In a recent interview with Metal Pilgrim, Michael Sweet criticized metal bands that don’t release new music.
“Yeah, and you know a lot of bands just rely on their back catalog. And they play those songs over and over and over and over again. And they don’t have a lot of new material,” the Stryper frontman said.
He added, “And I think what happens is they lose the passion, they lose the motivation and the drive, or they feel that it’s not worth it to create new music in this music world that we live in right now. I feel the exact opposite. You got into music for the love of it, because you just love what you do.”
“And you need to retain that until you’re gone from this earth as a musician. If you lose that, that passion, then you really need to re-evaluate. Should you be doing it still? Should you stop? Should you go get a regular job at McDonald’s?” Sweet shared. “All these things need to be taken into consideration. You’ve got to keep your passion. You have to.”
Sweet doesn’t want to rely on their old songs with Stryper. The band recently released their new album, ‘When We Were Kings.’ “We haven’t changed our sound. That’s the whole point, is not to,” the singer told the What Else? With Corey Mann podcast in August.
He continued, “We still have the same sound. We try to modernize it here and there and add little twists and turns along the way to unexpectedly surprise you, but we’re still Stryper. You still hear the new album, any song on the new album, and go, ‘That’s Stryper.'”
“But we’ve definitely gotten heavier as we’ve gotten older, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” the vocalist also noted. “It’s not forced. We’re not trying to do it. It’s just a natural progression. And we’re really happy with where we’re at as a band. But no, we have not changed our sound, other than just trying to still be relevant in 2024 and not sound like 1986.”
Stryper’s 40th-anniversary tour continues in North America. Their next show is on September 19 in Anderson, Indiana. They will keep performing in October and November.
