Michael Sweet has been asked whether he would ever play guitar in King Diamond's band if the offer and the money were right. His answer was no — but the reasoning, and everything that followed it, is more interesting than the refusal.
Speaking to Scott Itter of Dr. Music, the STRYPER frontman said the obstacle is not the man. "I don't know that I would do that. I would probably safely say no, I wouldn't do that. I would think that he would probably say the same thing if we asked him to come and sing for STRYPER. I could be wrong. But it's nothing against him as a person, but just I don't agree with anything spiritually in terms of what he sings about versus what we sing. It's a polar opposite. So it's, like, I would feel like I'm basically betraying my faith, betraying myself and what I stand for. Now, some people might not agree with that, and that's okay."
A shared bill is another matter entirely. "Now, would we go tour with him and play with MERCYFUL FATE or KING DIAMOND — STRYPER and MERCYFUL FATE? Absolutely. 100%, 100%."
Sweet first met King Diamond — Kim Bendix Petersen — when STRYPER and MERCYFUL FATE both played Mexico's Hell & Heaven Metal Fest in December 2022, and he went looking for him. "I went out of my way to meet Kim. And I look at him as a person just like me. We're all on this earth searching, we're all on this earth trying to figure it out. Now, I could have gone the opposite, like some dark metal bands do with STRYPER. I could have been a dick to him. I could have mocked him. I could have done any number of things, like a lot of dark metal bands have done to us when we play festivals. There's this weird thing towards STRYPER. But I wasn't about to do that. And I saw that he was set up next to us, his dressing room, and I said to myself, 'I gotta meet him.' And I did. And I had a lovely conversation — short but sweet. And I just really learned to respect him."
He has described the encounter several times since, always the same way. On SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk" in 2023 he recalled expecting a confrontation and getting the weather instead. "You have this idea of what it's going to be — good versus evil; and is there gonna be a war? And it's the exact opposite. And that's really the way life is nine out of 10 times." Asked whether they had discussed their beliefs, he said they had not: "Two dudes talking." Some of his own audience were unimpressed. "Some people from my camp are, like, 'Did you get to talk to him about the Lord?' I'm, like, 'Really? You're kidding me, right?'"
To Metal Edge he put it more bluntly still: "You're Satanic. We're Christian. But then when you break it down, we're just people."
Sweet would do a song together if it came up — after praying about it, as he says he does with everything, including SWEET & LYNCH with self-described "freethinking atheist" George Lynch. "I hope I can have the opportunity to hang out with him a little more and go have dinner and talk."
That double-sided position has always defined STRYPER, formed 43 years ago and named for Isaiah 53:5. Their third album, 1986's "To Hell With The Devil", made them the first contemporary Christian act to go platinum — and left them not quite welcome anywhere, too heavy for much of the church and too devout for much of metal.