Evil and Divine

The story of an unlikely pairing — L.A. Guns’ Tracii Guns and Stryper’s Michael Sweet — and their doomy new side-project, Sunbomb

- By Brad Angle

ON YOU GUYS BOTH AGREE WE SHOULD HAVE NAMED the band Guns N’ Moses?”

Stryper’s Michael Sweet is asking this question, straight-faced, to Guitar World over Zoom. But the singer-guitarist isn’t referring to his long-running Christian metal crew. He’s talking about Sunbomb — the new side-project from L.A. Guns’ main man Tracii Guns. Before we can parse Sweet’s deadpan delivery, Guns, who’s also on the call, bursts into laughter: “I agree with that!”

Jokes aside, the question does highlight a seeming paradox surrounding Sunbomb: How in the world did a nice guy like Sweet find himself singing over Guns’ heavier-than-ever exploration of black metal-tinged doom and classic heavy metal?

The Guns/Sweet pairing makes a bit more sense when you learn how much the two musicians have in common. They both grew up in SoCal during the heyday of the Seventies hard rock. Each guitarist was deeply influenced by the New Wave of British Heavy Metal as well as six-string greats like Eddie Van Halen, Michael Schenker and Randy Rhoads. L.A. Guns and Stryper rose to international fame out of the raucous Eighties Sunset Strip scene, and both outfits are still going strong today. The guys also shared a guitar tech — who was the matchmaker that led to their relatively recent friendship. They even tried to get an L.A. Guns/Stryper tour off the ground, but “it was very difficult for promoters to swallow,” Guns says.