Stryper – Made Of Metal

It took us a while to figure that out. I think most bands are always trying to go with the flow and follow whatever is in style at the moment. But most of the time that’s not the right thing to do. Fans want to hear what made you popular and successful, and we’ve found that on our last few albums, but especially on this album. It’s an amazing feeling.

CCM: What makes you say, “Especially on this album?”
MS: Well, we’ve found a formula. We have a studio that we work at and we’ve done ten albums there. We’ve got an engineer that we love. We’re always trying to improve the way we record our instruments and the equipment we use, the way we process a song and create a song, the way we do pre-production and rehearse. It’s the whole process.

When you’re trying to become a chef, you hopefully get better and the food starts to taste better. I think that’s happened with us. From Reborn coming out in ’05 until now, we’ve improved the recipe and it tastes better. We feel like we’re back in our heyday again. If this were ’86 or ’88 again, these would be our biggest albums to date by a mile. The thing is, we live in a hip-hop world musically. There’s no market or format for bands like ourselves, but we keep doing what we do and stay true to who we are and to the Lord and God has really blessed us. We’re fighters. We’re still here.

CCM: As you journey back to your roots, as you’ve mentioned, over time, are you getting good feedback from fans?
MS: Yes, we see it first-hand in the excitement and the energy in the crowd. The numbers are growing in terms of people coming to the shows. It’s really great to see. And in a time where record sales are dropping for most bands, ours have picked up. So we’ll see what happens going forward.

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