Chords for Stryper The Rise and Fall of The Band
Tempo:
134.15 bpm
Chords used:
D
G
A
Bb
Dm
Tuning:Standard Tuning (EADGBE)Capo:+0fret
Start Jamming...
I've done quite a few videos on bands from the Sunset Strip and I've got more in the pipeline.
When I think of the Sunset Strip I think of debauchery and having a good time,
but Striper seemed to be the antithesis of everything going on.
They would not only be
the biggest selling Christian band of the time, but the biggest band from Orange County as well.
Today let's focus on the early years of Striper up until their breakup in the early 90s and how
they brought religion to the Sunset Strip and beyond.
[D]
[Db] Before we can [A] really talk about Striper
we have to look at how religion and popular music went hand in [Bb] hand leading [A] up to the 1980s.
It all began in churches with gospel music that was [D] heavily influenced by the blues
which first [Bbm] became popular during the roaring [A] 20s.
Of course with anything that's popular in music,
[Em] record labels came [D] calling signing numerous gospel singers.
By the middle of the 20th century [Bb] this
style of gospel [B] music started influencing the big artists of the day [A] including [Am] Elvis, Johnny Cash,
and Hank [A] Williams.
Popular musicians at the time typically had several gospel numbers [D] they would
perform and by the 60s psychedelic rock acts influenced by religion soon [E] sprouted up including
Larry Norman [Dm] and All Save Freak Band.
By the 80s though country music started to [F] adopt more
religious undertones while rock and roll seemed to stray further away [G] with punk taking aim at
organized religion.
[D] Soon enough [G] metal bands including [D] Merciful Fate, [G] Wasp, and Venom [E] would
become the targets of religious groups as well [A] as the PMRC for corrupting America's youth.
[D]
That's
where Striper came in.
Hailing from Orange [Dm] County, Striper was formed by two [G] brothers in 1983,
vocalist and singer [Bb] Michael and his drumming [D] brother Robert Sweet.
Originally calling [G] themselves
Rocks and then [Eb] Rocks Regime [G] after someone else was found to have [D] the name, the band became a common
[Eb] sight around LA's hottest clubs at the time including the Whisky O' Go [Ab]-Go, the Troubadour,
and Guzzaris.
[F]
[Bb] It was at those [G] gigs the band could frequently be seen covering the Judas Priest song
Breaking the Law.
The brothers would see musicians come and go in their band in the early years
including future Poison [D] guitarist C.C. DeVille.
He eventually left the group after disagreements
over the band's onstage fashion.
The band would soon [G] find stability [D] with the addition of guitarist
Oz Fox and bassist Tim Gaines.
The band would catch the attention of Bill and Wes Hine who were
co-founders of Green World Distribution who owned Enigma Records.
The label loved the sound of the
band only requesting they change their name.
The pair of brothers soon changed their name to Striper
using a Y instead of an I so people wouldn't accidentally refer to them as Stripper.
The name refers to the lashings or stripes Jesus got from the Romans.
Soon enough the band would
adopt the colours of yellow and black and even use a passage from the bible in the band's logo.
Striper would even serve as an acronym [Bbm] standing for salvation through redemption, [A] yielding peace,
encouragement and righteousness.
What's funny though [Bb] is that Enigma [A]
Records didn't even know
was a religious band.
[Am] Their live [Db] shows and demos had the vocals [Bb] so muddled they [A] couldn't even make
out what the lyrics said.
It wasn't until they [D] got into the studio for their first EP in 1984
that they finally realized that Striper was a Christian band.
Producer Ron Gowdy recalled in
the book Nothing But a Good Time, They hid the whole [G] Jesus thing from us for a while.
[D] Wes Hine who signed the band recalled in the same book, The lyrics [Dm] were a lot cleaner in the studio
[D] than on the bad cassette dub they'd given us.
We're listening in one line as Jesus is my way.
We look at each other and we look at Robert and Michael.
[A] There's silence and we say,
are you guys Christians?
[D] They're like yes.
[Db] But religion wasn't always a part of the [A] band's music.
In the early days they were like any other band from the Sunset Strip.
[Bb] Frontman [A] Michael Sweet
would tell [Db] the Washington Post in [Am] 1985 how religion found its [D] way into the band's music
revealing how the band [A] was confronted by a friend who said, If you guys really give yourselves back
to the Lord you'll go straight to the [D] top.
We weren't really thinking of that kind of success
but we knew we were Christians that hadn't been living the [E] part, so we decided to [D] take his advice.
We looked [A] pretty much the same as we do today and the music was [D] pretty much the same.
All [A] we had to
do was change a few words here [C] and a few words there [D] and everything fit perfectly he recalled.
The band would even [Dm] wear their religious beliefs on stage with drummer Robert Sweet having the
words Jesus Christ rocks emblazoned on the back of his drum throne.
[G] In addition to [F] that the band
became [G] famous for throwing [D] bibles into the [G] audience, but not all members of their faith
were happy to have the band on their side.
According to the Washington Post it [D] wasn't
uncommon to sometimes see religious groups [G] pick up their shows.
[D] Robert Sweet would tell the same
newspaper, There's always resistance.
The only reason it's there is that some people have never
seen us in concert.
Throwing [F] bibles to the crowd, some people think that's disrespectful.
[G] That's not
why we do [D] it.
We think it's [C] great to get the good [D] book out there.
Sweet would go on [G] to say the band
frequently [Eb] ran out of bibles in shows.
It would be one of the band's fiercest critics, a woman named
Darren Hinton who was part of a ministry called Eagle's Nest.
[Ab] She believed the [G] band was trying to
[Eb] profit off of God's name, but it wasn't [G] until she saw the band open for Bon Jovi in the early 80s
[Fm] that her opinion of them [Eb]
changed.
She was impressed by the crowd's reaction to the band and soon
became the group's first manager [F] and even loaned them $100 [E],000 to help produce their first EP.
[Ab] Their first release for Enigma [D] would be the EP Yellow and Black Attack in 1984.
The EP would be turned into a full-length album in 1986 with a few songs added,
following the success of their 1985 album Soldiers Under Command which went gold.
They would follow
that up with 1986's To Hell With The Devil which became the group's biggest selling record going
platinum and it was the first Christian rock album to sell over a million copies.
The album produced
three huge singles with Honestly, Calling On You and Free all of which got heavy rotation on MTV
and were some of the most requested videos at the time.
Honestly would be the group's only single
to be a top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.
While [Bbm] Christian Radio initially was
hesitant to embrace the [A] band, they eventually warmed up to Striper, but the [Bb] same couldn't be
said [A] for Christian TV who frontman Michael Sweet believed [Bb] didn't like rock and roll [D] in general.
Not that it really [Bb] mattered though because MTV [A] embraced the band and Striper even made an
appearance on the 80s sitcom Golden Girls.
It would be ironic that despite wearing religion
on their sleeves they didn't appreciate the label of being a Christian band.
It would be [D] strange
because it was that angle that helped Striper succeed.
The media loved the angle of a Christian
heavy metal band and magazines from Forbes all the way to adult men's magazines couldn't resist not
covering the band.
Michael Sweet would push back though against the Washington Post revealing
heavy metal bands don't usually have ballads, don't usually have four-part harmonies and don't
usually throw bibles into the audience and when anyone [Am] says Christian band that immediately sounds
boring [D] 15 years behind [Bb] the times [E] I choose to call it [D] god rock you'd say.
The band [Bbm] even rejected the
idea of [Bb] only doing bills that had other Christian bands on them as they felt their message would only
get to those [A] people who were already [Bbm] part of the same tribe.
[D] The band frequently toured with other
hair metal acts including Rat.
Striper followed up to Hell With The Devil with 1988's A God We Trust
which went gold selling over half a million copies, but by [A] 1990 the band's [Am] career took a different
turn when they [D] released the album Against The Law.
Striper would change their [A] image, their lyrical
[Dm] themes and even stop throwing bibles into the audience [E] and would become more secular.
The band
wanted to do something different and was tired of being [D] typecast as a Christian rock band
and not being taken [G] seriously by a large [F] segment of the rock [G] community.
That's [Dm] not to say the
members [G] lost all their religious convictions, they still wanted [E] to spread the word of [G] God,
but [Db] only to those who seek [Em] it out with frontman Michael Sweet telling the [G] LA Times
We're [F] going to work in [G] some of our old tunes [D] that tell about God and Christ.
We're not going to be
ashamed of that and run from that.
If they want to know about God they can come talk to us about it.
In some ways the attention [G] Striper got as a Christian band worked to our advantage.
In other ways it was a disadvantage [Dm] as far as being labeled the Christian boys of [G] rock and roll.
There were people who might have been into us if they hadn't heard the term [D] Christian band,
but it turned them off he'd [Eb] say.
Some of those [Gm] who were turned off included the band's long-time
wanted [G] Striper to stay with their Christian rock image.
In fact the title against the law Sweet
[Ab] would claim was aimed at those who wanted to shape the [Dm] band according to an image or law of their own.
[Eb] It was also around this time the band saw a big change in management hiring the [Ab] company
Gold Mountain [C] Management headed by [A] future Nirvana manager Danny Goldberg.
[D] Previously
the band had been managed by the Sweet Brothers mother and the band would also sign a new
recording contract with Hollywood Records after their old label Enigma folded.
This
change in direction proved to be unsuccessful as against the law wouldn't even go gold in America.
By January of 1992 frontman Michael Sweet would leave the band to pursue a solo career
leaving the other members to pick up the pieces.
Sweet would tell the LA Times following his
departure.
It was a lot of things tied up together.
I don't know if I've gotten old or what but I'm not
a metal guy anymore.
I could have stayed in Striper and forced a more mainstream [A] direction but nobody
would have been happy.
Without a lead singer the band would receive [Db] some more bad [Bb] news when their
record label [A] dropped them after only one release.
The band tried to [Bb] audition some new [A] singers and
played a few shows with some stand-ins [Bb] before guitarist [A] Oz Fox took over vocals.
But by [Bb] 1993
the band disbanded [Am] as other members pursued different [G] musical projects.
[D] But in 1999 the band
would reform at the Striper Expo.
From 2005 onward Striper would put out frequent new releases all of
which would show up on the Billboard album charts showing that they still had a significant
following.
However there would prove to be a pretty ugly falling out between bassist Tim Gaines
and the other members of the band following his departure in 2017.
That does it for today's video
guys thanks for watching.
Be sure to hit the like button and subscribe.
I'll see you again on rock
and roll [N] true stories.
When I think of the Sunset Strip I think of debauchery and having a good time,
but Striper seemed to be the antithesis of everything going on.
They would not only be
the biggest selling Christian band of the time, but the biggest band from Orange County as well.
Today let's focus on the early years of Striper up until their breakup in the early 90s and how
they brought religion to the Sunset Strip and beyond.
[D]
[Db] Before we can [A] really talk about Striper
we have to look at how religion and popular music went hand in [Bb] hand leading [A] up to the 1980s.
It all began in churches with gospel music that was [D] heavily influenced by the blues
which first [Bbm] became popular during the roaring [A] 20s.
Of course with anything that's popular in music,
[Em] record labels came [D] calling signing numerous gospel singers.
By the middle of the 20th century [Bb] this
style of gospel [B] music started influencing the big artists of the day [A] including [Am] Elvis, Johnny Cash,
and Hank [A] Williams.
Popular musicians at the time typically had several gospel numbers [D] they would
perform and by the 60s psychedelic rock acts influenced by religion soon [E] sprouted up including
Larry Norman [Dm] and All Save Freak Band.
By the 80s though country music started to [F] adopt more
religious undertones while rock and roll seemed to stray further away [G] with punk taking aim at
organized religion.
[D] Soon enough [G] metal bands including [D] Merciful Fate, [G] Wasp, and Venom [E] would
become the targets of religious groups as well [A] as the PMRC for corrupting America's youth.
[D]
That's
where Striper came in.
Hailing from Orange [Dm] County, Striper was formed by two [G] brothers in 1983,
vocalist and singer [Bb] Michael and his drumming [D] brother Robert Sweet.
Originally calling [G] themselves
Rocks and then [Eb] Rocks Regime [G] after someone else was found to have [D] the name, the band became a common
[Eb] sight around LA's hottest clubs at the time including the Whisky O' Go [Ab]-Go, the Troubadour,
and Guzzaris.
[F]
[Bb] It was at those [G] gigs the band could frequently be seen covering the Judas Priest song
Breaking the Law.
The brothers would see musicians come and go in their band in the early years
including future Poison [D] guitarist C.C. DeVille.
He eventually left the group after disagreements
over the band's onstage fashion.
The band would soon [G] find stability [D] with the addition of guitarist
Oz Fox and bassist Tim Gaines.
The band would catch the attention of Bill and Wes Hine who were
co-founders of Green World Distribution who owned Enigma Records.
The label loved the sound of the
band only requesting they change their name.
The pair of brothers soon changed their name to Striper
using a Y instead of an I so people wouldn't accidentally refer to them as Stripper.
The name refers to the lashings or stripes Jesus got from the Romans.
Soon enough the band would
adopt the colours of yellow and black and even use a passage from the bible in the band's logo.
Striper would even serve as an acronym [Bbm] standing for salvation through redemption, [A] yielding peace,
encouragement and righteousness.
What's funny though [Bb] is that Enigma [A]
Records didn't even know
was a religious band.
[Am] Their live [Db] shows and demos had the vocals [Bb] so muddled they [A] couldn't even make
out what the lyrics said.
It wasn't until they [D] got into the studio for their first EP in 1984
that they finally realized that Striper was a Christian band.
Producer Ron Gowdy recalled in
the book Nothing But a Good Time, They hid the whole [G] Jesus thing from us for a while.
[D] Wes Hine who signed the band recalled in the same book, The lyrics [Dm] were a lot cleaner in the studio
[D] than on the bad cassette dub they'd given us.
We're listening in one line as Jesus is my way.
We look at each other and we look at Robert and Michael.
[A] There's silence and we say,
are you guys Christians?
[D] They're like yes.
[Db] But religion wasn't always a part of the [A] band's music.
In the early days they were like any other band from the Sunset Strip.
[Bb] Frontman [A] Michael Sweet
would tell [Db] the Washington Post in [Am] 1985 how religion found its [D] way into the band's music
revealing how the band [A] was confronted by a friend who said, If you guys really give yourselves back
to the Lord you'll go straight to the [D] top.
We weren't really thinking of that kind of success
but we knew we were Christians that hadn't been living the [E] part, so we decided to [D] take his advice.
We looked [A] pretty much the same as we do today and the music was [D] pretty much the same.
All [A] we had to
do was change a few words here [C] and a few words there [D] and everything fit perfectly he recalled.
The band would even [Dm] wear their religious beliefs on stage with drummer Robert Sweet having the
words Jesus Christ rocks emblazoned on the back of his drum throne.
[G] In addition to [F] that the band
became [G] famous for throwing [D] bibles into the [G] audience, but not all members of their faith
were happy to have the band on their side.
According to the Washington Post it [D] wasn't
uncommon to sometimes see religious groups [G] pick up their shows.
[D] Robert Sweet would tell the same
newspaper, There's always resistance.
The only reason it's there is that some people have never
seen us in concert.
Throwing [F] bibles to the crowd, some people think that's disrespectful.
[G] That's not
why we do [D] it.
We think it's [C] great to get the good [D] book out there.
Sweet would go on [G] to say the band
frequently [Eb] ran out of bibles in shows.
It would be one of the band's fiercest critics, a woman named
Darren Hinton who was part of a ministry called Eagle's Nest.
[Ab] She believed the [G] band was trying to
[Eb] profit off of God's name, but it wasn't [G] until she saw the band open for Bon Jovi in the early 80s
[Fm] that her opinion of them [Eb]
changed.
She was impressed by the crowd's reaction to the band and soon
became the group's first manager [F] and even loaned them $100 [E],000 to help produce their first EP.
[Ab] Their first release for Enigma [D] would be the EP Yellow and Black Attack in 1984.
The EP would be turned into a full-length album in 1986 with a few songs added,
following the success of their 1985 album Soldiers Under Command which went gold.
They would follow
that up with 1986's To Hell With The Devil which became the group's biggest selling record going
platinum and it was the first Christian rock album to sell over a million copies.
The album produced
three huge singles with Honestly, Calling On You and Free all of which got heavy rotation on MTV
and were some of the most requested videos at the time.
Honestly would be the group's only single
to be a top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.
While [Bbm] Christian Radio initially was
hesitant to embrace the [A] band, they eventually warmed up to Striper, but the [Bb] same couldn't be
said [A] for Christian TV who frontman Michael Sweet believed [Bb] didn't like rock and roll [D] in general.
Not that it really [Bb] mattered though because MTV [A] embraced the band and Striper even made an
appearance on the 80s sitcom Golden Girls.
It would be ironic that despite wearing religion
on their sleeves they didn't appreciate the label of being a Christian band.
It would be [D] strange
because it was that angle that helped Striper succeed.
The media loved the angle of a Christian
heavy metal band and magazines from Forbes all the way to adult men's magazines couldn't resist not
covering the band.
Michael Sweet would push back though against the Washington Post revealing
heavy metal bands don't usually have ballads, don't usually have four-part harmonies and don't
usually throw bibles into the audience and when anyone [Am] says Christian band that immediately sounds
boring [D] 15 years behind [Bb] the times [E] I choose to call it [D] god rock you'd say.
The band [Bbm] even rejected the
idea of [Bb] only doing bills that had other Christian bands on them as they felt their message would only
get to those [A] people who were already [Bbm] part of the same tribe.
[D] The band frequently toured with other
hair metal acts including Rat.
Striper followed up to Hell With The Devil with 1988's A God We Trust
which went gold selling over half a million copies, but by [A] 1990 the band's [Am] career took a different
turn when they [D] released the album Against The Law.
Striper would change their [A] image, their lyrical
[Dm] themes and even stop throwing bibles into the audience [E] and would become more secular.
The band
wanted to do something different and was tired of being [D] typecast as a Christian rock band
and not being taken [G] seriously by a large [F] segment of the rock [G] community.
That's [Dm] not to say the
members [G] lost all their religious convictions, they still wanted [E] to spread the word of [G] God,
but [Db] only to those who seek [Em] it out with frontman Michael Sweet telling the [G] LA Times
We're [F] going to work in [G] some of our old tunes [D] that tell about God and Christ.
We're not going to be
ashamed of that and run from that.
If they want to know about God they can come talk to us about it.
In some ways the attention [G] Striper got as a Christian band worked to our advantage.
In other ways it was a disadvantage [Dm] as far as being labeled the Christian boys of [G] rock and roll.
There were people who might have been into us if they hadn't heard the term [D] Christian band,
but it turned them off he'd [Eb] say.
Some of those [Gm] who were turned off included the band's long-time
wanted [G] Striper to stay with their Christian rock image.
In fact the title against the law Sweet
[Ab] would claim was aimed at those who wanted to shape the [Dm] band according to an image or law of their own.
[Eb] It was also around this time the band saw a big change in management hiring the [Ab] company
Gold Mountain [C] Management headed by [A] future Nirvana manager Danny Goldberg.
[D] Previously
the band had been managed by the Sweet Brothers mother and the band would also sign a new
recording contract with Hollywood Records after their old label Enigma folded.
This
change in direction proved to be unsuccessful as against the law wouldn't even go gold in America.
By January of 1992 frontman Michael Sweet would leave the band to pursue a solo career
leaving the other members to pick up the pieces.
Sweet would tell the LA Times following his
departure.
It was a lot of things tied up together.
I don't know if I've gotten old or what but I'm not
a metal guy anymore.
I could have stayed in Striper and forced a more mainstream [A] direction but nobody
would have been happy.
Without a lead singer the band would receive [Db] some more bad [Bb] news when their
record label [A] dropped them after only one release.
The band tried to [Bb] audition some new [A] singers and
played a few shows with some stand-ins [Bb] before guitarist [A] Oz Fox took over vocals.
But by [Bb] 1993
the band disbanded [Am] as other members pursued different [G] musical projects.
[D] But in 1999 the band
would reform at the Striper Expo.
From 2005 onward Striper would put out frequent new releases all of
which would show up on the Billboard album charts showing that they still had a significant
following.
However there would prove to be a pretty ugly falling out between bassist Tim Gaines
and the other members of the band following his departure in 2017.
That does it for today's video
guys thanks for watching.
Be sure to hit the like button and subscribe.
I'll see you again on rock
and roll [N] true stories.
Key:
D
G
A
Bb
Dm
D
G
A
I've done quite a few videos on bands from the Sunset Strip and I've got more in the pipeline.
When I think of the Sunset Strip I think of debauchery and having a good time,
but Striper seemed to be the antithesis of everything going on.
They would not only be
the biggest selling Christian band of the time, but the biggest band from Orange County as well.
Today let's focus on the early years of Striper up until their breakup in the early 90s and how
they brought religion to the Sunset Strip and beyond.
[D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [Db] Before we can [A] really talk about Striper
we have to look at how religion and popular music went hand in [Bb] hand leading [A] up to the 1980s.
It all began in churches with gospel music that was [D] heavily influenced by the blues
which first [Bbm] became popular during the roaring [A] 20s.
Of course with anything that's popular in music,
[Em] record labels came [D] calling signing numerous gospel singers.
By the middle of the 20th century [Bb] this
style of gospel [B] music started influencing the big artists of the day [A] including [Am] Elvis, Johnny Cash,
and Hank [A] Williams.
Popular musicians at the time typically had several gospel numbers [D] they would
perform and by the 60s psychedelic rock acts influenced by religion soon [E] sprouted up including
Larry Norman [Dm] and All Save Freak Band.
By the 80s though country music started to [F] adopt more
religious undertones while rock and roll seemed to stray further away [G] with punk taking aim at
organized religion.
[D] Soon enough [G] metal bands including [D] Merciful Fate, [G] Wasp, and Venom [E] would
become the targets of religious groups as well [A] as the PMRC for corrupting America's youth.
[D]
That's
where Striper came in.
Hailing from Orange [Dm] County, Striper was formed by two [G] brothers in 1983,
vocalist and singer [Bb] Michael and his drumming [D] brother Robert Sweet.
Originally calling [G] themselves
Rocks and then [Eb] Rocks Regime [G] after someone else was found to have [D] the name, the band became a common
[Eb] sight around LA's hottest clubs at the time including the Whisky O' Go [Ab]-Go, the Troubadour,
and Guzzaris.
[F]
[Bb] It was at those [G] gigs the band could frequently be seen covering the Judas Priest song
Breaking the Law.
The brothers would see musicians come and go in their band in the early years
including future Poison [D] guitarist C.C. DeVille.
He eventually left the group after disagreements
over the band's onstage fashion.
The band would soon [G] find stability [D] with the addition of guitarist
Oz Fox and bassist Tim Gaines.
The band would catch the attention of Bill and Wes Hine who were
co-founders of Green World Distribution who owned Enigma Records.
The label loved the sound of the
band only requesting they change their name.
The pair of brothers soon changed their name to Striper
using a Y instead of an I so people wouldn't accidentally refer to them as Stripper.
The name refers to the lashings or stripes Jesus got from the Romans.
Soon enough the band would
adopt the colours of yellow and black and even use a passage from the bible in the band's logo.
Striper would even serve as an acronym [Bbm] standing for salvation through redemption, [A] yielding peace,
encouragement and righteousness.
What's funny though [Bb] is that Enigma [A]
Records didn't even know
was a religious band.
[Am] Their live [Db] shows and demos had the vocals [Bb] so muddled they [A] couldn't even make
out what the lyrics said.
It wasn't until they [D] got into the studio for their first EP in 1984
that they finally realized that Striper was a Christian band.
Producer Ron Gowdy recalled in
the book Nothing But a Good Time, They hid the whole [G] Jesus thing from us for a while.
[D] Wes Hine who signed the band recalled in the same book, The lyrics [Dm] were a lot cleaner in the studio
[D] than on the bad cassette dub they'd given us.
We're listening in one line as Jesus is my way.
We look at each other and we look at Robert and Michael.
[A] There's silence and we say,
are you guys Christians?
[D] They're like yes.
[Db] But religion wasn't always a part of the [A] band's music.
In the early days they were like any other band from the Sunset Strip.
[Bb] Frontman [A] Michael Sweet
would tell [Db] the Washington Post in [Am] 1985 how religion found its [D] way into the band's music
revealing how the band [A] was confronted by a friend who said, If you guys really give yourselves back
to the Lord you'll go straight to the [D] top.
We weren't really thinking of that kind of success
but we knew we were Christians that hadn't been living the [E] part, so we decided to [D] take his advice.
We looked [A] pretty much the same as we do today and the music was [D] pretty much the same.
All [A] we had to
do was change a few words here [C] and a few words there [D] and everything fit perfectly he recalled.
The band would even [Dm] wear their religious beliefs on stage with drummer Robert Sweet having the
words Jesus Christ rocks emblazoned on the back of his drum throne.
[G] In addition to [F] that the band
became [G] famous for throwing [D] bibles into the [G] audience, but not all members of their faith
were happy to have the band on their side.
According to the Washington Post it [D] wasn't
uncommon to sometimes see religious groups [G] pick up their shows.
[D] Robert Sweet would tell the same
newspaper, There's always resistance.
The only reason it's there is that some people have never
seen us in concert.
Throwing [F] bibles to the crowd, some people think that's disrespectful.
[G] That's not
why we do [D] it.
We think it's [C] great to get the good [D] book out there.
Sweet would go on [G] to say the band
frequently [Eb] ran out of bibles in shows.
It would be one of the band's fiercest critics, a woman named
Darren Hinton who was part of a ministry called Eagle's Nest.
[Ab] She believed the [G] band was trying to
[Eb] profit off of God's name, but it wasn't [G] until she saw the band open for Bon Jovi in the early 80s
[Fm] that her opinion of them [Eb]
changed.
She was impressed by the crowd's reaction to the band and soon
became the group's first manager [F] and even loaned them $100 [E],000 to help produce their first EP.
[Ab] Their first release for Enigma [D] would be the EP Yellow and Black Attack in 1984.
The EP would be turned into a full-length album in 1986 with a few songs added,
following the success of their 1985 album Soldiers Under Command which went gold.
They would follow
that up with 1986's To Hell With The Devil which became the group's biggest selling record going
platinum and it was the first Christian rock album to sell over a million copies.
The album produced
three huge singles with Honestly, Calling On You and Free all of which got heavy rotation on MTV
and were some of the most requested videos at the time.
_ Honestly would be the group's only single
to be a top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.
While [Bbm] Christian Radio initially was
hesitant to embrace the [A] band, they eventually warmed up to Striper, but the [Bb] same couldn't be
said [A] for Christian TV who frontman Michael Sweet believed [Bb] didn't like rock and roll [D] in general.
Not that it really [Bb] mattered though because MTV [A] embraced the band and Striper even made an
appearance on the 80s sitcom Golden Girls.
It would be ironic that despite wearing religion
on their sleeves they didn't appreciate the label of being a Christian band.
It would be [D] strange
because it was that angle that helped Striper succeed.
The media loved the angle of a Christian
heavy metal band and magazines from Forbes all the way to adult men's magazines couldn't resist not
covering the band.
Michael Sweet would push back though against the Washington Post revealing
heavy metal bands don't usually have ballads, don't usually have four-part harmonies and don't
usually throw bibles into the audience and when anyone [Am] says Christian band that immediately sounds
boring [D] 15 years behind [Bb] the times [E] I choose to call it [D] god rock you'd say.
The band [Bbm] even rejected the
idea of [Bb] only doing bills that had other Christian bands on them as they felt their message would only
get to those [A] people who were already [Bbm] part of the same tribe.
[D] The band frequently toured with other
hair metal acts including Rat.
Striper followed up to Hell With The Devil with 1988's A God We Trust
which went gold selling over half a million copies, but by [A] 1990 the band's [Am] career took a different
turn when they [D] released the album Against The Law.
_ Striper would change their [A] image, their lyrical
[Dm] themes and even stop throwing bibles into the audience [E] and would become more secular.
The band
wanted to do something different and was tired of being [D] typecast as a Christian rock band
and not being taken [G] seriously by a large [F] segment of the rock [G] community.
That's [Dm] not to say the
members [G] lost all their religious convictions, they still wanted [E] to spread the word of [G] God,
but [Db] only to those who seek [Em] it out with frontman Michael Sweet telling the [G] LA Times
We're [F] going to work in [G] some of our old tunes [D] that tell about God and Christ.
We're not going to be
ashamed of that and run from that.
If they want to know about God they can come talk to us about it.
In some ways the attention [G] Striper got as a Christian band worked to our advantage.
In other ways it was a disadvantage [Dm] as far as being labeled the Christian boys of [G] rock and roll.
There were people who might have been into us if they hadn't heard the term [D] Christian band,
but it turned them off he'd [Eb] say.
Some of those [Gm] who were turned off included the band's long-time
wanted [G] Striper to stay with their Christian rock image.
In fact the title against the law Sweet
[Ab] would claim was aimed at those who wanted to shape the [Dm] band according to an image or law of their own.
[Eb] It was also around this time the band saw a big change in management hiring the [Ab] company
Gold Mountain [C] Management headed by [A] future Nirvana manager Danny Goldberg.
[D] Previously
the band had been managed by the Sweet Brothers mother and the band would also sign a new
recording contract with Hollywood Records after their old label Enigma folded.
This
change in direction proved to be unsuccessful as against the law wouldn't even go gold in America.
By January of 1992 frontman Michael Sweet would leave the band to pursue a solo career
leaving the other members to pick up the pieces.
Sweet would tell the LA Times following his
departure.
It was a lot of things tied up together.
I don't know if I've gotten old or what but I'm not
a metal guy anymore.
I could have stayed in Striper and forced a more mainstream [A] direction but nobody
would have been happy.
Without a lead singer the band would receive [Db] some more bad [Bb] news when their
record label [A] dropped them after only one release.
The band tried to [Bb] audition some new [A] singers and
played a few shows with some stand-ins [Bb] before guitarist [A] Oz Fox took over vocals.
But by [Bb] 1993
the band disbanded [Am] as other members pursued different [G] musical projects.
[D] But in 1999 the band
would reform at the Striper Expo.
From 2005 onward Striper would put out frequent new releases all of
which would show up on the Billboard album charts showing that they still had a significant
following.
However there would prove to be a pretty ugly falling out between bassist Tim Gaines
and the other members of the band following his departure in 2017.
That does it for today's video
guys thanks for watching.
Be sure to hit the like button and subscribe.
I'll see you again on rock
and roll [N] true stories.
When I think of the Sunset Strip I think of debauchery and having a good time,
but Striper seemed to be the antithesis of everything going on.
They would not only be
the biggest selling Christian band of the time, but the biggest band from Orange County as well.
Today let's focus on the early years of Striper up until their breakup in the early 90s and how
they brought religion to the Sunset Strip and beyond.
[D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [Db] Before we can [A] really talk about Striper
we have to look at how religion and popular music went hand in [Bb] hand leading [A] up to the 1980s.
It all began in churches with gospel music that was [D] heavily influenced by the blues
which first [Bbm] became popular during the roaring [A] 20s.
Of course with anything that's popular in music,
[Em] record labels came [D] calling signing numerous gospel singers.
By the middle of the 20th century [Bb] this
style of gospel [B] music started influencing the big artists of the day [A] including [Am] Elvis, Johnny Cash,
and Hank [A] Williams.
Popular musicians at the time typically had several gospel numbers [D] they would
perform and by the 60s psychedelic rock acts influenced by religion soon [E] sprouted up including
Larry Norman [Dm] and All Save Freak Band.
By the 80s though country music started to [F] adopt more
religious undertones while rock and roll seemed to stray further away [G] with punk taking aim at
organized religion.
[D] Soon enough [G] metal bands including [D] Merciful Fate, [G] Wasp, and Venom [E] would
become the targets of religious groups as well [A] as the PMRC for corrupting America's youth.
[D]
That's
where Striper came in.
Hailing from Orange [Dm] County, Striper was formed by two [G] brothers in 1983,
vocalist and singer [Bb] Michael and his drumming [D] brother Robert Sweet.
Originally calling [G] themselves
Rocks and then [Eb] Rocks Regime [G] after someone else was found to have [D] the name, the band became a common
[Eb] sight around LA's hottest clubs at the time including the Whisky O' Go [Ab]-Go, the Troubadour,
and Guzzaris.
[F]
[Bb] It was at those [G] gigs the band could frequently be seen covering the Judas Priest song
Breaking the Law.
The brothers would see musicians come and go in their band in the early years
including future Poison [D] guitarist C.C. DeVille.
He eventually left the group after disagreements
over the band's onstage fashion.
The band would soon [G] find stability [D] with the addition of guitarist
Oz Fox and bassist Tim Gaines.
The band would catch the attention of Bill and Wes Hine who were
co-founders of Green World Distribution who owned Enigma Records.
The label loved the sound of the
band only requesting they change their name.
The pair of brothers soon changed their name to Striper
using a Y instead of an I so people wouldn't accidentally refer to them as Stripper.
The name refers to the lashings or stripes Jesus got from the Romans.
Soon enough the band would
adopt the colours of yellow and black and even use a passage from the bible in the band's logo.
Striper would even serve as an acronym [Bbm] standing for salvation through redemption, [A] yielding peace,
encouragement and righteousness.
What's funny though [Bb] is that Enigma [A]
Records didn't even know
was a religious band.
[Am] Their live [Db] shows and demos had the vocals [Bb] so muddled they [A] couldn't even make
out what the lyrics said.
It wasn't until they [D] got into the studio for their first EP in 1984
that they finally realized that Striper was a Christian band.
Producer Ron Gowdy recalled in
the book Nothing But a Good Time, They hid the whole [G] Jesus thing from us for a while.
[D] Wes Hine who signed the band recalled in the same book, The lyrics [Dm] were a lot cleaner in the studio
[D] than on the bad cassette dub they'd given us.
We're listening in one line as Jesus is my way.
We look at each other and we look at Robert and Michael.
[A] There's silence and we say,
are you guys Christians?
[D] They're like yes.
[Db] But religion wasn't always a part of the [A] band's music.
In the early days they were like any other band from the Sunset Strip.
[Bb] Frontman [A] Michael Sweet
would tell [Db] the Washington Post in [Am] 1985 how religion found its [D] way into the band's music
revealing how the band [A] was confronted by a friend who said, If you guys really give yourselves back
to the Lord you'll go straight to the [D] top.
We weren't really thinking of that kind of success
but we knew we were Christians that hadn't been living the [E] part, so we decided to [D] take his advice.
We looked [A] pretty much the same as we do today and the music was [D] pretty much the same.
All [A] we had to
do was change a few words here [C] and a few words there [D] and everything fit perfectly he recalled.
The band would even [Dm] wear their religious beliefs on stage with drummer Robert Sweet having the
words Jesus Christ rocks emblazoned on the back of his drum throne.
[G] In addition to [F] that the band
became [G] famous for throwing [D] bibles into the [G] audience, but not all members of their faith
were happy to have the band on their side.
According to the Washington Post it [D] wasn't
uncommon to sometimes see religious groups [G] pick up their shows.
[D] Robert Sweet would tell the same
newspaper, There's always resistance.
The only reason it's there is that some people have never
seen us in concert.
Throwing [F] bibles to the crowd, some people think that's disrespectful.
[G] That's not
why we do [D] it.
We think it's [C] great to get the good [D] book out there.
Sweet would go on [G] to say the band
frequently [Eb] ran out of bibles in shows.
It would be one of the band's fiercest critics, a woman named
Darren Hinton who was part of a ministry called Eagle's Nest.
[Ab] She believed the [G] band was trying to
[Eb] profit off of God's name, but it wasn't [G] until she saw the band open for Bon Jovi in the early 80s
[Fm] that her opinion of them [Eb]
changed.
She was impressed by the crowd's reaction to the band and soon
became the group's first manager [F] and even loaned them $100 [E],000 to help produce their first EP.
[Ab] Their first release for Enigma [D] would be the EP Yellow and Black Attack in 1984.
The EP would be turned into a full-length album in 1986 with a few songs added,
following the success of their 1985 album Soldiers Under Command which went gold.
They would follow
that up with 1986's To Hell With The Devil which became the group's biggest selling record going
platinum and it was the first Christian rock album to sell over a million copies.
The album produced
three huge singles with Honestly, Calling On You and Free all of which got heavy rotation on MTV
and were some of the most requested videos at the time.
_ Honestly would be the group's only single
to be a top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.
While [Bbm] Christian Radio initially was
hesitant to embrace the [A] band, they eventually warmed up to Striper, but the [Bb] same couldn't be
said [A] for Christian TV who frontman Michael Sweet believed [Bb] didn't like rock and roll [D] in general.
Not that it really [Bb] mattered though because MTV [A] embraced the band and Striper even made an
appearance on the 80s sitcom Golden Girls.
It would be ironic that despite wearing religion
on their sleeves they didn't appreciate the label of being a Christian band.
It would be [D] strange
because it was that angle that helped Striper succeed.
The media loved the angle of a Christian
heavy metal band and magazines from Forbes all the way to adult men's magazines couldn't resist not
covering the band.
Michael Sweet would push back though against the Washington Post revealing
heavy metal bands don't usually have ballads, don't usually have four-part harmonies and don't
usually throw bibles into the audience and when anyone [Am] says Christian band that immediately sounds
boring [D] 15 years behind [Bb] the times [E] I choose to call it [D] god rock you'd say.
The band [Bbm] even rejected the
idea of [Bb] only doing bills that had other Christian bands on them as they felt their message would only
get to those [A] people who were already [Bbm] part of the same tribe.
[D] The band frequently toured with other
hair metal acts including Rat.
Striper followed up to Hell With The Devil with 1988's A God We Trust
which went gold selling over half a million copies, but by [A] 1990 the band's [Am] career took a different
turn when they [D] released the album Against The Law.
_ Striper would change their [A] image, their lyrical
[Dm] themes and even stop throwing bibles into the audience [E] and would become more secular.
The band
wanted to do something different and was tired of being [D] typecast as a Christian rock band
and not being taken [G] seriously by a large [F] segment of the rock [G] community.
That's [Dm] not to say the
members [G] lost all their religious convictions, they still wanted [E] to spread the word of [G] God,
but [Db] only to those who seek [Em] it out with frontman Michael Sweet telling the [G] LA Times
We're [F] going to work in [G] some of our old tunes [D] that tell about God and Christ.
We're not going to be
ashamed of that and run from that.
If they want to know about God they can come talk to us about it.
In some ways the attention [G] Striper got as a Christian band worked to our advantage.
In other ways it was a disadvantage [Dm] as far as being labeled the Christian boys of [G] rock and roll.
There were people who might have been into us if they hadn't heard the term [D] Christian band,
but it turned them off he'd [Eb] say.
Some of those [Gm] who were turned off included the band's long-time
wanted [G] Striper to stay with their Christian rock image.
In fact the title against the law Sweet
[Ab] would claim was aimed at those who wanted to shape the [Dm] band according to an image or law of their own.
[Eb] It was also around this time the band saw a big change in management hiring the [Ab] company
Gold Mountain [C] Management headed by [A] future Nirvana manager Danny Goldberg.
[D] Previously
the band had been managed by the Sweet Brothers mother and the band would also sign a new
recording contract with Hollywood Records after their old label Enigma folded.
This
change in direction proved to be unsuccessful as against the law wouldn't even go gold in America.
By January of 1992 frontman Michael Sweet would leave the band to pursue a solo career
leaving the other members to pick up the pieces.
Sweet would tell the LA Times following his
departure.
It was a lot of things tied up together.
I don't know if I've gotten old or what but I'm not
a metal guy anymore.
I could have stayed in Striper and forced a more mainstream [A] direction but nobody
would have been happy.
Without a lead singer the band would receive [Db] some more bad [Bb] news when their
record label [A] dropped them after only one release.
The band tried to [Bb] audition some new [A] singers and
played a few shows with some stand-ins [Bb] before guitarist [A] Oz Fox took over vocals.
But by [Bb] 1993
the band disbanded [Am] as other members pursued different [G] musical projects.
[D] But in 1999 the band
would reform at the Striper Expo.
From 2005 onward Striper would put out frequent new releases all of
which would show up on the Billboard album charts showing that they still had a significant
following.
However there would prove to be a pretty ugly falling out between bassist Tim Gaines
and the other members of the band following his departure in 2017.
That does it for today's video
guys thanks for watching.
Be sure to hit the like button and subscribe.
I'll see you again on rock
and roll [N] true stories.