In a new interview with The Pick’s Shaggy, Michael Sweet talked about Stryper’s 40th anniversary tour and a potential show with Slayer. When asked about the planned show with Slayer in 2006, considering Slayer’s known Satanic themes and Stryper’s positive message, Sweet explained whether he was hesitant to schedule the show.
“No, it was the exact opposite. I was really excited about scheduling it. I couldn’t schedule it quick enough,” he admitted. “We had the opportunity and I said, ‘Yeah do it, boom, book it’, and the way I always look at that is it’s an opportunity for us to go and play before a crowd that we’ve never played to, and to maybe win some of those people over, maybe win them all over. I’ve seen it happen time and time again. And we were excited about about that. And then what happened was Slayer pulled out. And when Slayer pulled out it made no sense to me to go and do the show, because it was kind of defeating the purpose of doing the show, so we pulled out as well.”
“I bet you if we did a show with Slayer, or even a small tour with Slayer, I bet you both bands and both audiences would be very surprised, pleasantly. I think it would be fun, and I think it would work in in a very odd way, but I think it would work,” the frontman added.
Though Sweet also shared his thoughts about Slayer earlier, it wasn’t a comment similar to his recent one. “We’ve been mocked from the very beginning,” he continued. “If we sang about girls or Satan, we would have been the cool kids. But we’re not, because we sing about Jesus,” the rocker said in an interview this August.
“Metallica and Slayer — no disrespect to those guys, I would never wanna be like those guys,” Sweet added. “Not in a million years. Yeah, [Metallica are] playing stadiums. Who cares? I didn’t get in this for the money. I didn’t get in this to play stadiums. I mean, obviously, there’s a rush that comes with that when you play to a big crowd and it’s electrifying. But my point is that’s not what we’re doing this for. So we don’t long to be Metallica or Slayer, and we’re not that style. I grew up on [Iron] Maiden and Judas Priest. That’s metal to me. Those are the true metal bands.”
Stryper has just released a new track titled ‘Betrayed By Love’ from their twelfth studio album, ‘When We Were Kings.’ The single was released with a music video.