Michael Sweet reveals Stryper lost fans due to “controversial” title ‘God Damn Evil’ for prior album
Michael Sweet reveals Stryper lost fans due to “controversial” title ‘God Damn Evil’ for prior album
Stryper frontman Michael Sweet was recently interviewed by Richie for the Focus On Metal podcast. The Christian rockers released a new studio album titled Even The Devil Believes via Frontiers Music Srl earlier this month.
On whether Stryper deliberately chose a less controversial album title after getting some push back for the title God Damn Evil from their previous studio album released in 2018, Sweet indicated (as transcribed by the Focus On Metal podcast wight slight edits):
“Well, first of all we never try to choose a controversial album title. People think we do, that we try to be controversial to turn heads. We’re really not, we are about making people think in a logical and sensible way. It’s not just “Let’s call the album God Damn Evil so people can go what!?”. That’s not how it works. This album Even The Devil Believes, yes, we did purposely choose an album title that wouldn’t be so controversial. We took so much flak for the last album title and we lost some fans and people wrote to us and said we are no longer a fan and I’m thinking wow even after you have read the lyrics, you know what we’re saying, you know what we mean and you’re not a fan anymore? It kind of blew my mind and very much surprised me but you can’t please everybody. We stand by that album title one million percent, we would not go back and change a thing ever but that being said we were a little more cautious with the album title this time around.”
In terms of having to reschedule his solo tour that he had planned with former TNT and Skid Row frontman Tony Harnell, and wanting to play his own solo material live, Sweet stated: “Yeah I have been. You know it’s one of those things, I have to stay humble and remind myself that Stryper takes precedence as it should. Stryper is the priority and I would never want to change that and I would never want a solo tour to take priority. That’s why I left Boston and I’ve had people say “What? Are you nuts? Are you on drugs? What’s wrong with you? Are you out of your mind? You left Boston!”. I left Boston because it started taking precedence over Stryper and Stryper is my baby band, It’s the priority. If there’s a time when Tony and I can go out and do this tour and it doesn’t affect or take away from Stryper, then it’s going to happen. Obviously the pandemic changed everything. It would have happened already had it not been for the pandemic. It’s sad because there are so many great solo songs.”
You can listen to the interview with Michael Sweet via Focus On Metal‘s website.