Honestly: My Life and Stryper Revealed (6 page)

It was frustrating. We’d hear all these stories of this band or that band taking meetings with labels. We’d here about so-and-so showcasing for this label or for that label. We were dancing with local success, but no labels were interested, until we met with Enigma.

A week prior, Robert and I carefully pieced together a faux record jacket/sleeve and the infamous early “demo” cassette to send to Enigma. We creatively labeled it with a thin-tipped black Sharpie and a yellow highlighter with the words “ROXX REGIME DEMO.” We taped the package closed and placed it in a padded envelope scheduled for overnight delivery just a few cities away in Torrance.

By 10:30 the next morning we received confirmation that the package had arrived, and we exercised what little self-control we had and didn’t follow up with a phone call. We had decided that if they didn’t call us by the end of the week, we’d call them.

They received the demo on a Tuesday and called us that Thursday. The following week, we took a meeting with the Hein brothers and their team at Enigma Records.

Enigma was diverse in their signings. They had everyone from Motley Crue (early on) to Poison, but they had never signed a Christian band.

We later found out that the logo for Enigma records is an illustration of a woman’s breast and “junk,” for lack of a better term, and we became even more hesitant about the road we were traveling down.

What’s strange about that time in our career, now looking back on it, was that we weren’t really into Christian rock music, nor did we even consider the thought of soliciting Christian labels. It wasn’t as if we were against the idea, we just didn’t
have
the idea. We were surrounded by bands getting signed to LA labels, and well, that’s just what you’re supposed to do when you’re a rock band from Hollywood— get signed to a rock label like everyone else. We knew two kinds of music at the time. It was either Rock or Metal (read: Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Van Halen, and Black Sabbath).

In 1983 the only semi-notable Christian rock acts were Petra, The Rez Band, Phil Keaggy, Mylon LeFevre, and Larry Norman, and we certainly weren’t listening to any of them. Nothing against those acts personally. I know most of those guys and I respect and admire them immensely. It just wasn’t our kind of music, so signing with a label who signed those bands never even crossed our minds. We sounded nothing like them, so it wasn’t even in our consciousness to consider looking at labels that had signed Christian bands.

So, we met with Enigma and they were all incredibly nice. They liked what we were doing, but they didn’t like it enough. They asked for a private showcase as the next step.

Our friend (and brief former guitarist), Odie, had a warehouse in Whittier where his new band was rehearsing and he agreed to let us use the space for an evening.

We set up a showcase for Enigma Records to take place a few weeks later at the warehouse.

Showcases, particularly private ones, are odd affairs. You’re essentially playing a live show, but your audience is made up of only a few people from the record label with the sole purpose of deciding your fate as an artist within their record label world. They are there to judge you, plain and simple. “Are you a big enough rock star with big enough rock hooks to make our label millions and millions of dollars?” And this all takes place on a Tuesday at 7:00 in the evening.

So we decided to make it a little less awkward, and unbeknownst to Enigma, we invited a bunch of friends so we could have people (fans) who knew the music and who would stand up near the stage, giving us the energy that only a live audience can give.

So half-a-dozen people from the label show up to this warehouse and we’ve got 30 or so friends there just hanging around. One of the label staff asks, “When are you planning to clear the room and get the showcase started?”

“We’re a rock band,” I said. “And a rock band has fans. Fans are part of our show and we feel they should stay.”

They seemed to agree.

We were blaringly loud that day in our tin-roof showcase warehouse. You could hardly distinguish the vocals over the din of the instruments. It sounded horrible to me, but apparently not to Enigma, because they got really excited and shortly thereafter offered us a recording contract.

Not long after that showcase, we went to Enigma’s offices in Torrance and filed into their boardroom to sign the deal. Enigma was THE hot independent label at the time. They were a driving force in the market and although they weren’t Capital or Warner Brothers, we felt good about our decision. Turns out, Enigma was one of the best career decisions we ever made as a band. To this day, I have incredible respect for what Bill and Wes Hein did for this band.

We had such magical camaraderie with Enigma, a rare experience even at that time. We worked together on launching the band, setting forth goals and specific actions to achieve those goals. Bill and Wes were brilliant and undeniably instrumental in the success of Stryper.

Ironically, it wasn’t until
after
we signed the deal that they realized we were a Christian band, and a very outspoken one at that. I still find that hard to believe, but that’s what they said. Not that it really mattered to them. It wasn’t as if they were saying, “Oh man, what have we done? We just signed a Jesus band. How can we get out of this one?” Or maybe they were thinking that, but they hid it well.

Even with the distorted vocals in that acoustically flawed warehouse, how could they not hear the words “Jesus is the way!” in the song “From Wrong To Right”, or any of the other blatantly bold lyrics at the time?

So there we were, the sole Christian band signed to a label that celebrated Aleister Crowley’s birthday. What next?

Well, the first order of business from the label was direct orders, or more like a firm suggestion, to change the name. This was the moment I began to really like this label. I always hated the name Roxx Regime. But Rob wasn’t as easily convinced. He liked the name a lot.

Over the coming weeks we threw around a few dozen options and eventually settled on Striper. We changed the “I” to a “Y” and we became Stryper. Rob said it rhymed with “hyper.” And that’s the story behind the name. The label didn’t like Roxx Regime, thankfully, and we, again thankfully, came up with Stryper.

It wasn’t until later that we would associate the name with the words of Isaiah 53:5—“By His Stripes We Are Healed.” And it was a few weeks after that when we would create the acronym “Salvation Through Redemption Yielding Peace Encouragement and Righteousness.”

It didn’t take long for word on the street to spread that we were now a heavy metal band devoted to Christ, and our crowds got even bigger. We were packing clubs throughout LA and Orange County. Soon after signing, we performed at The Troubadour and sold it out. The line stretched from Santa Monica to Sunset. We could have done 2-3 shows that night and filled the place. The buzz began.....

Record-signing shows were common then. It was partially a way for labels to show off their new trophy bands, and partially a way for bands to say to other
un
signed bands, “Hey, look at us, we’re signed!” They were always lavish and over-the-top extravaganzas, each label trying to out-do another and each band trying to have their 15 minutes of bragging rights. It’s a little silly when you think about it, but that was how it was.

We found out later that they turned away over a thousand people for that show at The Troubadour. The next day there were pictures of the line in the paper. If anyone overlooked our bragging rights that night at The Troubadour, they surely saw it the next day in print.

Things started to happen fast at this point—really fast.

Soon after, we played a show at the Reseda Country Club with Poison and Bon Jovi. Bon Jovi had just come out with “Runaway” and they were really starting to take off, so it was another capacity crowd. To the masses they weren’t yet rock stars, but within their own minds, they may as well have been The Rolling Stones. That’s probably an unfair judgment of them having only been around them for such a short time, but that’s the way I perceived them and the way they came across.

We had of course crossed paths with C.C. Deville previously, and the guys in Poison were sweethearts. All of them were really nice guys and took time to talk with us.

We used to try to take the time to talk to the bands we performed with, looking for any open door to share our faith. We never cornered bands and preached to them. We were just acutely aware of opportunities that could lead to the sharing of our faith, where we were in our lives, and why we believed what we did.

There was only one little speed bump during our honeymoon time with Enigma. They weren’t ready to lay down the money to record a new album. They planned to release our demos as the first album. They basically just said “We like your demos. Let’s release these.”

Thank God we met someone who would become a life-long friend and an investor in the band and would give us the opportunity to record our low budget demos professionally. She had heard about us doing this “God thing” and decided to come to a show to see if it was for real or not. She saw the band and was blown away. Here we were, a band devoted to Christ but at the same time selling out clubs on The Sunset Strip. Her name was Daryn Hinton, and she would become instrumental in the next phase of Stryper.

TEN

Nowhere is the popular saying about the journey being more fun than the destination truer than in the music business. In hindsight I wish I had taken time to appreciate the early journey a little more. I should have taken just a few more moments to breathe in those early days and enjoy the sunrise that was taking place before my very eyes.

In 1983 we were kids with all the promise of a future, but still wanting to be kids and continue playing with toys.

Our most prized toy was a recording contract. The rest of the industry probably thought we were crazy, but we didn’t care. The sense of hope and a bright future was palpable within the walls of the Stryper camp. We were hangin’ with industry big-wigs. We were, finally, of interest to the press. Our peers were envious, or so we assumed. And we had an entire world to toss Bibles to.

Daryn Hinton strengthened our excitement about our future.

There’s a popular saying in the music business about bands and record companies. When a record label doesn’t really want to invest in a band, they instead throw a bunch of albums out just to “see what sticks.” People would say about a record label that doesn’t develop acts, “They just throw it against the wall and see if it sticks.”

Well, thanks largely to Daryn, we stuck like glue.

Enigma, not ready to invest and wanting to see if we “stuck” first, was considering releasing the demos “as is.” Those “as is” recordings were later released as ‘”The Roxx Regime Demos” through our own label Fifty Three Five Records.

As our bond with (and love for) Daryn began to grow, she agreed to invest in us. $100,000. This was an unheard of amount of money to us. We signed an agreement to pay her back with interest, and we did. Because of Daryn and her risky investment, we were able to go back in and re-record those demos, get some new equipment, and we even had a billboard on Sunset Strip that stayed in place for months and months.

Locals were thinking, “What the hell?” A Billboard on The Strip dedicated solely to one band was not common-place at the time. People took notice. How could they miss us? A bunch of guys that looked like girls dressed in yellow and black striped spandex? Yeah, not really a Billboard you could overlook on Sunset Strip.

We went into Mad Dog Studios in Venice to re-record the demos, having tracked the drums at a place called Music Grinder. Mad Dog relocated in 1996 to Burbank but still has a history of having recorded some great artists like Dwight Yoakum and Buck Owens.

The music was coming together just like I had imagined it would. If only I had the right equipment and studio to capture the sounds as I was hearing them the first time on the demos. I’ve always been a stickler about the sonic quality of Stryper, tending to over-obsess with every detail. It was so satisfying to finally be happy with a recording.

Enigma was obviously pleased. Why wouldn’t they be? The record went from a mediocre sounding demo at best, to a polished, professional recording—on our dime, loaned to us with interest.

But still, we were a “Jesus Band”, as they used to refer to us around the office, and Enigma had never marketed a Jesus Band. So the process began on artwork and packaging for the album. We turned in our 8-mile-long list of thank-you credits that we wanted on the album. First-time releases by young bands always have too many names on the thanks list. We were no exception. We thanked people on our first album that we haven’t seen or spoken to since.

Enigma’s uncertainty about how to market Stryper really sank in when we turned in the lyrics. Conversations went back and forth debating the merits of including the lyrics in the album. We of course wanted to, but the label wasn’t so sure.

I guess maybe they thought that the rest of the world wouldn’t notice the “Jesus thing.” I remember talking to the label and hearing the uncertainty in their voices over the lyrical content and thinking for a moment that we may get dropped before we even release the record. Fortunately, we were not willing to compromise our music and message, and so the lyrics stayed, Jesus and all.

On July 21, 1984,
The Yellow and Black Attack
was released. Miraculously, it built its own momentum and sold an unexplained 150,000 copies in the first three weeks! It exploded. We were the talk of LA, if not the country. I imagine Enigma Records thought differently of us from that moment on.

Although I never heard these words, my gut was telling me that behind closed doors at the label they were thinking “Okay. This Christian thing isn’t so bad after all. This might actually be pretty easy.”

The label made us a priority and got behind us one hundred percent.

I believe it was God who had his hands on this and He was in complete control. I truly believe the Creator of the Universe was the fifth member of Stryper, keeping a watchful eye on us. He closed all the right doors at the right time, and opened the right ones at the right time as well.