and you're not now, but listen, if you give your band to God, he's going to do things that you never even dreamed of. And that's what started the process for me. Speaker 2 (19:40) Wow. Speaker 3 (19:41) And it kind of blew my mind. And I literally just went in. I remember the other guys were a little reluctant and I went in and came out the next morning and I rewrote lyrics to two or three songs.