Michael Sweet explains why he mainly only plays guitar on Iconic’s debut album
Photo by Christopher Carroll ROCK Photography
Michael Sweet explains why he mainly only plays guitar on Iconic’s debut album
Photo by Christopher Carroll ROCK Photography
Stryper frontman Michael Sweet was recently interviewed by Andrew DiCecco for Vinyl Writer Music. Sweet was promoting Iconic‘s debut album Second Skin, which will be released via Frontiers Music Srl on June 17, 2022. The new “supergroup” consists of Nathan James (Inglorious) on vocals, Sweet (Stryper, Sweet & Lynch) on guitar and vocals, Joel Hoekstra (Whitesnake, ex-Night Ranger) on guitar, Marco Mendoza (ex-The Dead Daisies) on bass and Tommy Aldridge (Whitesnake, ex-Ozzy Osbourne) on drums.
In terms of what led to the formation of Iconic, Sweet indicated: “Basically, Serafino [Perugino], who owns Frontiers [Records], reached out to me and was talking about putting together a band with Joel [Hoekstra] and myself, and he wanted to use Nathan [James] as the singer. Which was great, because I’ve been wanting to kind of do something where I just play guitar for quite a while. So, it was really perfect that it worked out like that. And we ended up getting Tommy [Aldridge] and Marco [Mendoza] as well. It’s pretty much, for the most part, the Whitesnake band, and then add me to the mix, and Nathan as the vocalist, who obviously has a similar style to old-school Coverdale. That’s exactly what we went for in the style; the production, the songwriting, arrangements, and whatnot.”
With respect to what he considers to be the musical blueprint for Iconic, Sweet opined: “It’s definitely a little bit more blues-oriented, which obviously is what Whitesnake is all about and always has been. Stryper’s not really a blues-oriented band; I mean, we’ve done some songs over the years that are more in that vein, but for the most part, we’re more of a melodic metal band. You know, it’s just really cool, because the Iconic album definitely has more blues influence in some of the riffs and songs themselves. And obviously, with a guy like Nathan, he’s gonna bring that to the table, too; he’s got a little bit more of a bluesy, soulful approach. It makes it really cool. Like I said, it takes you back to those 1987 Whitesnake days in its glory, and those were some memorable times musically.”
You can read the rest of the interview with Michael Sweet at Vinyl Writer Music‘s website.
Iconic‘s “Nowhere To Run” video: