INTERVIEW: Stryper once again ‘Rise to the Call’
Photo: Stryper’s new single is “Rise to the Call.” Photo courtesy of the band / Provided by Industry Works 2 with permission.
Stryper, the legendary heavy metal band, are back with new songs off their forthcoming album. Fans can enjoy the heavy sounds of the new tunes “See No Evil, Hear No Evil” and “Rise to the Call,” produced by the band’s frontman Michael Sweet. Although full details on the album have not been released, listeners can enjoy this preview of things to come.
“It’s hard to believe,” Sweet said in a recent phone interview. “If you asked me back in 1988 if we’d still be making music in 2022, I’d say, ‘No way.’ But here we are.”
“Rise to the Call” is one of Stryper’s most personal songs. Band members faced some health hurdles these past few years, including Sweet’s own retinal detachment surgery. He had to lie face down for two weeks after the surgery, and when he was finally able to reenter the world, he had an idea for a new album.
“That’s when I started writing the album because we were on a very tight schedule, so to the day I started, I went in my studio and started writing those songs,” he said. “And ‘Rise to the Call’ just came out. I kind of had the inspiration for us to rise up despite all of our health issues and obstacles. I felt like we’ve got to rise to the call. We’ve got to rise above this stuff, and then two weeks after that, after the album was written, I had another detachment. And I was face down again, and then when I was able to stand up again, that’s when we went in the studio and started recording these songs. So I look back on those times, which weren’t very long ago, and I just think how did we get through those times, and we did miraculously. So that’s where ‘Rise to the Call’ came from. It’s basically what we’ve been through over the past year or so.”
The Stryper bandmates — also featuring Robert Sweet on drums, Oz Fox on guitar and Perry Richardson on bass — have been a well-oiled machine when it comes to album-making. The newest effort, which features 12 songs, was completed in 12 days — one song per day. Stryper, in general, puts out a new album every two years, almost like clockwork.
“During the pandemic was our last album, which was called Even the Devil Believes,” Sweet said. “Literally we started on that right when the pandemic started a few years ago, and then when we got through that, we started having health issues and what not, had to overcome that. That’s when we started on this album. We try to do an album every two years, a Stryper album, and then on the years in between, I do solo albums and/or other projects. Like right now I’m working on a Sweet Lynch album with George Lynch of Dokken.”
Sweet said it matters a great deal that he creates new music. When he gets in front of a crowd, he loves playing the classic tunes, like “Soldiers Under Command,” “Free,” “Always There for You” and “Calling on You,” but he needs new music as well. In fact, he can’t quite understand the “classic” bands who decide to forego new records.
“It’s hard for me to wrap my brain around that,” he said. “I don’t mean any disrespect to those artists, but why would you ever stop creating music because that’s who you are, that’s what put you where you are, and that’s what keeps you going — at least, I’m speaking for myself. That’s what makes me passionate about what I do is to be able to create, produce and write new music. I don’t understand that. This is our 14th studio album, and with that being said, take into consideration the fact that we went our separate ways and broke up from ‘92 to 2005. So if we had been recording during that period, we might be looking at 24 albums or more, who knows. I love to write. When I was in the band Boston briefly, I got tagged with the nickname Tigger. Some people called me the Energizer Bunny as well because I just don’t stop. You’d think I’m on drugs, and I’m not. It’s all drug-free. I just have this endless amount of energy. I drive everyone around me crazy because I just don’t stop. Someday I will, and hopefully that day won’t come soon enough.”
Stryper is sometimes coined a Christian heavy metal band because of the religious beliefs of the members and the lyrical subjects of their songs, but Sweet doesn’t seem too interested in labels and focuses more on rocking out. When he’s writing today he believes his compositions and lyrics are in line with the early days of the band, when they were releasing the albums Soldiers Under Command, To Hell With the Devil and In God We Trust.
“I think I’ve gotten better at songwriting in terms of knowing how to structure songs and arrange songs, for sure, but I don’t venture too far away from who I am as a songwriter,” Sweet said. “A lot of people say, oh, we’ve got to get creative and try new things, and sometimes that’s really shooting yourself in the foot because you’ve got to take into consideration the fans. And the fans put you there based on a certain style of song and sound. If you go too far away from that, you’re going to alienate your fan base, for sure. We did that to a degree back in ‘05 with an album called Reborn. It was really a solo album that was a lot more modern, and it had more of a ‘90s modern kind of sound to it. Some fans loved it; some fans hated it. But I feel that we came full circle with the album No More Hell to Pay in 2013, and we found ourselves again. It’s more of that classic Stryper sound mixed with modern elements.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Stryper’s new singles are “See No Evil, Hear No Evil” and “Rise to the Call” off their new album, which is expected later this year. Click here for more information.
