Michael Sweet - "We were complete morons"

My thoughts on ATL:  I was super upset when it first came out.  I had been defending them to everybody that kept saying they were not a Christian band. It was all just a gimmick.  I told everyone they were the real deal.  Then ATL came out and their video had girls in it and everyone was saying to me, I told you so.  I was upset, because it did not help me defend them.  However, I bought the album, because I was a Stryper fan.  That is what we do, even when we don't like the decisions they make (aka dumb album titles, dumb album covers, and youtube video documentary videos acting like there were only three band members instead of four). I liked the album and the songs, except Lady (Hated it). Love Rock the Hell out of You!  I mis-interpreted the Against the Law song. I took it as they were against God.  I think many people did.  I agree with Michael that they were acting like morons during this time.  In all of their interviews back then they were acting like wannabe hardcore bad boys. It was laughable.  I cringe even today when I watch their interviews during this time.  I did not really come back around to them as a fan, until Can't Stop the Rock album. I chose not to go to a Stryper concert in my town, because I was mad at them. I walked into the restroom in the mall and two guys were in there painting their faces yellow and black about to go to the Stryper concert. I felt like I was missing out. This caused me to rethink my fandom ha.  Have been to more concerts than I can remember.  4 times on the GDE tour.  I do like that ATL had all four original members on them.  Tim was allowed to play on the album as well. It makes me laugh when Michael says they are in a better place on the GDE album. The lyrics come across to me as being bitter and angry on many of the songs.  Aka sorry (which is probably my favorite song on the album), You Don't even Know Me, and Own up all seem angry to me.  I own everything every put out by them solo or as a group.  Fallen and No More Hell to Pay were great albums.  I like songs on GDE, but overall I would rank ATL above it. I am happy they are still putting out music and will still buy everything. I buy almost all of their memorabilia I can find. I probably could open up a mini Stryper museum.  I have quite a bit of cool stuff I have collected from them over the years. Currently waiting on the devotional book as we speak.  However, I did not buy much stuff from the last album, cause I am not going to wear a shirt that has GDE on it.  This topic and the responses were interesting to me, so I thought I would chime in!  I really miss when this message board was super active. I used to post all the time.  Glad to see it is still going!  

Great post, strype53!

You know, you're right about the bitterness creeping into their music....

Not to defend Michael, but I will say that it has to be hard to deal with the people on social media like he has to. So many people attack him over every little thing, it's got to take its toll after a while.

Anyway..loved your comments. Thanks for the read.

Airola wrote:For me Against the Law was a disappointment. Not because of lyrics. Not because of the sound. Not because of their looks. I just didn't care for most of the songs.

I've always loved In God We Trust and I loved how that album had super catchy tunes almost constantly from the beginning to the end. There might've been some boring ones here and there but it had great songs in the beginning, in the middle and in the end. Against the Law only caught my attention with the last three songs. The eight songs before the last three did nothing for me. I think I've grown to like some of them but I don't really love any of them. The last three are amazing though and they redeem the whole album.

I love that album too. There was some cheese on it though for me that gets an instant skip. Come To The Everlife oh my gawd

strype53 wrote:My thoughts on ATL:  I was super upset when it first came out.  I had been defending them to everybody that kept saying they were not a Christian band. It was all just a gimmick.  I told everyone they were the real deal.  Then ATL came out and their video had girls in it and everyone was saying to me, I told you so.  I was upset, because it did not help me defend them.  However, I bought the album, because I was a Stryper fan.  That is what we do, even when we don't like the decisions they make (aka dumb album titles, dumb album covers, and youtube video documentary videos acting like there were only three band members instead of four). I liked the album and the songs, except Lady (Hated it). Love Rock the Hell out of You!  I mis-interpreted the Against the Law song. I took it as they were against God.  I think many people did.  I agree with Michael that they were acting like morons during this time.  In all of their interviews back then they were acting like wannabe hardcore bad boys. It was laughable.  I cringe even today when I watch their interviews during this time.  I did not really come back around to them as a fan, until Can't Stop the Rock album. I chose not to go to a Stryper concert in my town, because I was mad at them. I walked into the restroom in the mall and two guys were in there painting their faces yellow and black about to go to the Stryper concert. I felt like I was missing out. This caused me to rethink my fandom ha.  Have been to more concerts than I can remember.  4 times on the GDE tour.  I do like that ATL had all four original members on them.  Tim was allowed to play on the album as well. It makes me laugh when Michael says they are in a better place on the GDE album. The lyrics come across to me as being bitter and angry on many of the songs.  Aka sorry (which is probably my favorite song on the album), You Don't even Know Me, and Own up all seem angry to me.  I own everything every put out by them solo or as a group.  Fallen and No More Hell to Pay were great albums.  I like songs on GDE, but overall I would rank ATL above it. I am happy they are still putting out music and will still buy everything. I buy almost all of their memorabilia I can find. I probably could open up a mini Stryper museum.  I have quite a bit of cool stuff I have collected from them over the years. Currently waiting on the devotional book as we speak.  However, I did not buy much stuff from the last album, cause I am not going to wear a shirt that has GDE on it.  This topic and the responses were interesting to me, so I thought I would chime in!  I really miss when this message board was super active. I used to post all the time.  Glad to see it is still going!  

Oh wow I relate to this post of yours. I spent years defending Stryper to my Jesus only respects country and western gospel loving family and in the south every church was playing every video of Jeff Godwins and his anti Christian rock clap trap garbage he took to the zombies unable to think for themselves back in the day. I remember my cousin literally threw every Stryper cassette he had right out of his car onto the hwy when he put ATL in his player plus what I had so I took his Jeff Godwin Dancing With Demons book he bought blew my nose on it and threw it out the window it was a trying day that day lol. Man stupid kid's we where. My dad became relentless then it was a nightmare. But man could you imagine the kind of pressure musicians are under just to keep people happy. I wouldn't want the responsibility and I respect deeply those who can do it

Interviews from during this time:  They were acting like they were hardcore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeyK0CsiTQ4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKRnjcTJ7rI&list=RDDKRnjcTJ7rI&start_radio=1&t=9&t=9

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLoFSmYzes0

strype53 wrote:Interviews from during this time:  They were acting like they were hardcore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeyK0CsiTQ4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKRnjcTJ7rI&list=RDDKRnjcTJ7rI&start_radio=1&t=9&t=9

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLoFSmYzes0

The Rick Dees interview is interesting...

I had gotten into Christian rock / metal in 1980, but by 1989 I was starting to listen to just secular hair bands (which is why I missed bands like Crystavox the first time around). Stryper was the lone exception....but when ATL came out I was disappointed because it wasn't "Stryper-like". That was the last "Christian" album I bought for a couple of decades.

Anyway, I never knew they outright said they were "now a secular band."

Since they had started to party hard at that time, and since you can only serve one master, moving away from Christian music and the yellow and black (which symbolized their Christian roots) was inevitable.

Yet within a couple of years Michael would be appearing on TBN..lol

Bought4Life wrote:Great post, strype53!

You know, you're right about the bitterness creeping into their music....

Not to defend Michael, but I will say that it has to be hard to deal with the people on social media like he has to. So many people attack him over every little thing, it's got to take its toll after a while.
 

Including here at The Realm. No wonder I haven't seen him post here for awhile.
MS hasn't posted here since Mon Sep 12, 2016 9:43 am

oldschooldoom wrote:

Bought4Life wrote:Great post, strype53!

You know, you're right about the bitterness creeping into their music....

Not to defend Michael, but I will say that it has to be hard to deal with the people on social media like he has to. So many people attack him over every little thing, it's got to take its toll after a while.
 

Including here at The Realm. No wonder I haven't seen him post here for awhile.
MS hasn't posted here since Mon Sep 12, 2016 9:43 am

Yeah, there was a time when certain musicians would stop by and they would get a ton of negativity from the group.

I think the only one from that group who still pops in now and then is Ted.

We did have Joshua show up here a few months ago to go on a rant on several topics only to disappear. I shouldn't have posted that now he will come here and attack me and honestly I have never heard a single song of his and don't know much about him at all. I guess he did what he felt like he had to do.

Richard Lynch used to post as well haven't seen him on here in ages either.

Want Michael to come back? Have Cliffy post a Stryper link and he'll be back

Personally, I think ATL still had Christian themes, it was just more subtle. They were dealing with themes that Christians had to deal with in their lives (for example, Two Time Woman was about Adultery (or at least infidelity), Two Bodies was about Marriage, Not That Kind of Guy was about virginity). If anything, it's more "mature" than their 80s albums.

MikeInFla wrote:We did have Joshua show up here a few months ago to go on a rant on several topics only to disappear. I shouldn't have posted that now he will come here and attack me and honestly I have never heard a single song of his and don't know much about him at all. I guess he did what he felt like he had to do.

He's like Beetlejuice...he only shows up when he's mentioned 3x by the same person

I remember the days of all the artists posting on here back in the day.  I guess Facebook keeps that from happening.  Or maybe they lost their motivation when the old Christian Metal Forum closed and it had to be restarted and they lost all of their post counts they had built up.  Ha I hated starting over!