Creating The Christian Metal Genre: Michael Sweet Interview
In this episode of The Babylon Bee Podcast, Kyle and Ethan talk to Christian heavy metal legend, Michael Sweet. Michael Sweet is the lead singer/guitar player for the band Stryper. Stryper has produced a new album titled Even The Devil Believes available wherever you get music. Kyle and Ethan find out about Stryper's origins, throwing Bible's into the audience, and where that van with a machine gun came from. Be sure to check out The Babylon Bee YouTube Channel for more podcasts, podcast shorts, animation, and more. To watch or listen to the full podcast, become a subscriber at https://babylonbee.com/plans. Topics Discussed Christian Metal Stryper color's origin Response to criticism Why Stryper isn't cool Stryper's accomplishments Kyle's discovery of Stryper Stryper making a comeback Being spat on Oz and Michael's style of guitar playing Album recording tricks for Stryper Even The Devil Believes Subscriber Portion Newsboys Touring with Boston Lessons in falsetto Stryper playing a part of the metal community Driving around with a machine gun Babylon Bee Song 10 questions Carmen meeting
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This is the Babylon B interview show.
Hey, everybody, welcome to the Babylon B Interview Show.
Kyle, Ethan.
We are the hosts of the Babylon B Interview Show.
And today we're talking to Michael Sweet of Striper.
I can taste that name in my tongue.
He is not the owner of a candy company, but rather the front man for Striper.
Striper, spelled with a Y. Spelled with Y. Spelled with a Y.
The Yellow and Black Attack.
Quintessential Christian Metal Band.
Right?
I mean, pretty much the only Christian metal band.
The only, yeah, they're all imitated.
There's a lot, but they're all wannabes.
If you think Christian Metal, you think Striper.
OG.
Christian Metal.
OG.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And if you aren't familiar with Striper, you're youngin' or you just never you got into metal later on or just Striper's legit.
They're legitimately a killer metal band.
And it was fun talking to Michael about being in one of the really the original first Christian Brock groups.
Interactions with being with other secular bands.
He got to front, be the lead singer, Boston for a while, right?
So he's lived a crazy life.
Yeah.
It was a fun chat.
So the year was 2003.
I was in high school.
And my Guatemalan friend busts out this little cassette tape and he's like, you ever hear Striper?
Is that your Guatemalan accent?
He didn't sound Guatemalan.
Oh, okay.
He was just from a family from Guatemala.
I don't know.
He just sounded regular.
Not that Guatemalan people aren't regular.
Why the detail?
It's Guatemalan.
He just sounded normal.
Not that Guatemala.
They're big in Guatemala.
So they're huge in South America.
Metal is like huge in South America.
And he's like, Striper, bro.
He didn't talk like that.
But anyway, he showed me this metal.
And we put it in the Walkman.
We listened to To Hell with the Devil.
And I'm like, what is this?
You know, this is insane.
So fast forward a few years.
And my wife texts me and she says, I'm having dinner with Oz Fox.
And I'm like, Striper?
The guitar player?
Yeah.
And so her father.
I'm leaving you.
Her father went to church with Oz Fox and they play guitar together.
And so I was like, oh, and so she got me the new record with the reborn one where they're all covered in goo and like doing that.
And I listened to it.
I was like, this is crazy.
You know, just that the metal has made this comeback.
So anyway, we wanted to talk to Michael Sweet about being a like out there Christian in the heavy metal world.
Yeah, they're not like the band that sings like kind of like really esoteric lyrics.
And they're like, you know, if you really read into it, there's some biblical stuff kind of in there, but you don't have to.
I mean, we're a band, but we're Christian.
And the spirit falls from the sky.
They're like, goddamn evil.
Yeah.
We have to bleep it and we have to bleep it.
Dang it.
We have to bleep it.
That's how hardcore their Christianity is.
They're just straight up like singing verses out of the Bible.
Yeah.
Just screaming them like at anthrax shows.
Throwing Bibles into the crowd.
And they're throwing Bibles at the crowd and getting them chucked right back at their heads.
Yeah.
And spat on.
Well, we're going to hear about it.
We'll hear all about that.
We're going to hear the story in the interview, which is going to occur right now.
Well, thanks for coming on, Michael.
We appreciate you making the time.
We were talking to a heavy metal legend here with us, which is pretty cool.
Yeah, an icon.
An icon, if you will.
A founder.
A founder of heavy metal, maybe.
You can see the Striper the founder of Christian Metal.
Like, did you guys start it?
You know what?
When people ask me that question, I don't like to be the one to answer it.
You can't say that.
Yeah.
Because it just feels awkward.
But, you know, I'll tell you this.
We were around in 83.
We broke in 84.
You know, started making noise on the scene in 84.
And before that, you had Petra, you had Resband in terms of bands that had broken in that market, if you want to say it like that.
There weren't very many.
There weren't very many quote-unquote Christian rock bands.
And we came on the scene and we were definitely very different than Petra and Resband.
And then after Striper came on the scene, a lot of bands followed suit, bands like Baron Cross and White Cross and Blood Good.
Oh my gosh, eventually Guardian.
And the list goes on and on.
A lot of bands after the fact.
So maybe we were the first to do that style at that level.
Maybe we were.
I don't know.
Yeah.
But we were the first.
We were the first to use the yellow and black colors, as I see that you guys use as well.
And we've been referred to as the bumblebees of rock or metal.
So maybe you guys are the bees of something as well.
I don't know.
Babylon.
Yeah, I mean, yellow and black, you know, you guys really leaned into that.
I have the vinyl of Soldiers Under Command with the yellow and black suits.
And we got to throw that up on the screen for the viewers.
And you got that yellow tank next to you and the machine gun.
I mean, you guys went all out with the yellow and black theme.
Crazy.
The way that started was my brother was fascinated with yellow and black.
I don't know why.
I don't have the answer to that.
He just, you know, he liked yellow and black.
I don't know, man.
And he we used to, you know, I probably shouldn't be saying this, but we used to back in our heathen days.
We used to go out and steal road signs.
You know, we'd take, we take like the hazard road signs, which are yellow and black, and we'd take them and put them on our garage walls.
And we'd rehearse and look at them and say, oh, wow, cool, huh?
And I don't know, man.
Maybe the yellow started there.
Robert was the first one to tape up his kit, yellow and black.
And it looked an awful lot like Eddie Van Halen's bumblebee guitar.
So I'm going to give credit to Eddie Van Halen for that.
I have to.
Gotcha.
So you talk about being a heathen.
I mean, did you get saved after you started playing metal or was that, did that happen before then?
Well, I got saved when I was 12 years old and through Jimmy Swagger.
And then I started going to church, fell away about 13, almost 14, and got really involved in the rock and roll lifestyle, which did not include going to church.
And I grew up pretty fast between the age of 14 to 20.
Yeah.
Did, you know, most everything you could imagine in terms of that lifestyle, that cliche, boring, silly lifestyle.
And, You know, I came to my senses and realized that my life wasn't going to be complete or be what it should be until I included and involved God in my life again.
So we decided to dedicate the band back to God.
It just so happens that all of us grew up in Christian families.
You know, Robert, myself, of course, and then Oz, same thing.
And Tim, who joined the band, his dad was a pastor, minister.
And, you know, we all grew up around that, knowing about that and knowing that that was our calling.
And eventually it came full circle.
And we committed the band to Christ in 83 into almost 84 and then released our first album, The Yellow and Black Attack.
And there was no looking back, no regrets.
You know, it kind of had some turbulent times when we got into like 89 and 90 and 91 with Against the Law, started drinking heavily a little too much.
I'm not against drinking.
Just, you know, when it starts to control you, that's when it's a problem.
It started to control us.
Is that because of grunge?
No, it wasn't because of grunge.
I actually, I embraced grunge.
I mean, I bought the first Nirvana album and proudly played it for the guys during that time.
And I loved it.
But it was more so, I think, just because of our hearts.
I think if Striper hadn't rebelled in the way that we did and became, you know, a bit on the hardened side, our hearts, I think we would have been fine.
We would have stayed together as a band and we would have probably done a lot more during the 90s, throughout the 90s.
But, you know, it didn't happen that way.
And that's okay.
We came back, got back together officially in 04, released our first album since the breakup in 05 with Reborn.
And from that time to now, it's been a blur.
I mean, we've done more now than we did then on our first run.
So it's really remarkable.
Everything that the band has done.
What's that?
Heavy drinking.
I still like an occasional bourbon, man.
I wouldn't say heavy drinking, but I like the taste of bourbon and I enjoy a good bourbon every now and then.
So when I say that, a lot of Christians get up in arms and they think that I've gone to the other side and I'm backslidden and I can't be a true Christian.
And I say hogwash.
I want to isolate that.
I say hogwash and just use that.
That's a great thing.
Yeah, we have permission to use that as an audio clip in all our future episodes.
That's what we need to do.
Of course.
Go ahead and say hogwash.
Yeah, we were wondering.
You know, I just go ahead.
I'm sorry.
Well, we were looking at, you know, you guys have these great album titles.
And we were wondering if by some of these you were trying to trick Christians into saying things they would never say, like to hell with the devil and one of my favorites that may get bleeped.
Goddamn evil.
No.
No.
I want to know what are some of the ones you came up with that were too bad, like too far.
Well, obviously, obviously, Goddamn Evil was one that we got a lot of backlash for.
And I can understand that.
You know, the way I can understand it is, you know, how do you tell your three-year-old that's singing Goddamn Evil that that's okay?
I get that.
Yeah.
And, you know, it's, but at the same time, I feel that what we're trying to do, I don't want to use the word educate, but we're trying to show people that it's not about the words.
It's about the implication.
It's about the meaning behind the words.
So when people see God damn together, they instantly assume that it's bad.
But when it's used in a way like we use it, like in a prayer, like, God, damn evil.
God, please damn evil.
There's evil all around us.
Will you help us get through it and get around it and do away with it?
You know, I think that's obviously a whole different meaning.
But, you know, it's all about opening your mind and thinking outside the box and stretching a little bit.
And Striper tries to make people do that for sure with all of our album titles.
You know, To Hell with the Devil, of course.
You know, to Hell with the Devil.
That's where the devil should be.
And it's just a little bit of a catchphrase.
Everyone says, to hell with you or to hell with this, you know.
So we do try to make it so it makes people think a little bit.
It might make people laugh a little bit.
It might make people get upset a little bit.
Whatever it does, if it's making people think, that's a good thing.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think C.S. Lewis had something once where he said damned nonsense on a radio program and he got all his hate mail for it and he responded with this essay where he was like, no, I mean it.
All this nonsense is going to be damned.
So I think sometimes our words can cut through the noise in a certain way.
So you were, I mean, you know what's interesting to me is you guys were out there in the 80s as, you know, and you didn't do this whole like, oh, we're just a band that has Christians in the band or, you know, whatever.
You were just straight up, we are Christian metal and we're going to sing like literal scripture in our verses and all this.
And so, I mean, how did the metal community respond to that and react to you?
And I mean, was there any like, are you ostracized at all?
Or what was the response like?
Yeah, I mean, we always have been and we always will be.
I mean, because Striper, you know, we march to our, what's the, what's the catch?
What's the old cliche saying?
We march to our old, our own drum or whatever it is.
We, we do our own thing.
We, we don't play by any rules.
We're not part of any group.
We don't try to be.
We're not, we don't try to be a part of the metal community on the mainstream side or the Christian community on the Christian side or any little club because they all have their little clubs.
You know, and if you're not part of it, you're not cool.
Yeah.
Striper's not a part of those clubs.
So we're not cool in their eyes.
But yet at the same time, you can't argue with history and the stats and the numbers and what Striper, for whatever reason, has been able to accomplish.
Right.
I think what are you going to say to that?
You know, so a bunch of nerds, you know, broke a bunch of, you know, stats and numbers and accomplishments.
So, you know, whatever it is, I don't know, but it doesn't matter to us.
It doesn't stop us from doing what we do.
And it hasn't deterred us at all.
We've, we've put out a lot of music, you know, with Striper, solo, other projects.
We've toured a lot.
We've done a lot of things and reached a lot of people.
And you know what?
That's, that's an incredible accomplishment and quite a legacy.
And we have nothing to be ashamed of.
And we're so thrilled that we were able to do that.
If our time ended right now on earth, wow, what a ride.
What a ride that it's been for this band.
Right.
Yeah, I had not.
I was less familiar with your music because Kyle's way more of the fanboy.
Hardcore fan.
I forgot to put my shirt on.
This is my Striper.
Well, I'm glad you're a fanboy.
We've got a lot of them out there.
And, you know, I think a lot of people have reservations about us.
And I always find that difficult to understand because at the end of the day, it comes down to the song.
Have you heard one of our songs?
Yeah.
You know, for anyone that's not a fan, it's like sometimes no.
They'll flat out tell you, no, but I don't want to hear it.
You know, you guys look weird, or you know, it's like, well, listen to one of our songs.
You might actually like it.
Yeah.
I was watching this great YouTube video.
You may have seen it.
Ray Jaholik does this.
He's a metalhead, totally secular, full of swear words, but it's this great tribute to Striper.
He does this full hour, hour and a half rundown of you guys's career and talks about why you guys are just as metal as any other metal band.
And it was a great, I highly recommend it.
But yeah, like me not really knowing much about Striper until I dove in.
I don't know if how many people realize how successful you guys really were.
I mean, you guys, you guys have a platinum album?
Is that right?
We do.
Yeah.
We do.
We have gold and platinum, gold and platinum albums.
I'm looking at them all on the wall right here.
I see maybe one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, like 60.
Wow.
Amazing.
And, but, you know, people don't know that.
They, you know, when you hear the comments online, people say, yeah, you know, they're probably playing to 10 people in a club somewhere.
You know, it's like, well, okay.
You know, you apparently don't know much about the band or the history of the band.
You know, Striper.
And again, I say this humbly.
I don't say it with the you know with pride or in an egotistical way at all because I feel like we're four nobodies that how we made it, I have no idea.
But something happened and God really took the band to new heights and things were accomplished that just should never have been.
And here we are with all these, you know, gold albums and platinum albums, and it's mind-blowing and it defeats all odds, you know.
And the odds were completely against us and still are, but yet we continue to defeat the odds.
Yeah, when Against the Law came out in 1990, you know, that was kind of, you know, that was right before the breakup and kind of the whole 90s lull, but I didn't feel like that was really unique to Striper.
You know, I mean, a bunch of metal bands did the exact same thing, you know, either broke up in the early 90s due to the rise of grunge or they just kind of went in a pop direction and you end up with bad Metallica albums or whatever.
And I don't know what it was, but then there was something in the water in like the early 2000s, mid-2000s.
You had all these bands making these great comebacks, you know, like Maiden and Mag and Death and Metallica and you guys.
And it was incredible.
I remember hearing Reborn in 2005 and being like, what the heck?
You know, like, what year is this?
You know, this thing's coming out.
And you guys just came back like as heavy as ever.
And I think even heavier, you know, as your albums went on from 2005.
So what do you think it was that caused this kind of metal resurgence?
Bourbon.
No, I'm kidding.
We'll tell the jokes around here.
Bourbon and cigars.
You know what?
I think what happened was, you know, we took some time off and we were able to kind of wipe the slate and clear the air and, you know, recharge and come back together as a band when we reunited with a different view of the band and a different view of each other.
So it's really, I think it was well needed, that break, and it did us a lot of good.
And when we did come back, we were trying to find ourselves, musically speaking, like Reborn, not a lot of people know this, but Reborn was actually a solo album.
I was shopping.
I had labeled interest.
And that was the quickest way for us to become a band again and release another album in the second chapter of Striper.
So we did.
A lot of people say, oh, it doesn't really sound like a Striper album.
Well, it's not.
It is.
It is that the guys all played on it, but in the sense that it was originally a solo album.
But as we went along, then we released Murder by Pride.
And then by the time we got to No More Hell to Pay, we really found ourselves again.
And I started going back and listening to Soldiers Under Command to Hell with the Devil.
And we kind of honed in on, you know, how we should sound and who we should be and realized our roots and wanted to get back to our roots for ourselves and for our fans.
And No More Hell to Pay was just an album that really resonated and connected with all the fans.
I was curious.
I heard there's stories on that documentary about you guys playing with some secular bands like Anthrax and some other metal bands.
And you guys were known for throwing Bibles into the audience.
And there's one story there.
He said, Bibles are being lobbed back at you guys.
And it's kind of scary how hard they're being thrown back.
You ever get nailed in the Bible?
Oh, yeah, man.
I mean, you know, I've got, what's even worse is I've got nailed with spit.
Oh, yeah.
I was in a band for a while and I got spat on too by a band.
That's not fun.
So gross.
That's not fun.
Yeah.
It's not fun.
I mean, literally, I remember playing in France and my guitar was so covered in spit that I couldn't hold my pick and play properly.
You're like Keanu Reeves in the Matrix when he wakes up.
I mean, it was pretty.
Yeah, exactly.
It was pretty disgusting.
And, you know, I now, if that happened to me, I'd probably, you know, throw the guitar in the crowd and jump in the crowd and start beating somebody up.
Back then, back then, I was a lot more tolerant and I just took it like a champ and I played through it, man.
And boy, it was like, I took a shower, a long shower afterwards.
Turn the other fretboard.
Right.
That's harder to do than one might realize.
Was there, I mean, is it any other stories like that from the, I don't know how much you guys played with, I mean, were you mostly headlining or were you, and when you opened, did you do a lot of opening for secular bands?
And what was that, you know, because the metal, there was this real kind of war with Christian music at that time.
You know, you're not metal.
I'll tell you what.
I'll tell you what.
Striper was really blessed and fortunate to be able to headline almost every show.
So right out of the gate, we were headliners.
And, you know, people, that was something else people couldn't understand is they'd come and see us and say, oh, yeah, man, who are you opening for?
And I'd say, well, we're headlining.
What?
And we'd have White Lion opening or, you know, whoever, whoever it was, We had all these openers, and we were just the popularity of the band was so great that we were able to do that.
And it was a head scratcher for everybody, even the promoters and the buyers.
But they didn't care because it was all about the dollar for them.
They were making their money and selling out the venues, and Striper was a sellout band.
We would, and I don't mean that spiritually, I mean that, you know, you know, in terms of musically, we were selling out all these places, and it was really crazy, mind-blowing.
We were in awe.
I mean, we would go out there on stage and take a look at the crowds and look at 12,000 or 14,000 people, not a seat in the place.
And I just stand there in awe, blown away that here's this little band from Orange County that looks like Bumblebee singing about Jesus.
And we're selling places out.
Did you ever flirt with doing rap core?
I released five albums, rap core.
Oh, really?
Wow.
Yeah, they were the biggest sellers.
I'm looking at five multi-platinum albums on the wall for those.
It's fantastic.
People just don't know about it.
That's all.
Yeah, sure, sure.
So did Oz Fox beat the devil in a guitar duel to get his powers?
Oh, gosh.
Or sell his soul.
No.
Sell his soul or anything like that.
Anything we should know about was the devil involved.
Any deals he made?
He never did.
He never did.
And I don't play guitar at all.
I just, I, my, my guitar is basically, I air guitar while I'm singing.
Um, because, you know, Oz is the only guitar player in the band, and I don't play guitar at all.
So at least that's what most people say.
Oh, Lord.
Wait, are you who's better?
No, just kidding.
I would never answer that question.
Oz and I have two Oz and I have two very different and distinct styles.
Yeah.
Oz is more, for lack of a better way of putting it, a little more, oh, gosh, a little more crazy in his style.
Flashy, crazy, does more, you know, weird tricks and stuff.
I'm more of a melodic player.
I tend to write solos that are very melodic, you know, and almost like something you could sing.
And that's more my style.
I'm not a shredder, but I like to put together well-written solos where people can hopefully remember and sing along to Hum Along To and enjoy.
But yeah, we're definitely different.
But yet when we play together, we mesh very well together.
Yeah.
But I don't play guitar, remember?
Yeah, that's all that air guitar.
And that's that's a that's a running joke.
I get people all the time, man.
Yeah, yeah.
And I've gotten to the point, I really have God honest truth.
I get to the point where I just, you know, I let it roll right off and I kind of it's I laugh about it.
It's become a form of comedy for me.
People will come see Striper play and at every single show, I'll have someone come up to me and say, man, you know, it blew me away the most?
What?
The fact that I didn't know you played guitar and I saw you playing tonight.
Well, you do get to the end.
And my reaction is just what your reaction was.
It's like, I laugh and I'm like, wow, okay.
Well, apparently, maybe you didn't see all the videos in the 80s because I was playing a guitar in every video.
Wow.
Well, hey, none of those guys can shake a fist at your falsetto.
Well, many of them can.
I've lost, I've lost, uh, yeah, I was curious.
I've lost a, I've lost a few octaves.
I used to have a 10-octave range.
Now I have a one-octave range, you know.
I was wondering, if there's a peak that you hit, or does it you as you get older, or do you lose it if you don't practice it?
Or what's the art of the halsota?
What do you, is there exercise that you do to wear tighter pants?
Yeah, yeah, I find what it is.
Is when I was younger, I wore, you know, I somehow, you know, poured myself into a size 26 or 7 waist pant.
Poured myself.
And it's quite high.
I noticed the high notes.
The high notes came out a lot easier.
Now, now I'm a 29, 30 waist on a bad day, and the high notes don't come out as easily.
Now, when I try to put my old 27s or 8s on, man, dude, I can come down here and nail those high notes when I record.
Crazy.
That's real, huh?
So, yeah.
So, yeah, I mean, I did want to say something about your C.S. Lewis remark early on at the start about he got a lot of flack from people.
Yeah.
Right.
And it's interesting.
It's like all the people, not just some, but all, literally, all, people that give other Christians flack for something they did.
If you go and peel back their curtains and look into their life, you're going to see that they're doing probably far worse.
And I've always found that interesting because we're all sinners, right?
Yes.
And we all have closets, skeletons in our closets, and things going on in our lives every day that we deal with.
And, you know, I always find it interesting that people feel that they're in a position or a place to judge others.
And they use the scripture that we're called to judge others.
You know, that's our duty.
That's what we're supposed to do.
No, that's not our duty.
It's really not.
It's one thing to call someone out if they've, you know, the pastor of a church, if he's in an affair and, you know, the church finds out about it and people speak up about it or start leaving or what have you.
That's that's a whole different situation.
But, you know, I think that we're, especially with social media, we're so quick to judge one another.
It's insane.
I mean, I could literally go post just the color purple on my Facebook page, the color purple.
Okay.
And people will say, dude, I'm going to pray for you.
Purple's evil, brother.
You know, I mean, and this is funny stuff, but it's legitimate stuff.
This is what we see and face every day in real life.
And it's mind-boggling.
But it just tells me that we're an imperfect world.
Mankind is imperfect and will never be perfect until we get to heaven.
And that's the way it is.
Yeah.
Well, we're going to break into our subscriber portion in a few minutes.
But first, I wanted to talk about your new album, your newish album, Even the Devil Believes.
So this came out like during the pandemic, you know, September 2020.
What was that like?
I mean, you're recording an album.
Are you like recording an album over Zoom or how does that work?
Yeah, no, thank God.
No.
That would be bad because all of us would probably be tracking in our underwear.
You know what I mean?
That would be really bad.
Basically, what happened was we just got into the studio right in the nick of time.
So we had just, we had everything scheduled.
I wrote the album in December before Christmas, took the holidays off.
The guys came out early January.
They were right here where I'm sitting.
Taught everything to the guys.
We worked everything out, went into the studio and started recording.
we went to Mexico in February.
By the time we got back from our tour in Mexico, it was a full-blown pandemic.
So we just beat that.
Now, had we waited a little bit longer, we probably wouldn't have an album right now.
Because I don't like to make albums where everyone does it remotely or phones it in.
I like to at least track all the basics together and work everything out together.
And then I'll go track my vocals in my home studio and also do his solos at home.
I'll do my solos at home.
That stuff I don't mind.
But the basic tracks have to be together as a band because that's where all the wonderful blessed magic happens, you know, and we have to be together to do that.
Got to get the energy of the guy behind the glass.
I'm like, that was the one.
That was it.
Exactly.
Like we do things like we're not there.
If Robert's tracking drums, we got to be there because what happens is if Robert's starting to feel lifeless or he's losing the energy and you're just losing that special magic, special sauce kind of thing.
Well, yeah, exactly.
What we'll do, and this works every time with Robert, is we'll pull out, we'll go in there with the camera, a phone, like we're, he's, you know, we're making a video of him.
And then here's Robert.
It's like, yeah, he comes to life, you know, for the camera.
And we get the track.
It's amazing.
I made a, this is just a side story, but my, so I made a TV show with my little brother.
This is, that's a long story.
You probably don't know about it.
It's called Axe COP, but he did the intro where he had to perform in front of a mic and he had to talk kind of like in a cop voice.
He's five years old.
And the takes just weren't working.
And then I go, I know what we need to do.
And we had him put on aviator sunglasses.
And as soon as we put those aviator sunglasses on him, he nailed it.
New guys, there's something there.
Something there.
I'm telling you, there's a video of Robert online and I can't watch it without literally, I'm in tears by the time I'm watching it.
But we're playing in a venue doing an acoustic number.
I think it's all for one.
And Robert's playing a cajon and he's kind of looking down, looking a little down and out, not a lot of energy, maybe a little tired, you know.
And he looks up and he notices that someone's filming him.
And here's what he does.
He goes, hey, you know, and he comes to life.
And it's incredible how it just really reflects and turns things around for Rob.
I mean, we're all that way to a degree, but Rob's really that way.
So that works for Rob.
For me, what works to get me into it, if someone says they're going to Starbucks, I'm like, that's, whoa, wow, nice.
You know, let's get this, you know, and it just turns things around for me.
For Oz, it would probably be like food.
That works for me.
Any kind of food.
You know, hey, Oz, you want some food?
Yeah, let's get this.
Perry would probably be a cigar.
Sounds like a fun group of guys to hang out with.
You got to get them live in the studio sometime.
Yeah, come on down.
Oh, I'm telling you guys, if you come in the studio and get this, you're going to turn to me at the end and say, you were dead on the money.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, we're going to break into our subscriber portion.
Everyone check out the new album, Even the Devil Believes.
It's on all the music stuff for wherever kids listen to their music nowadays.
These days.
Yeah.
And during the subscriber portion, Michael Sweet's going to give us all the dirty laundry of all the other metal bands.
He'll train us in falsetto singing.
He'll train us how to sing falsetto or something.
I'll try, man.
I'll do my best.
Oh, gosh.
Coming up next for Babylon B subscribers.
You know, Babylon, Babylon, Babylon B.
Yeah, I could do that.
Yeah, I like it.
So did they actually pour goo all over you guys for the cover of Reborn?
Or whose idea was it?
Was that when you got spat on?
Or was that just spit?
That was, that was.
We'd pull up.
We'd pull up with their and the back ramp would fall down, drop down, and then we would walk out of the back of it.
And on top of it, on top of it was a 50 caliber machine gun.
Wondering what they'll say next?
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Kyle and Ethan would like to thank Seth Dylan for paying the bills, Adam Ford for creating their job, the other writers for tirelessly pitching headlines, the subscribers, and you, the listener.