Michael Sweet
Template:Infobox musical artist Michael Harrison Sweet (born 4 July, 1963) is a Christian rock singer from the United States. Sweet is best known as co-founder, writer and frontman of the Christian metal band Stryper. His brother, Robert Sweet is the drummer of the band.
Contents
Biography
Youth
His voice has a range of about 3 and a half octaves. 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 became Stryper. The band challenged the stereotype of heavy metal being satanic and took Christian rock fully into mainstream.
With the band, Sweet recorded five succesful 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.
During this time, Sweet and his wife moved to Massachusetts, where Sweet worked as a park ranger in his father-in-law 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).
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 intenstity 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 new solo album titled Him. The album features traditional hymns re-written and arranged by Sweet.
Solo Discography
- Michael Sweet - Self-titled.jpg
Guest Appearances
- Mu5tard - Electra Glide
- Longday - An Explanation For My Behavior
- Mars Hill - Sink or Swim (2003)
- Michael W. Smith
- Guardian
- DC Talk
Projects Produced
- Mu5tard - Electra Glide
- Longday - An Explanation For My Behavior
- Mars Hill - Sink or Swim (2003)
- Savannah - Forever's Come and Gone"
See also
External links
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