Doug Van Pelt interviewed Robert Sweet of STRYPER to talk about the controversial change of direction.

"Radio was going, 'Look, you don't have the type of music our listening audience wants to hear.' And we were going, 'Yes, we do!' But they would pick one song off the album - that they didn't even play; that wasn't a single - and they would say, 'See, this song says Jesus Christ in it. We can't play this kind of thing on big-time radio.' At that point, we were going, 'Hey. If we put out the album and it doesn't get played...What's the use?'

"We thought, 'Okay, we're going to re-define our direction here: Each song is going to have a moral statement to it, but the songs are going to be heavier. We're gonna have definite singles that can be played on the radio. We're gonna do a cover.' We're a band that hasn't peaked. We've gone up and basically stayed in one area, but we haven't shot up there big-time yet; and we want to do that. We figure that, 'The bigger the band gets, of course, the more of an opportunity to say something about Christ.' We want people to really respect the band.

"We're still Stryper...and still Stryper as can be. The look is basically the same. That's another thing that's been blown out. We still have stripes, but what is so weird is all these promotional pictures that are going out don't even show it. Each guy still has stripes, its just that each guy has his own colour. Michael and I have done the yellow and black since 1980. That's why we named the band Stryper. We love yellow and black...It's not like we said, 'Okay, we're throwing that all away and putting on blue jeans and tennis shoes and running out there...'I mean, if that was the case I wouldn't be in this band. We thought, 'Hey, it's an update. It's gonna give people something new to talk about.' The look is a little more street. a little more leather-looking.

"Another thing that I'm sure a lot of Christian people are going to freak out and assume the worst over is the Stryper logo. (The new logo doesn't have "Isaiah 53:5" reference on it.) Our record company came to us and said, 'Look, we love your Stryper logo, but we run into so many problems with the Isaiah. We send something out to the radio stations, they saw the Isaiah, and they wouldn't even pull the record out of the package.'

"We were going, 'Look, we don't want the Isaiah taken off.'

"They say, 'Look, you've just got to do this for us. You can't spend all this money, put it out there and radio not play it. Put the Isaiah wherever you want, but just for us, at least this one time, just don't put it on the front of the album.'

"So, this is a compromise they made us do. We had to at least do something for them, because we are signed under a contract to them. I mean, sure, we could've said 'Absolutely no way!'...but we wanted our record company to really feel involved. But any ways, on a CD, for example, when you open it up and look at the actual CD, you'll see the logo with the Isaiah printed on it.

"To round it up about the new direction, we got really tired, bud. It was almost seven years of this. In every interview we did, we had to defend ourselves; and I've literally probably done 1,000. That comment you made to me was the first time I've ever heard that. In seven years, that's a lot. You know, it just got to the point that Stryper was a weight that was just too heavy to carry. Not that it was Stryper, but, what a lot of Christian people's idea of what Stryper was became too heavy to carry. We thought that if we kinda re-shifted things around here a little bit, people would turn around and go, 'Well, why did you do that?' and we would be able to tell them, which might get the emphasis off the wrong things.
"I think a lot of the problem hasn't come from people who aren't Christians, but from people who are. I don't mean all Christian people...There's been some really wonderfully nice Christian people out there that have really supported the band and really helped us out.

"Benson Records dropped us, and that's okay...That's a business thing. They felt like they could do this album, but the minute they saw it, it was like, 'Oh sorry, we're gonna have to not do this album.' It's like, That's the thanks you get,' you know. Stryper made Benson a lot of money. We could've given it to another distributor, but Benson got it and they made a lot of money, but when we didn't follow by their little set of rules, we were dropped just as quick as throwing a man off a bridge.

"Maybe that's for the best, you know. Maybe that goes along with what we're trying to do here, because we never wanted a Christian record distributor. Our company did."

I heard with the Benson deal that their "distribution agreement with Stryper was terminated", meaning that they not only dropped this record, but also your entire back-listing. What's your reaction to that?

"Well, at first we were a little bummed out, because I'm sure they have artists on their roster who, uh, every song isn't sung about Christ. But, you know, maybe that's how it's supposed to be. I'm not saying that the people from Benson are bad guys. They said it was a wrong decision. Maybe they just don't know why they'd drop all the rest.

"I think what's happening is that they've heard something. What really angers me is that I've talked with the head guy at Benson. For them to drop every album makes me think, you know, they're hearing something somewhere, and I don't know what they're hearing, and, you know, if they don't believe me - I don't know who they're going to believe. I have no reason to lie to anybody. I have nothing to hide. I'm pretty honest and try my best to explain everything.

"I even told the guy at Benson, 'Hey bud, look, we could've gone back in and done a special track for Benson and we could've had Mike, on just a couple of the songs, put in the word God and you would've accepted it. You would've said, 'Oh yeah, this is a Christian album.' The point is, you don't have to be repetitive to be sincere. You know, I think that's what they're locked into.