 Jimmy K here Metal Voice. Look at this. The Metal Voice shirts are now on sale. Just go to a video description to find out on how you can purchase one. Metal! Welcome to the Metal Voice and guess what Alan? Yes. It's been and shockingly it's been almost a year. Oh my god. A year since we spoke to Michael Sweet who's on the line with us. Michael? That's crazy because it feels to me because we speak so often. It feels to me like maybe it's been a few months not a year. Yeah. Well things have been crazy the last couple of months. That's true. Very true. Yeah. Life oddly enough in this pandemic with COVID you'd think that life would crawl at a snail's pace but it actually feels to me as though it's sped up. It's true. Yeah. I mean the year has gone. I don't know where the last six months went. I really don't. No. It's true. I can't believe we're Labor Day weekend. But saying that today September 4th the launch of the new Striper album Even the Devil Believes and we were lucky enough to have you with us here today to talk about it. Yeah. We're really excited. You guys know me. I get excited about every release and you know sometimes I get jabbed a little bit for being that way and people get on me and say oh man you say that about every album that it's your best but I really 100% believe and feel in my bones that this is our best album and there's so many reasons. It's not just because of the music or the production but because of the what we were working with the times we were recording it in you know and it's our first album with our new bass player. You know everybody knows Oz has some health issues and you know we were all able to overcome that and do another album. There's just so many reasons why I feel that it really is our best and then when I listen to it as a whole and the way it flows and everything I think it's got all the perfect qualities for what everyone expects. You know one person wants more 80s. They get it with invitation only. You know one person wants more heavy. They get it with you know blood from above. One person wants mid-temple. They get it with you and two others. They want a ballad. They get it with this I pray. I mean we kind of just put everything in there to please everyone and you never please everyone but I think with this album it's going to come the closest. Well I can add to that. I got one word for this album and it's a home run. It sounds current but it also keeps the classic sound like you said much more variation on this album than the preceding ones and that's a pleasant change. I agree with everything you just said. Which song was it or Mike? Which song was it that you've taken from the late 80s? Is there one reworking of a song there? There is. What it was, it was a song that I wrote in 1989 and we actually recorded it for the Against the Law album and I couldn't finish the lyrics to save my life. I was in a you know writer's block moment during that time and I just couldn't finish it. So we literally scratched the song and it didn't get included on Against the Law obviously. So I decided to pull it off the shelf and write the lyrics and make some changes and it's the song Invitation Only. Oh really? Okay. My money was on Forgotter Rocker Roll and let him in because it really has that LA strip feel. Kind of sounds like Keel, 80s Kiss, Anthemic. You know it's got that kind of guitar work that was very prevalent. So yeah totally and those are songs that could have you know fit right in on some of our records in the past, classic problems. But Invitation Only was the song and it's got a little bit more of a I don't want to say pop but a little more commercial sound to it. It's not really a metal track. You know it was really Panama feeling and sounding. It used to start with the da-da-da-da-da-da-da and the tom so it had a real Panama feel to it. We obviously changed the intro because we wanted to kind of steer away from that a little bit more but that's the one man. That's right out of 88. I would have guessed that one but it sounds like a sunset strip as Alan said to me the other day. A sunset strip vibe. Yeah totally and it's funny because you know there's going to be someone that comes it puts a comment online that says man you know I wish I listened to the whole album I just wish you guys would do something that has more of an 80s feel to it. Here you go. And I'll be able to say well you can't get any more 80s than that song. Yeah and heavily bass driven. Literally written in the 80s. That track is heavily bass driven and that's really prevalent to bass sound on that song so again Perry how did Perry influence a lot of the recording and the playing? Well you know Perry the songs were all kind of laid out as they always are and the guys came out here and I showed them the songs and we rehearsed them here at the house for a few weeks and then we recorded them and the way it works because I'm producing every album. I'm kind of sitting there with everyone as they're doing their part so when Rob's tracking his drums I'm sitting there you know hitting the talk back saying hey Rob do you know try this and you know maybe not so much of that right there and just watch your pushes and your pulls and do a choke right there you know I'm kind of guiding all of them through the process they're doing their own thing of course but I'm kind of guiding them through it so I did the same thing with Perry I just kind of sat there and guided him through the bass parts but Perry the thing about Perry that's really cool is all of his the way he plays bass and the way it feels is really right in the pocket and it's a very driving kind of solid foundation he doesn't do a lot of all over the neck and he's not always playing busy parts he's just playing solid parts and that's the thing I know it's right off the bat this record is really solid in the group yeah yeah I agree that's the one thing I picked up as well so so when I get into a few of the tracks and we can discuss a few of the tracks and our feelings and you can elaborate upon them sure man absolutely all right Jim I got blood from above there's the what we call it you know I mean that's what we call our Halford song that's where Michael gets that scream in there's one every album and for me that's the Halford the scream cut to offer this one and what a great track to start the album with and I kind of like the harmony screams at the end I like the harmony screams at the end that's my input oh good man yeah the uh we thought it was the perfect song to start the album with you know you got to really you got to come out swinging right and and we did and that's why we started with that song um we certainly could have started with Middlefinger Messiah as well but you know everyone just kind of felt that blood from above was stronger you know so we we went with that and then the end harmony scream that's where the song kind of takes a little bit of a twist in more of a modern direction you know for us anyway it's got the breakdown half time kind of groove and it gets chunkier and then it's got the harmony scream and some people have even said that they heard a little bit of um pantera in in the end breakdown I thought that's interesting but uh yeah man it really cool song we we wanted to come out swinging and that's why we chose that one okay here here here's my next one here make America great again wait a second no no make love great again and that's the big I'm sure you know that was done just to stir things up a little bit right Mike well I'll be honest with you not really and when I say that I think I let people down sometimes because I think they expect me to say yeah that's that's a pro trump song and it's really not uh it parry threw the title out uh make rock great again and I thought that's cool man I like that but you know rock is a little cliche and then my brother said hey man what about make god great again and I said you can't make god any greater than he already is so I said what about make love great again and everyone liked that and I think it's so relevant to our times right now because love we really need more love in this in this world man um and I don't know about how it's going in Canada but especially here in the US it's just crazy right now seems like the lines are drawn and there's no more communication yeah I agree yeah insane man so you know as corny as people might think it is it's true love is the answer and again another another track with a very very prevalent bass sound on there yeah mid tempo got a little heaven and hell vibe to it but you guys know we're we're big Sabbath and deal fans you know yeah let him in let him in that's for me that takes you right back to the LA strip that's one of those songs that uh takes you right back to that time and place so yeah that was written when I was one year old in 1964 that is crayons that's got in my opinion that that's a song that could have fit right in on soldiers and the command you know it's got that uh there's something about it that just kind of gives me a soldier's feel and it is a throwback it's got that classic striper sound to it and and the lyrics as well you know the message is the music um and it's definitely a really cool song we didn't go with that as a single because we just felt like blood from above was stronger and would make a bigger statement we felt that make love great again would make a really cool statement and now we just released today doing two others uh and man we're so happy with how that one turned out because it's it's got this uh almost like it's got a powerful uh riff kind of a deal vibe to it but yet it's almost kind of melancholy and sad when it gets to the chorus uh the melody and then if you watch the video it's just all about helping one another and you know treating other people as you would expect to be treated yeah one of my standouts on the album for sure do unto others great double leads they got that classic classic striper double leads in the in the soloing and uh great lyrics and uh it was kind of a bad company feel to kind of a country country ashamos feel to it so yeah it's kind of a little a little different feel for us for for sure uh and you know we just love trying different things and you know i love how the the verses are just heavy and and like i said it for some reason reminds me of deal a little bit and then when it gets to the chorus it kind of becomes almost angelic and goes somewhere totally different yeah yeah i got confused with this i pray so that's the one that i thought was a great standout too great change of pace too on the album like you said the flow of the album you're plugging away and then you hit the this i pray and say whoa what's this where this come from all of a sudden so yeah with this i pray i mean i think everyone expects striper to always do a ballad and for the most part we do uh on every album this song was a song that a friend of mine sent to me it was basically just the the verses okay so it didn't have the chorus so imagine the the verse being a chorus as well and that's how he sent it to me and he asked me to come and record and sing that song with him on his album and i said to a man i really like this song this could be a cool striper song what about striper recorded and he got real excited his name is livio graveni a local legend here in massachusetts and i took the song um and i wrote the chorus the melody and the chorus and then i added a couple verses and then i arranged it and took it a little bit more in almost the banjovi it's got a little skinnered thing to it but uh when it gets to the chorus is a little bit more uh blaze of glory banjovi kind of thing then you know we thought it'd be really cool and very different for striper to do a song like that it works it works it's really uh you know like you said i'm listening to the album and that one part of it oh wow this is a pleasant change of pace and like i said something that might have been missing a little bit on the previous albums that were really relentless and really powerful and like you said this is kind of expected from you so it was a great great track one of my faves on the album so yeah it's kind of like that that uh not that you're leaving while the song's playing but it's almost like intermission time like you know all right everybody gets up and goes and gets their popcorn and goes to pee while they're listening to that song you know and i mean that in a good way you know you know mike um so i know you saw that that review on blabbermouth uh it was by you know not blabbermouth but a writer you know a review yeah and i know you're pretty uh you know honest about how you responded to that i found it kind of shocking i'll be honest with you like it wasn't really a review about the album and just to give everybody some context okay i'll just read a part of it okay ultimately you can try to kid people that worshiping sky fairies is a shrewd pastime but it just isn't and as much as striper deserves applause for sticking to their guns it's almost impossible to listen to even the devil believes without wishing that satan would arrive and lighten things up a bit i mean the guy was and again you know i like blabbermouth don't get me wrong this is just a writer one review right sure he he kind of forgot about the music and he's completely concentrating on this sort of that right wingers and god and that's it and if you if you believe in that then you're then it means nothing to sound i mean what what's your response to this i think it's incredibly unfair and i think in 2020 uh it's it borders on being illegal it really does you know you see people out there on the streets fighting for their rights every day in new ways powerful ways you know and i'm not for rioting and vandalism at all everybody knows that but my point is people are out there really fighting for their rights and yet this guy takes a dump on us because of our beliefs yeah in 2020 and that's acceptable that's okay it's not okay and i read it and i just thought okay no no dude you're not going to wipe your boots on us you know you're obviously a hater of the band you're the last guy that should be reviewing a striper album yeah i mean dom dom Lawson you know maybe he's dom delouise's cousin or something i have no idea but you know i just read it and i just thought wow how unfair and how ridiculous uh you know they they rarely review our albums anyway on blabbermouth and when they finally do he gives us a four out of a ten you know and the reason why the reason why it upsets me is because uh not so much because of the low rating but more so because it's a blatant attack on our faith well the more i thought about it after i posted what i posted you know because i at first i was like frustrated and i guess somewhat angry i i guess you could say but then i thought about it and i thought how sad you know this guy hates us so much and you know what's even funny almost comical is his review only fuels the fire in a in a good way so i don't know if you noticed all the comments of all the people that were against his review i saw some of them yeah and i see that almost almost 300 of them i think probably the most comments they've ever gotten on any review that they've put up and all negative against his his words against us and and i'm just thinking this guy must to some degree live somewhat of a of a pathetic life because you know um he for him to just write a review just to be nasty to me that's just not that's not a good reviewer you know it's not i take i don't take anyone like that serious and i guess maybe i guess i'm being somewhat hypocritical because i commented on it and put it on my facebook page uh maybe i should not have commented on it and given him the time of day but regardless it doesn't matter it's not going to stop the army it's not going to stop the forces uh striper keeps doing what we do and have done so for almost 37 years dom Lawson isn't going to stop that it's kind of like when those guys peed and bro tried to burn your records after back in the 80s or 90s remember that remember that story it's all it does is make them look like fools you know it's you know i got i'm just gonna say my last comment on this i think people have this misconception that only right wingers are religious and that's that's so much further from the truth there are a lot of people there are a lot of left-leaning people a lot who are religious as well and there's right people who aren't religious and there's left that right or religious absolutely to say that only right it's funny because he talks about he briefly mentions satan in the in the article i forget in what context but obviously you look at his reviews he's into the real dark stuff and that's fine uh not a problem with that but uh at the same time we have a lot of satanist and atheists who are fans of the band i'm when i say a lot i mean a lot we meet we meet them worldwide and come face to face with them do interviews with them and huge fans who are satanist and atheist tautelatory tautelatory you know self-proclaimed atheists yeah i mean tauts and atheists and i mean we i've interviewed with you know leaders of the satanic church and they're like man i love soldiers it's my favorite album of all time and i'm like wow okay that's interesting but that's amazing it's all good yeah yeah that's a it just seems like i said before the lines are drawn there's black and white and as we know life is full of gray areas and that's maybe maybe we snubbed maybe we snubbed Dom in some autograph signing line or something i don't know that's it seems like there's something a little deeper uh to uh you know his yeah i feel like there needs to be some sort of closure between you and Dom there i think you need to get him online have a conversation honestly no no there doesn't need to be any closure i mean dom will figure out whatever his issues are and i'm good man but i i just i read it and i had to post it and say wow okay this is fair what do you guys think so there you go okay let's get back to the album here what about how to fly i mean it sounds like the Beatles meet queen on that one great great feel to it yeah that's a mid tempo song that really focuses on the the vocals you know the the background vocals specifically we are huge and well me i know we all are but i'm probably even more so a big Beatles fan and and a big queen fan in you know queen were Beatles fans as well and obviously and you know unique thing with those really interesting chord changes in vocal arrangements is really amazing ELO i love ELO so that's a song that really takes you down a different path as well and wanders away from the metal but it's still a rock and tune and that's one of my favorites is in terms of just how it's written and how it's arranged as a song you know put metal aside it's one of my favorites on the album and then being a huge Judas priest fan that you are i mean i can't you know divider could have been on angel of retribution and the middle finger messiah as well it's got that kind of pre-chorus that's reminiscent of sinner i mean you can just hear the i just heard the influence from Judas priest on those two songs yeah absolutely divider it's got a priest feel and that's one of my favorites on the album i love the energy of that song and i love the riff that you know it starts out down down down down down down down it's really different it's like okay what is this where's this going and then when it goes down down down down down down down down down you know the groovy part i just love how it feels it's i think it's going to be a staple in our set once we get out there and start playing again yeah like like many any what are your what are your plans any timelines or everybody's just waiting for their green light uh everyone's waiting for their green line i mean you know we want to be safe and do it the right way uh we had plans to do some shows this year as everybody knows they're postponed some of them canceled some of them postponed next year we've got plans to go to australia i think in april and you know do some shows throughout the year but you know you're reading stories about you know the possibility of no shows in 2021 you know big shows and now i'm wondering okay is that really gonna happen we'll we'll have to wait and see it's a waiting game but man i hope so uh i really hope so that we can get out there and do what we do because this is not just our love it's our livelihood you know i don't want to rain on anybody's parade but you know flu season is coming and coronavirus is a flu and historically historically speaking the flu in north america at least in the northern part portion of it comes between november to february and this year will not be any exception to what we get every year right yep yeah true very true and you know i think it's all about just everybody knows now the importance of uh going the extra mile to stay healthy you know disinfecting mask distancing all those things to really try to stay healthy and obviously even beyond that getting in shape you know it's true getting on a treadmill eating healthy doing some push-ups you know really keeping your body strong so if you do get sick you can fight it yeah yeah hopefully that's the plan yeah spending quality time with the family too yes yeah absolutely man and i know much quality time with the family that's what that's what i'm here to get out um just on a lot great go ahead sorry i'm just i just want to get back to the album jim because i mean it's officially launched today and the production job again michael great job the sound on this album is unbelievable the drum sounds again i have to admit i struggled with the drum sounds on the early striper albums but everything to take over the production helm i mean it's it's unbelievable the drum sound you're getting off of these albums now well man that means more to me probably than anything and uh the reason why is because you know i've been producing the albums for a while co-producing the old albums but really producing the new albums and when i hear people say you know the new production sucks or it's not as good as the past i just i shake my head and i think what what is going on here because what are you listening to i'm not sure when i listen when i compare like this album to soldiers in the command it's night and day in the production and i mean this album takes the win you know i was going to listen in my car and compare the two which i've done it's like oh my god there's just no comparison this is so much punchier and open and just fatter sounding and when i hear people say that i just i got to wonder like what's happening here i guess they're just clinging so tightly to the past you know that they don't want to let it go i mean you've done a great job i will every every album that comes out we say the same thing you you're able to sound current but without losing that classic striper sound and that that's a fine line that there's not many bands that can do that and you've done it consistently for the last you know four or five releases so it is it is a very fine line and i mean we did cross that line a couple times like obviously with the album reborn uh that was much more modern feeling and sounding and you know the production wasn't as great on that but in all honesty we didn't have the equipment and the budget and and what not to do that the right way but you know that was a solo album in all fairness that was originally a solo album that was being shopped as a solo album i had a deal in place and then it became a striper album we made a few changes and it became a striper album so we can't really compare that album with what you're referring to but i mean then you go to murder by pride and that was still a little bit more on the light side a little more modern and then once you get to no more hell to pay i think that's when we found our groove as striper again yeah so i know our time's coming up but just give us some insight on the stroke striper documentary i mean where what stage are you out on that oh man well you know it's been tricky because the original guy we were working with uh wasn't able to work with us any longer so we started looking for a different company to help us get it done and we only had just b-roll footage and stuff we hadn't gotten a lot of footage and then the pandemic kind of shut everything down so we haven't been working on the documentary for a while but the plans are at some point to get that done and make that the priority we don't want to compromise the quality of it at all because we really want it to be special you know not just telling the history of the band and showing live footage and talking to the band we want to really make it interesting and talk to fans and people whose lives have been changed because of the band you know from from just everyday folks to celebrities so we're gonna really take the time to do it right make it amazing and expect that to be coming i would say for sure within the next you know two three four years at the very latest we'll have a full blown documentary done that'll blow people's minds good yeah so it's not like you have anything else to do no we got i tell you what we what we did during the pandemic uh we decided to since we couldn't go out and play we flew the guys out here and we quarantined for a few weeks and we went into the studio where we record and we recorded for on demand people will be able to rent and or buy the live albums us playing like this new album in its entirety we played it from start to finish oh and it's killer so live in the studio live in the studio it sounds killer it's got like a live at daryl's house kind of feel we're all out in the studio together playing in the same room and it's live man it's killer it looks so good we had seven cameras and and i tell you man that's gonna come out probably within the next six weeks oh there you go and then we got we did to hell with the devil at the same time oh look at that from from start to finish the every song so again you're doing again just a recap you've done the whole new album or is it just a set that you did of like a striper set live we did the whole new album every single song wow and then you did the devil with the devil every single song and and then there's footage b-roll footage of us talking about the songs and hanging out at the studio and it's kind of it's going to be killer and so we did that to offer people the live experience of this new album that's a new reality a lot of bands are seeing the benefits of this get the get their faces back out into the public because we can't do the live touring anymore so totally and the difference with this is most bands are doing like the live stream so it's literally like on the fly live what we did with this is we we went in and set up for a whole day and when you listen to it it sounds like you're listening to a record wow so it's studio quality audio and video uh but it's live but man the quality is not compromised like some of these streams that you see it you just kind of I forget which one I watched it I don't know if it was it was one of the monsters of rock live streams I watched in it just wasn't the quality wasn't great you know maybe they were just ironing out the bugs I don't know this will be really high quality nice good all right on that note yeah on that note September 4th which is today I don't know when we're going to release this video but let's just pretend today September 4th and the new album even the devil believes quite controversial on that one even the devil believes in god in himself I don't know Alan well because you guys know why we titled it that because we believe in god everyone knows that and we also believe in the devil we believe that the devil was created by god he was Lucifer and in heaven at one point in time and tried to take over heaven and was kicked out of heaven and became satan so even the devil believes the devil knows what's up yeah and that's what that's what we're trying to say with that statement but but it also means even the devil believes so don't say you believe because that that means nothing your words mean nothing what means everything are your actions are you are you living a life that represents god that represents christ are you are you doing unto others as you would have them do unto you you know and and that's what we mean by even the devil believes but so what that doesn't mean anything yeah all right on that note everybody pick up the new album Michael always a pleasure it's been too long we got to do this much more often it's it's always great talking to you and all this best success with this album and the striper as a whole so well guys you you've always waved the striper flag and always been there you know when others haven't and i tell you man we we appreciate it so much more than you guys will probably ever know and thank you guys for always standing by us thanks Michael we will talk to you thank you Michael okay guys god bless man love you guys and stay safe out there i'll see you soon yeah thanks very much save the you