Honestly: My Life and Stryper Revealed by Sweet Michael & Rose Dave & Van Pelt Doug

Author:Sweet, Michael & Rose, Dave & Van Pelt, Doug [Sweet, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780996041812
Publisher: Big3 Records
Published: 2014-05-05T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-SIX

Our outrageous spending on In God We Trust continued with the two videos we shot to support the album—“Always There For You” and “I Believe In You.” We spent more for those two than we had spent on our other five videos combined.

The largest plane ever constructed, with the widest wingspan in aviation history, was stored in an enormous hanger in Long Beach. The plane was the Hughes H-4 Hercules, nicknamed the “Spruce Goose.” Disney had acquired the plane and the hanger where it was being stored and subsequently moved the Spruce Goose to Oregon, leaving a ridiculously large climate-controlled hanger completely empty.

We felt that hanger would be the right place to rent for shooting our next video, “Always There For You.” “Bigger is always better” should have been our slogan in 1988. Bigger hair, bigger homes, bigger cars, bigger shoulder pads, and bigger hangers to stage bigger videos.

I was the guy overseeing our music, and Robert was the guy overseeing the production of videos, album covers, and the image of the band. The problem was that Robert was also really good at spending money. Obviously I was too. We all were, for that matter. I could have lived out many years of my life on just a portion of the money we spent making IGWT. Combine that with what we spent making the videos and we all could have lived comfortably for quite a while. But why do that when we could spend it on a helicopter flying us onto a Stryper landing pad for the opening scene of a video? It was eye-catching, no doubt. But was it worth all the money? I don’t think so.

I watched the crews building the set for this video and thought, “God, how much is all this costing? It must be a fortune.” Roughly $260,000 was the answer to my question. But who was I to argue? Michael Jackson had shot several of his videos here, including his infamous “Dirty Diana.” If it was good enough for Michael, it was good enough for us.

The stage in that video lit up from underneath flashing the words “In God We Trust.” We had flown platforms that hung from the ceiling. They even custom-made the Stryper logo so that it would protrude from the stage floor. And all of these exorbitant video amenities were accented in the irony that the stage was a replica of a $100 bill. It wouldn’t surprise me if that were made out of real hundreds.

As much as I quietly played along with this wasteful spending, in the back of my mind I kept thinking, “We can’t keep going down this path. This is not going to end well.”

The video for “Always There For You” peaked at #1 on the MTV countdown. It was released almost simultaneously with the album, helping to continue the momentum of the band as we prepared to hit the road.

The album was released in June of 1988, but we didn’t hit the road until September, kicking off that tour at Disney World.

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