Hitting Australian shores later this month (25th Melbourne, 26th Sydney & 28th Brisbane) are one of the more famous hard rock bands to exist over the last 25 years.  In fact, Stryper are headed out to Australia as part of their 25th Anniversary tour.  From the bands origins on L.A’s Susnet Strip, they have gone on to sell over 8 million albums.

Having released a brand new album “Murder By Pride” last year, which was a return to the classic Stryper sound, the band has proven they are still at the top of their game.  In recent months they have been busy recording their new album, a collection of cover songs from some of the bands which they have drawn influence in a musical sense, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Van Halen, Kansas....not exactly the types of bands you would expect from a Christian rock band?

Stryper return to Australia, more than 20 years since they created euphoric scenes.  This time it will once again feature the original lineup, not to mention new yellow and black outfits, which are almost just as distinctive as the bands music itself!

We were lucky enough to snare some time for a quick chat to the bands lead singer, Michael Sweet to talk about the upcoming tour and the forthcoming album “The Covering”.

* Tickets for the upcoming shows are available from www.justsayrock.com.au

It’s your 25th Anniversary and in a few weeks you will be headed downunder to play a few shows, with the original Stryper line-up.  What can we expect as far as setlist etc goes?  Will we see the 2 sets that I believe you have been doing already on the 25th Anniversary tour?

Yes it is, it's definitely comparable to the 25th Anniversary shows we have done during 2009 through the US, but not exactly the same setlist.  We are rehearsed in that setlist so it's very difficult for us at this point in time without a two or three week rehearsal period to change from that.  We will eventually however do exactly that when later in the year we will be touring on the back of our new album "The Covering", we are going to be doing a lot of songs from that album as well as from the Stryper catalogue as well.  

Can we expect any songs from your latest album "Murder By Pride"?

Absolutely, we will be doing the title track and “Four Leaf Clover” and we may through in the Boston cover "Peace Of Mind".  That album is a record we are very proud of and we enjoy playing that material very much!

What are your memories of your Australian tour some 20 odd years ago?

Well I don't say this because I am doing an interview with you and trying to suck up to you in anyway, shape or form haha....but I definitely hold Australia in very high regards.  It's probably one of the top three places I have ever been to in the world.  I have only been once, but it just felt so comfortable to be there.  The only real way to describe it is that it didn't feel foreign to me.  I didn't feel like I was in a foreign country, it felt like I was at home you know?  It was such an amazing trip and it's just so sad that for whatever reason we just haven't been able to get back.  To think that tour was over twenty years ago now is just mind boggling!

There was just something special about Australia on a few different levels.  We related to the people, not to say we don't relate to other crowds in the countries we play in, but there was something unique about the Australian fans.  I don't know whether it was the personalities or the way you guys view music, but it really left an impression on us.  We ate some amazing food and we loved the weather.  Everything was picture perfect!  But granted this time we are coming during your winter, but you know we are just really, really excited to be coming back.  It's been in the works for such a long, long, long time, but thank god, here we are, we are coming and we are excited!

You are about to release your new album The Covering... a selection of rock songs that inspired the musical side of Stryper.  What led to the motivation of recording this album and where did you start as far as selecting the ultimate track listing?

There were actually a few things that led to this album.  Firstly we have played covers during our sets on and off since the days way back in 1990-91 Against The Law tour when we were playing ‘On Fire’ by Van Halen and the song always went over well.  Van Halen is a huge influence of ours.  Then on this last tour we started adding ‘Breaking The Law’ by Judas Priest to the setlist, who are another huge influence on us as well.  When you think of Stryper a Christian rock band, you just don't think of bands like Judas Priest, Van Halen, Iron Maiden., Ozzy Osbourne...most people would be like whoa wait a minute, Stryper is a Christian band how can they be influenced by bands like that?  Historically speaking when you go back to when Stryper was evolving and we were called Roxx Regime cutting our teeth as musicians in the LA club scene and what not, those are the bands and the songs that made us who we are. I would sit in the garage studio and play over and over to Van Halen songs.  We were a cover band way back as Roxx Regime.

This is quite a different album for you, in that it is an album that doesn’t espouse your religious beliefs like past Stryper releases etc.  How do you expect the album to be perceived?

These are the songs and the bands who musically speaking made us who we are today.  We felt like, you know what....we should let people know this and make people aware of how we became the band that we are today on a musical level.  It's due to these bands and these songs.  But the controversial side of this is the fact that these bands aren't Christian bands, and we are.  It makes people raise their eyebrows just a bit.  We wanted to in a not a snub our noses kind of way, but we wanted to prove to people, the naysayers or the haters if you wanted to call them that.  Whatever the kind of people are who don't like Stryper or always kind of written us off and said these guys suck because they are a Christian band.  A lot of these comments come from people who haven't even seen us before and have no idea what they are taking about.

Judging from the samples I have heard on your website, there is some killer work on there, the band has never sounded better!  

We basically wanted to make this record and do it well, put our own spin on the songs and make people go, these guys are covering Maiden and Zeppelin and Van Halen, songs that are very difficult to cover and they pulled it off.  It was kind of fun doing the record with that in mind.  We enjoyed playing these songs and performing them and we look forward to hopefully getting out and playing them live and maybe some of these people that have disliked the band will hear one of these samples or even better come see us live and say hey "these guys don't suck afterall, I take back what I said”.  We take lot’s of pride in what we do and we work our butts off trying to perfect our skills and hopefully that shows from time to time you know!

In modern day music, particularly within the hardcore scene there are bands such as Anberlin and As I lay Dying that publicly know for their Christian beliefs etc…has there every been any acknowledgement from bands in the current day and age who cite Stryper as in influence in this regard?

Definitely, it comes around from time to time.  It's not daily that I hear comments, but it's often enough. When we were touring on the 05 tour we had a guy at the soundboard who was there and mouthing the words to every song and was obviously a big fan.  We found out later that night it was the drummer from Disturbed!  

I was working on my solo record "Truth" and my producer Bob Marlette invited one of his best friends to come in and whilst I recognised him I wasn't sure who he was...then later I found out it was Marilyn Mansons guitar player, John 5 who was a huge fan, he saw the band back in the day and even still has one of our Bibles!

Rob Halford even, we were playing in Canada in 1991 and we looked out in the crowd at someone that looked like Rob Halford who was drinking a drink and his head was bobbing and getting into the show and sure enough it was him.  So we invited him up on stage and we did “Breaking The Law” with him.  We find out as time goes on that there are a lot of people in the industry that are fans of the band.  

Steven Adler the drummer from Guns N Roses mentions us in his new book, he even used to come see us all the time back in the day.  

Before you go, 25 years Stryper has been going, any quick comments on the bands journey so far?

Being a Christian band has had it's limitations, but we were expecting that and were prepared for that from day one.  We knew it certainly wouldn't be easy and we had our fair share of persecution but we continue carrying that torch and as we just discussed above, we find there are a lot of closet Stryper fans scattered around!

Michael, thanks for your time and see you out here in Australia soon...

Thank you buddy, I appreciate it, look forward to seeing you in a few weeks and god bless!