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Stryper celebrates 40 years with new album, tour

Alex Solca Photography

Michael Sweet, vocalist and guitarist for the Christian heavy metal band Stryper underwent surgery for thyroid cancer in 2023. Although he emerged from surgery with his voice intact, he says that it was a powerful reminder that with age, his voice has changed.

Veteran Christian heavy metal act Stryper performs at Wichita’s Temple Live on Saturday, Oct. 19. The stop is part of the band’s 40th anniversary tour, during which the quartet will celebrate its full musical history.

The tour comes after the release of the group’s 15th studio album, “When We Were King.” It’s arguably the strongest Stryper recording to date and the latest in a line of efforts since 2005’s “Reborn” that have helped redefine the quartet’s legacy. Featuring vocalist, guitarist and primary songwriter Michael Sweet, his brother Robert on drums, longtime guitarist Oz Fox and bassist Perry Richardson, the 11 songs that comprise “When We Were Kings” suggest that Stryper shows no signs of compromising its particular music vision.

The road leading up to the LP’s release was not a particularly easy one: Michael Sweet was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and underwent a partial thyroidectomy in 2023, a particularly risky procedure for a singer as damage to the vocal nerve is a particularly high risk.

Sweet, however, emerged without damage and completed the vocals for “When We Were Kings” after a period of rest.

Then, in May, Fox was forced to sit out from the quartet’s acoustic tour as he underwent brain surgery to remove a mass discovered during a routine scan. He had previously had two tumors removed in 2018.

Though fans were concerned that he may have to sit out the fall run, Fox has returned to the stage and by all accounts has had a successful recovery.

Michael Sweet recently spoke with KMUW about the making of “When We Were Kings,” its themes and facing down mortality.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

You’ve been releasing a new Stryper album about every two years of late and you have a few other projects. That’s a lot of music. Do you feel like you’re in a particularly creative point in your life? 

I have felt that since we made the first [reunion] album in ’05. There was a time when I didn’t feel really creative. I would try to write, and things wouldn’t come quickly but ever since ’05, when I [wrote the album] “Reborn,” [which started as a solo effort and became a Stryper release], every album has been written a day a song. I start writing two weeks before we start recording. Every single album. It’s just this weird way of working, but it works for me. I think I work well under pressure and maybe the extra pressure helps me get it done, I don’t know. But I love working that way. If you had a label and you asked me to [go into the studio on Dec.15], I’d start writing Dec. 1.

[Laughs.]

It’s just how it works for me. Now, with caution, I say to other people, other bands, other writers, “I don’t recommend that,” because, for most people, it doesn’t work. Most people would try that and probably be scrambling, probably just have a few songs or maybe not be happy if they had 10 songs. I don’t recommend it, but it works for me.

Well, there is that thing too where you might not be actively writing but you might be storing things up before you put a guitar in your hand. 

I read something recently about Mark Tremonti [Creed, Alter Bridge] saying that he has thousands of riff ideas for a new Creed album. I don’t have any riff ideas. There’s nothing in my phone. There’s not a thing. A lot of people have things stored up [and when it comes time to make a record] they’re still not able to get 12 songs for an album having worked on it for 10 years. I can’t even imagine working like that. That would put me in an insane asylum.

You had thyroid surgery last year and didn’t do the vocals for the new album until after that. 

I had surgery on Dec. 15 and the doctor said, “Do not sing one note or even try for two months.” I stuck to that. I didn’t even try. In the meantime, I wrote the album, sent [the music] to the guys. We went in and started recording in January. By the time I got home it was two months, almost to the day. Like, two months and two days, something like that. That’s when I started singing. I didn’t warm up. I didn’t test the waters. I didn’t work my way into it. I just started singing. I picked a song, sang that song, and it took me a few hours to sing. I was really nervous before I sang it, but after, I felt like, “OK, I’ve got this. I can do this. My voice feels fine.”

If anything, it felt a little better. They removed half of my thyroid and some rather large nodules, so I think there’s a little more room in there now. It was definitely pressing against my vocal folds and creating issues with my folds vibrating properly and functioning properly. I’m in a better place now. Not where I was in ’88 or ’89, but I’m in a better place than I was six months ago for sure.

I saw this interview recently with [Deep Purple vocalist] Ian Gillan, who is almost 80. He was asked about how his voice has changed with age, and he said something along the lines that he felt there was more nuance and character to his voice. 

You do have to re-evaluate how you do it because your voice does change. There are a lot of vocal coaches out there that are teaching and training people to think that the voice doesn’t have to change, that you could be singing at the age of 80 like you did at the age of 20 and that’s just not true. That’s just absolute hogwash. It’s important to train your voice and work it out. There are muscles involved, just like [when you’re] going to the gym and staying in shape and working out. It’s a very similar thing, so it’s important to train properly. I’m not saying it’s not; I’m just saying that your voice is going to change as you get older.

Your body changes. [Imagine saying], “You don’t have to age. If you do this to your facial muscles, you can look like you’re 20 when you’re 80.” Your body changes. It gets older, it breaks down. We’re born to die, so to speak. Guys like Ian or anyone that’s aging and trying to figure out ways to get the job done, I have nothing but respect for them. I like how Ian sounds. He sounds great. The thing that’s always there with any singer as they get older [is that] they may not be able to hit the notes, they may not be able to do what they did when they were younger, but that tone is always there. It’s that tone that they have that made them who they are. I love that.

The song “When We Were Kings” hit me in a deep place. This has been a year during which I’ve experienced some loss and it’s caused me to reflect on how when you’re younger there seems to be nothing but road ahead of you. You don’t see all things that lie ahead and as cliché as it is to say so, you appreciate the whole of your life in a different way. 

One hundred percent. You don’t think that way or look at any of that when you’re young. When you’re young, you’re invincible and you’ll never die. That’s the mentality but it’s not the reality. As we get older, you do start to face and think about your own mortality. With that comes a lot of extra baggage and you realize what’s important in life much more so [than before]. When you look back and reminisce on the past, you don’t have to do it in a negative way. When I’m singing those lyrics, I’m not thinking, “Gosh, I wish we still had that. I wish we were still doing [whatever]. What a bummer that we’re not.” It’s not like that. It’s not meant to be like that. It’s more of, “Hey, guys, remember when ‘In God We Trust’ went platinum, and we were playing arenas?’ Wow! Can you believe that? How incredible!’”

Some people never get that championship season. 

Exactly. I have to go online, unfortunately, and read the comments and deal with people because I’m the guy that’s working the socials. I don’t really have a choice. My brother doesn’t do that. My brother doesn’t see a word that anyone says because he’s got someone else running his socials. That’s what he chooses, and that’s fine. I, however, have to be a part of all of that. So, I see all the comments. People will say, “Were they ever kings?” What a stupid comment. What an absolutely ignorant comment. Not only were we kings, we still are in the sense that we’re still accomplishing things we’ve dreamt of our entire lives, and we’re still out there doing it, 40 years later. For people to question that or poke fun at it or think that we’re a joke or that we weren’t every successful? It’s funny, man. That song and this album are really the perfect representations of who we are and where we are right now as a band.

You are one of those bands that has had two lives. There’s the classic era from the ’80s and there’s the material from 2005 forward. Each of those eras has its fans. For instance, a friend of mine grew up listening to you like I did, but he took his 14-year-old son, who was just learning to play guitar, to see you. His son came away saying, “I can’t believe that! The guitar playing’s amazing.” Forty years on you’re still inspiring people. 

It's an incredible feeling. It really is. We just did a poll recently of 5,000 people [asking them when they became fans]. Was it ’84-91, or was it ’91 to 2001, or was it 2003 to 2024? Forty six percent said that it was 2003 to 2024. That tells me that there’s a lot of new fans. I ask the question every night: “Who’s seen us? Who hasn’t?” The majority of the hands now that go up are the ones that have not seen us. Those are all new fans, seeing us for the first time, over 50 percent of the crowd every night at every show. It’s astonishing.

Some people might say, “Yeah, well, there’s only 500 hundred or 600 people coming.” That’s not the point. The point is: These are all new fans of a band that’s been around 40 years, guys that are in their 60s. It really is mind blowing. I don’t know what the appeal is, but something’s attracting new fans. Something’s working.

In terms of guitar playing, I think what sets us apart from any other band is the harmonies. We’ve always done everything in harmonies. It’s not just solos, it’s even the rhythms. Lots of notes rhythmically that are in harmony. You don’t realize how difficult it is … or how much there is to it until you’re a guitar player and you sit down, and you try to learn a Stryper song. I would actually challenge guitar players out there to do that. If you think Stryper can’t play or it’s easy stuff, sit down and learn “Yahweh.”

Jedd Beaudoin is host/producer of the nationally syndicated program Strange Currency. He created and host the podcast Into Music, which examines musical mentorship and creative approaches to the composition, recording and performance of songs. As a music journalist, his work has appeared in PopMatters, Vox, No Depression and Keyboard Magazine.