Michael Sweet recently revealed on Rock Talk with Emily that he had asked C.C. DeVille to join Stryper, but the Poison guitarist turned down the offer.
“That is true, yeah. Can you believe that?” Sweet said when asked if it was true that DeVille was considered for the band during their search for another guitarist in the early years.
Sweet explained how he met DeVille, “I was standing on Sunset Boulevard in front of Gazzarri’s, and this guy comes up, and we run into each other and I’m like, ‘This guy’s cool. He’s got a cool look and he’s fun.’ And I consider myself to maybe be fun as well.”
“We hit it off and we started talking, started laughing, and he was out from New York looking for a better way, trying to break, like every other musician at that time. A lot of people were moving to L.A. L.A. was the hot spot. Not Nashville and not Austin. It was L.A. That’s where you wanted to be if you wanted to make it,” he continued.
Sweet then shared, “C.C. came out and we became friends. We eventually invited him down to the garage in La Mirada about 45 minutes from Hollywood. We jammed and we were actually considering from both sides forming, and the thing that broke, that made him make the decision to say no was the whole yellow and black.”
“That’s what I recall. You might get a different version from him if you interviewed him, but I remember him specifically saying, ‘I’m not into the yellow and black. I’m more into pink and purple.’ He actually said that, and that was kind of what kept us from moving forward. We also jammed and auditioned Doug Aldrich about joining the band as well,” Sweet added.
Previously, Sweet spoke about how Stryper might have worked with DeVille, stating, “I don’t know. C.C. believes in God. Spiritually and philosophically, I think it could’ve worked. But musically? I’m just not sure. What would Poison have sounded like with Oz on lead guitar? There was a real tight network of musicians around the Strip in that day, so there are all sorts of mutations that could have taken place. But C.C. wasn’t really into the yellow and black.”
Stryper is set to perform at the Rock Imperium Festival on June 27 next year and at Rock Fest Barcelona on June 29.
