Biography

Youth

He began his musical career at age 5 playing guitar and at age 12 he began to sing. Sweet also learned to play the drums, piano and bass guitar.



Stryper

Main article: Stryper

In the early 80s, Sweet and his brother started a band called Roxx Regime and started playing in small venues. This band would later become Stryper. The band challenged the

stereotype of Heavy Metal being satanic and took Christian rock fully into mainstream.

With the band, Sweet recorded five successful studio albums that reached gold and platinum status and won him many awards, plus worldwide fame. However, in the early 90s, rock

music was facing serious shifts in itself and the band fell into a steep decline.



Solo

After 11 years as frontman of Stryper, Sweet decided to leave the band in 1992 in order to pursue a solo career. He first released a demo album titled Unstryped which featured

several songs that were allegedly intended to be songs for the band. Sweet later featured some of this in his first full-length album.

His self-titled debut album was released in 1994 and sold over 250,000 copies. He followed it with a slightly softer album titled Real in 1996 which garnered him a nomination for a Dove

Award. However, he left the Benson label with which he had released those two albums.

A single from this self-titled album, "Ain't No Safe Way" was released. The song is about abstaining from sex outside marriage, and the video was rejected by MTV. Much controversy

arose from this, and rock critic J. D. Considine said on the short-lived VH-1 program "4 on the Floor" that "He could have been singing, 'Hi, I'm the devil, let's go have sex' and MTV would

not have played it because it's a terrible song, it's a terrible video, and it isn't the kind of music MTV is playing right now."

During this time, Sweet and his wife moved to Massachusetts, where Sweet worked as a park ranger in his father-in-law's campground called Maple Park.

In 1998, he released an independent demo album titled Truth which received critical acclaim. He was signed to Restless Records and re-released the album in 2000 with a new song-list

and new artwork (see Truth).

On August 19, 2007, Sweet acted as Boston's lead singer in Come Together: A tribute to Brad Delp at the Bank of America Pavilion in Boston, MA. He will be joining Boston during the

band's Summer 2008 tour.



Boston

Michael Sweet currently is on tour performing lead vocals, background vocals, and guitar work for Boston. His first official show with the band was June 6, 2008 in Thunder Bay,

Ontario. Boston will continue their "Greatest Hits" tour through August 31, 2008, where they will play San Juan, Puerto Rico. Michael currently handles lead vocals on roughly half of the

setlist, including Boston staples "More Than a Feeling", "Amanda", and "Peace of Mind". The latter of which was re-recorded by Stryper and released via itunes on June 23, 2008.

Reviews of his performance have been overwhelmingly positive, as it is thought by many his vocal abilities, guitar talents, and stage presence have been very beneficial for Boston

following the untimely death of Brad Delp. While it is unknown how this may materialize for future Boston efforts, Michael may be included on new Boston recordings in the future, but

this has not been confirmed yet.



Stryper reunited

In 1999, Sweet reunited with former Stryper friends, Oz Fox and Tim Gaines during a concert in Puerto Rico. The concert featured Fox and Gaines' band at the moment, Sindizzy, while

Sweet was invited as a solo artist. The three of them got together for a brief set of four songs that showed that they still had the same intensity as before. The next year, the first

Stryper Expo was held in New Jersey and the whole line-up was reunited again.

The band has continued to work together releasing a new album titled Reborn in 2005. However, Michael has continued with his solo career as well. In August 1, 2006, he released a

solo album titled Him which features traditional hymns re-written and arranged by Sweet, and in 2008 he released another album titled Touched.

Stryper is scheduled to release a new album sometime in early 2009. The title of this album has been confirmed as Murder By Pride and will feature new Stryper material, as well as a

cover of "Peace of Mind.


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