Honestly: My Life and Stryper Revealed (25 page)

Don’t get me wrong, not everyone who asks us to perform for free gets upset when we can’t. A lot of them understand that we just simply cannot afford to do so. But the ones that don’t understand sure do get vocal about it.

It’s tough, because truly if I could, I’d play every request we get and charge nothing for it. But if I did that I would be an irresponsible husband, father, and bandleader. So we have to ask for money whether we, or the people asking us to play, like it or not.

At this point in my life I have two basic choices: Get paid to make music or get paid to work at Home Depot. Either way, I need to get paid. I need to provide for my family.

So for my entire life I’ve walked this fine line between music and ministry. I do it because I love it. I get paid for it so that I can provide for my family. But somehow, when you’re a Christian musician, getting paid is often taboo.

As I started to dance with the idea of playing with the guys in Stryper, I was once again reminded of this fine line. Yes, I needed money, but I didn’t want to do it for the money. It’s a tough balance that I’ve always struggled with.

In 1999 I was a weekend warrior, working a day job mostly and playing out on the weekends whenever possible. One of those gigs was in Puerto Rico, where I flew down to sit in with Oz and Tim performing with their band, Sin Dizzy. I came out and played with the guys, and we even did a few Stryper tunes.

The morning following the show a longtime fan, Rich Serpa, met with us at breakfast to discuss an idea he had been working on for a Stryper Expo. The thought was to bring in Stryper fans from all across the world to meet, trade collectibles, and to ideally have us perform. I was skeptical, for a number of reasons. For starters, I knew something like this would be an enormous undertaking physically, logistically and financially. Lots of Stryper fans over the years have come to us with grandiose ideas only to have them fall by the wayside after realizing the time and money that would be involved.

Rich seemed sincere, motivated and smart, so I was interested in exploring this idea. But my other reservation would be—could Stryper bond together as a band again?

I continued conversations with Rich, and eventually I agreed to be move forward with and perform at the Expo.

Brett Christensen and a guy named Greg Hayes had already started Stryper.com, so we promoted the Expo through that website mostly. Still, as the date approached, I was skeptical that anyone would even show up.

Since we had no infrastructure to take ticket reservations, Rich had convinced a local bookstore in New Jersey to take orders and run them through the stores credit card processing in exchange for a small percentage of the sales. After the first week or so of being on sale, Rich went in to the bookstore to check to see if we had sold any tickets. The owner of the bookstore was polite but said they were having second thoughts about handling the orders. He said they had been getting calls from all over the world and that he had to bring in another person just to handle it all. Fortunately, the bookstore owner stood by us and continued taking calls and processing the sales.

Ultimately, all the stars aligned and on May 21, 2000 we held the first Stryper Expo at the Sheraton Tara Hotel in Parsippany, New Jersey. About 1,500 people attended from as far away as Japan and Australia.

For the first time in nine years the four of us—Robert, Tim, Oz, and myself—performed together as Stryper. It wasn’t really much of a performance, though. It was a small stage set up in the hotel ballroom. I wore Adidas sweat pants, if that gives you any indication as to how seriously I took this. Yes, I loved seeing everyone, and I enjoyed the camaraderie and “hang time,” but an actual rock show it was not. At best, I viewed it as a jam session with former band mates. Still, it was fun, and the reception was incredible. We didn’t get paid for performing at the Expo. Although it was a success, Rich was financially only in a position to cover our travel and lodging expenses.

Jeff Wollschlager had come out to help with the event and after it was over, he drove me back to my house in Buzzards Bay, about a five-hour drive from Parsippany. During the drive he asked me what it would take for me to want to put Stryper back together. The list was too long to consider. I had enjoyed one night with my former band mates and was content leaving it at that.

A few days following the Expo, however, I received word that there was interest in Stryper playing a show in Costa Rica in December of that same year. Rafael Richards ran a cable access show and had come to the Expo to interview us. The minister of a church in Cartago, Costa Rica, had contacted him about trying to bring us down, who in turn contacted Rich, who in turn contacted me.

Again, it came back to the fine line between wanting to do Stryper for the right reasons yet also needing the money. I never have been involved in Stryper for the money. It has to feel right. Over the years leading up to this we’ve been offered a lot of money to reunite, but it just never felt right. But I was coming off the heels of the Expo, and that felt great. The outpouring of support from the fans blew me away, and I had a great time jamming with the guys. That situation led me to become open to the idea of playing another show. I negotiated the deal and we accepted an offer of $30,000—quite a bit more money than any of us had seen in a while. Rich went as our tour manager and the show took place on December 16, 2000. We played to almost 6,000 fans.

We flew down to Costa Rica a few days prior to the show to get a short rehearsal in and to do some press.

Getting in and out of any foreign country is never easy, so we put it in Rich’s hands to help navigate the visas, work permits, and customs forms in order for us to bring some gear and merchandise.

Robert had become involved with a company called World Gone Mad Entertainment, a one- or two-man operation funding Robert’s solo project, Love Trash. I was a bit apprehensive about the guy who ran that company, Mike Reynolds. Something just didn’t feel right about what little I knew of him.

Stryper was not a band, so there was no official Stryper merchandise to speak of. I went down there with a bunch of Michael Sweet merchandise. Tim and Oz brought some Sin Dizzy stuff, and this guy Mike Reynolds brought some Robert Sweet merch, but he also took it upon himself to print and bring Stryper merchandise as well.

The government in Costa Rica at the time was a bit sketchy to say the least. Getting in and out of customs and even conducting basic business was risky and often resulted in behind-the-scenes payoffs. Rich was working with a missionary to get our merchandise through customs, so Tim, Oz, and I had no problems getting it through. Mike Reynolds however didn’t go through Rich’s suggested missionary and instead went at it alone. As a result, Mike’s merchandise got detained in customs, and he had to pay some pretty hefty fines to get it out. He eventually made his way into the country with Stryper t-shirts in tow.

Oftentimes throughout the history of this band, I’m fully aware that I get the “bad guy” rap—and by that I mean that I’m the one who speaks up when I see something I don’t like. As a result, I’m always seen as the bad guy of the bunch for doing so.

It didn’t set well with me that Mike Reynolds had just taken it upon himself to print Stryper merchandise. If someone was going to make money off the Stryper name, it’s only fair that the rest of the band participate in the profits. After all, it’s our name and likeness!

After many problems Mike encountered in customs, when the day of the show arrived, the police were on site. They were planning to shut down the merchandise sales or at least get paid under the table for allowing the sales to go on. Tim, Oz, and I didn’t want the hassle, so we closed up shop and just didn’t sell any more merchandise. Our merch stands had only been open for a short period of time when the police arrived, so we didn’t sell much of anything. But Mike Reynolds had invested tens of thousands of dollars in printing Stryper merchandise, not to mention the fines he had to pay to get it in and out of customs, so he wasn’t about to shut down. Unfortunately he had no choice. The police made him shut it all down and he was stuck with thousands of dollars in Stryper merchandise that he likely was not going to be able to get out of the country. Needless to say, he was furious.

Part of my reason for wanting to go to Costa Rica was for a young teenager named Andreas who was part of the church bringing us down. One day after leaving the church, he and his brother were in a horrible accident. His brother died instantly, but Andreas barely survived.

When we arrived in Costa Rica, Rodolfo Arias, the minister of the church who had arranged for the concert, picked us up at the airport. On the way to the hotel he asked if we could go by Andreas’s house to lift his spirits. Of course, we agreed without hesitation.

We went to his house on the outskirts of town where Andreas was still bedridden in casts, braces and a neck sling from the accident. He could barely move. It was a really sad scene. The family was obviously really poor. The house was run down, and the Christmas decorations that adorned it were made of Popsicle sticks and yarn. Yet the spirit of God was there.

Andreas didn’t even know we were coming. As we all piled into his small bedroom, not much larger than a walk-in closet in most American homes, he lit up the room with his smile. He was thrilled to see us. He was so badly injured his family had to help lift him up so that he could sit upright in the bed. We had brought a guitar and handed it to Andreas to play a few chords. Tears ran down his face as he strummed out some chords.

Everyone in the room was asking me to sing. I wasn’t sure I could keep it together long enough to sing a few lines. It was so sad to see Andreas, crippled in bed yet incredibly thrilled to see us. The house they were living in most likely would be considered condemned by all standards in the United States. Yet here he was propped up against some pillows strumming away the best he could with this guitar.

I started signing “Honestly.” Basically I was singing a cappella, as the guitar was electric and wasn’t plugged in to an amp. Tears were flowing. Parents and relatives gathered around. Even I was getting choked up. I managed to make it through the song, or at least most of the stanzas, and it seemed to really lift his spirits. If ever I had felt God’s Spirit in a room, it was then.

We said our good-byes and went about the evening and doing interviews. The next day, we held a press conference in a Burger King, which may seem strange, but believe it or not the restaurant chain was one of the sponsors. Inevitably, the press wanted to know
“Will Stryper be reuniting?”
It was a fair question given this would be our first real performance since 1991. Yes, we had played the Expo, but I wore sweatpants at that show and therefore, I wasn’t really dressed for a “real” show.

Regardless of how they would reword the question, I’d give my standard answer that I had been giving for years:
“If we were to get back together, it would have to be for the right reasons
and God’s hand would have to be on it.

After the press conference, Rich pulled me aside and in his thick New Jersey accent said,
“You keep saying it has to be for the right reasons. Did you not feel God’s Spirit in the room at Andreas’ house? If that’s not the right reason, what is?”

He had a point. But little did Rich know there were deep-rooted years of animosity and heartache between the band members. I never have questioned what God was able to do through this band, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to put myself back in a position of reliving the past. I compared the idea of reuniting with Stryper to that of getting back together with your ex-wife after a divorce. Sure, it was great at the time, but something happened to make that marriage end. Why try to relive that all over again? Let it go and move on to other things, I told myself.

No doubt, I did love the idea of once again feeling God move through our music and touching people’s lives. But I wasn’t sure that I was strong enough to knock down the walls that had been built between the members of Stryper. I just wasn’t ready to go back to that place in my life.

Throughout the times, when I would question getting back together with Stryper, it seemed that every time I took one step forward, something would happen to set me two steps back. Prior to the show, I was feeling a little drained so I asked for a doctor to come to the hotel to inject me with a B-12 shot. Vitamin B-12 helps boost my energy levels and can often get me through a show when I’m feeling under the weather. Unfortunately while on site, I got word that Robert had made a request from the Doctor as well, only it was for a supply of prescription Vicodin. Whether it was true or not, it was enough to send me two steps back on the path to a Stryper reunion.

The show went on as scheduled, and despite us sounding pretty rough, we managed to entertain an enthusiastic crowd. It felt good.

After the show, Rich informed me that Rodolfo and his church had lost money. All the unexpected expenses and payoffs had put them in the red.

Upon checking out of the hotel the following day, I was greeted by an enthusiastic Rodolfo who hugged me and thanked me for doing the show. He said he felt many lives were touched and that Costa Rica needed this show to help bring back the peace of God to the community. He didn’t mention the money he had lost.

I pulled him aside and handed him my enormous suitcases full of Michael Sweet merchandise that I was obviously unable to sell due to the police intervention. I told him to take it and sell it for whatever he could get to help offset his financial losses. He was tearful as he hugged me and reluctantly took the merchandise. Despite his financial hit, he didn’t want to see me take a loss either. I felt he needed it more than I did, though.

I have fond memories of Rodolfo, Andreas, and the beautiful people of Costa Rica.

Talks of the second Expo were already in place to be held this time in Azusa, California, in May of 2001. Rich Serpa again was leading the charge. The plan for round two was to be bigger and better than the first, with other bands performing and more vendors selling and trading Stryper collectibles. There was a state-of-the-art sound system and staging in place at Azusa University for what would become Stryper’s second “official” performance as a group. I would not be wearing sweatpants this time around.