Michael Sweet Discusses New Collaboration With George Lynch & More

By Andrew Bansal

Known and revered as Stryper frontman for three decades, along with a solo career that has existed for almost as long, vocalist. guitarist, songwriter and producer Michael Sweet has launched a new collaborative side-project with guitar virtuoso George Lynch, a project that also features the rhythm section of Brian Tichy on drums and James Lomenzo on bass. The ‘Sweet & Lynch’ debut album ‘Only To Rise’ was released in late January 2015 via Frontiers Records. I recently had a chance to talk to Michael Sweet about this new project, production, singing, future plans and more. Enjoy the conversation below.

Michael, it’s good to have you on Metal Assault. In this interview I’ll mainly talk to you about the new band you’ve got going with some killer musicians, George Lynch, Brian Tichy and James Lomenzo. First of all, how did this whole thing come together?

Well, I basically got an email from Serafino Perugino, president of Frontiers, asking me to be a part of this band he had put together, and be the singer. I not only agreed to that but also suggested myself producing the album. Serafino loved that idea, and once I took on the role as producer, I had a lot more freedom to make suggestions about plans for this band and he was all about it, and that was it! It just seemed like the right thing to do.

So, were these songs already written when you came on board?

They were not written. George demoed a bunch of stuff. He had guitar tracks with programmed drums and had planned out the basic structures of the songs which were about a minute, minute-and-a-half long. So I picked up from there and added parts to it, like choruses, solos, bridges, etc. Once that was all written and arranged, I had to write all the lyrics and the vocal melodies, of course. That’s how these songs came about. There was nothing just sitting around that we drew from. Everything was new and fresh and written on the fly. We didn’t pull it off a catalog or library or anything from a shelf.

Right, but did you feel at this point of your career that you needed a side project, or was it something you decided kind of impulsively?

I didn’t feel that I needed it, I just felt excited about doing it. When Serafino asked me to sing on this record, I thought it might be something kind of cool. I’m definitely very picky and selective about what I do. I’m approached a lot to do stuff and I turn a lot of stuff down, because I don’t want something that I don’t feel 100 per cent comfortable with to take precedence or priority over what I’m already doing, Stryper or what have you, producing or writing on the side. Once he hired me as producer, I was going to have a little bit more input other than just singing on an album, I felt really good about it as I was going to be more involved from the ground up. This excites me a lot more. So that’s when it became something that I was definitely sold out on.

In terms of the songwriting, there’s the modern way people work where they just do their own parts, put it in a recording and send it around on email or dropbox. Is that how this album was written?

A small percentage of the album was certainly done that way. I personally don’t prefer doing it that way at all. When I listen to an album that’s been tracked in four different studios, each guy tracking on their own in their home studio or whatever, I hear it instantly. Not only in the quality, but in the energy. There’s a certain energy that you get that you can only achieve when everybody is in the room together making music. When you’re all in different locations, that’s not going to happen and you’re not going to get that, no matter how badly you want to. George made it very clear to me that we couldn’t track this together. He said he would track everything out in his studio and preferred doing it that way, and I said, alright. Although I wasn’t a big fan of that, I definitely made it a point to track Brian, James and myself together, and I did that. I flew them out to the studio that I work out of a lot in Massachusetts called Spirit House, and we did the drums, the bass and my guitars altogether. I was there, able to produce it and give input. We had a great time doing that. So, that’s why I think that we were able to achieve the energy that I was referring to, when a band is in the room together. I know George wasn’t there, but we still got that.

And since you produced the album, you must have made sure that the album sounds cohesive as opposed to being put together from different recordings.

Yeah, definitely. I’ve been trying to quite a while to just kind of show the world what I can do as a producer. I grew up in the studio my whole life, but I haven’t really been known as a producer. I haven’t gotten that name as a producer. I mean, I produced a lot of stuff. If you go back and look at the entire Stryper catalog, although we had producers on those albums I was co-producing all those albums. I was just not given the credit. I love being in the studio and I certainly know what I’m doing in the studio. I grew up in it, and there’s certainly an art to capturing that tone, crafting that song, and what have you. I just love it. I’m very passionate about it. I actually enjoy doing that more than I do touring and performing live. I don’t mean to bum people out by saying that, but I really do love being in the studio.

When it comes to more of the hard rock sound as opposed to the metal sound, I think a lot of modern-day albums, specially by older/bigger bands, are over-produced. Would you agree with that and do you think the ease of technology has led to that?

Yeah, I do. There is a real fine line between under-producing and over-producing. What’s really important when you produce is, you want the song to dynamically build and have those beautiful dynamics, come up at the chorus, come down at the verse, lift here and not life there. For example, when you kick into a chorus you want it to lift. You want the listener to feel that the chorus is exploding and get them out of their chair. The only way you achieve that is to do some guitar and vocal over-dubs, or something that really makes the chorus makes in. So that’s the fine line of doing too much and not doing enough. Unfortunately, I think a lot of bands do too much, and a lot of them do too little. They don’t know how to lift the chorus, or they lift it too much and overkill some parts, and it just becomes a big mumbled mess. Stryper over-produced ‘In God We Trust’. It was a way over-produced album. It’s unfortunate because it’s a good album and has some really cool songs, but it’s definitely over-produced. So, we’ve been there and done that, and I get it. These days, as a producer I take the approach of ‘less is more’. You just leave the hooks and ear-candy on there, but don’t do 20 guitar tracks when you only need 3 or 4. Don’t try to put everything but the kitchen sink in there because a lot of times you’ll realize that it’s the wrong approach.

You mentioned earlier that you love being in the studio more than touring. But talking of that, do you have any such plans with this band at all and do you think you’ll get the time to do it?

Yeah, we’re planning on doing some select dates, absolutely. What’s difficult about it is the fact that the four guys in the band all have different projects going on. We’re all busy and it makes it very difficult to co-ordinate the schedule and make it happen. But we’re trying to and we plan on doing some dates, how many, I don’t know. It could be 10-12 dates or 20, I really don’t know. But I think it would be a crime to not go out and perform some dates so people can see the band live.

I have just one more question for you. Fans and critics alike praise your singing voice, even still. What kind of efforts have you made to maintain it at this age?

Forty cups of coffee and a ton of peanut M&Ms. Just kidding. But I don’t know, I actually feel like I’ve lost it a bit and I certainly don’t have the range that I had. It’s difficult for me to hit the high notes as opposed to the 80s. But I’m not getting any younger, I’m soon going to be 52 years old, and I’m just blessed that I have a voice. I know some guys from that period, some of my peers, friends and whatnot, they don’t have their voices. They’re not able to sing, and that’s really sad, man. I hope I never get to that point. May be I will, but I’m just blessed to still be able to sing and have some of my voice left. I try to take care of myself, get on the treadmill and work out, eat properly and whatnot. I’m not a heavy drinker or smoker, and I try to take care of my body. I think that’s going to help you as a singer. If you take care of your body, it’s going to show in your voice as well.

Sweet & Lynch links: website | facebook

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