Stryper frontman Michael Sweet has revealed that he’s been diagnosed with cancer.

In a post shared to Facebook, the 62 year-old singer noted that a “biopsy that was performed on 11/17 (a nodule in my right thyroid) came back positive. Malignant.”

“I’m scheduled for a CT and an ultrasound next Monday 12/15,” he continued, “and then I’ll be meeting with my doctor/surgeon on 12/22 to figure out a plan moving forward.”

Sweet further noted that he was diagnosed with “papillary thyroid cancer,” adding that “the good news (is) that it’s slow growing and something that my doctor seems very optimistic about.”

The rocker admitted he’s recently been “experiencing a few issues vocally and it feels a little more ‘crowded’ in there. Now I understand why.” He apologized to fans for performing at less than 100%, but said he is “confident that things will get better.”

“Even though it’s concerning to even hear the ‘C’ word (much less be diagnosed with it), I believe that it will be behind me soon enough,” Sweet declared. “I’ll get in and deal with it and heal up and be ready for 2026.”

Michael Sweet Says Cancer Diagnosis Won’t Delay New Stryper Album

Elsewhere in his message, Sweet revealed that despite his cancer diagnosis, Stryper is still on schedule to start recording their new album on Dec. 28.

“Once we finish tracking, I’ll be undergoing another surgery to remove my right thyroid and the nodule itself,” the singer noted. He went on to thank fans for their continued support and payers, adding that he looked forward to a return to touring. “I love you guys and I can’t wait to see you on the road in 2026.”

Stryper’s 16th studio album, When We Were Kings, was released in 2024. The next performance currently on the band’s schedule is set for April 12, 2026 on the Monsters of Rock Cruise.

Top 15 Sunset Strip Bands

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15. Faster Pussycat

Singer Taime Downe formed Faster Pussycat in 1985 and the group quickly became a major presence in the Hollywood glam metal scene. The classic lineup featured Downe alongside Brent Muscat (guitar), Greg Steele (guitar), Eric Stacy (bass) and Mark Michals (drums). Faster Pussycat developed a passionate heavy metal fan base and eventually caught the attention of Elektra records, who signed them in 1987. Major tours would take them away from the Sunset Strip, including treks with Alice Cooper and Motorhead. Still, unlike some of their contemporaries – including Motley Crue and Poison – Faster Pussycat never made the jump to mainstream fame. Their biggest commercial success was their 1989 album Wake Me When Its Over, which achieved gold sales.

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14. Stryper

Led by brothers Michael and Robert Sweet, Stryper separated themselves from other ‘80s hair metal groups in an unexpected way. While other popular bands at the time were embracing debauchery, Stryper was founded in their faith. The Christian rockers began life as Roxx Regime but changed their name to better reflect their religion (Stryper comes from a Bible verse). Despite garnering significant flack for their pious ways, Stryper earned the respect of everyone in the scene. “We were there (on the Sunset Strip) through it all with Motley Crue, with Poison, with RATT, with W.A.S.P. We were with so many of those bands of the time, even Guns ‘N Roses,” Michael Sweet recalled to Fox San Antonio. “It’s interesting, we were just in the right place at the right time. To be a part of that monumental history that will never be repeated again.”

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13. L.A. Guns

Guitarist Tracii Guns founded L.A. Guns in 1983 and immediately began gigging on the Sunset Strip. Over the next few years, the band’s lineup would be a rotating door, briefly featuring such familiar names as Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin. As Guns watched Sunset Strip acts like Motley Crue and Ratt ascend to massive mainstream success, he positioned his band to be the next one up – only with a harder and more defiant sound. “It was definitely a turning point music-wise because everything became more rough around the edges, more blues-influenced, more alternative,” Guns explained in the book Nothin’ but a Good Time. “It wasn’t just about looking like Motley Crue anymore. It was about injecting the Stones and the [New York] Dolls and the Germs and all these other influences into it. So what really happened is the quality of music, diversity of music, got turned up in the scene. It got dirtier.” L.A. Guns enjoyed moderate success with their first two albums, which both reached gold sales. Still, they never quite matched the massive commercial heights of their contemporaries, instead becoming an influential yet underappreciated part of the era.

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12. W.A.S.P.

W.A.S.P. formed in 1982 and quickly earned a reputation for their outlandish, raunchy and sometimes shocking live shows. The ringleader was frontman Blackie Lawless, who was known to occasionally throw raw meat into the audience or drink blood onstage. The wild display didn’t just grab attention, it created a following. W.A.S.P. became one of the must-see acts on the Sunset Strip, and things only took off further following their 1984 self-titled album.

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11. Warrant

By their own admission, Warrant earned their “stripes and scars on the Sunset Strip in the 80’s.” In the scene’s highly competitive environment, the band stood out with eye-catching fliers. “Your promotion had to be a bit rude and crude to get the attention,” guitarist Jerry Dixon explained to LA Weekly. “If you just put a nice happy picture of a band on there, nobody was gonna show up. We started being as crude as possible on the flyers and came up with some creative slogans for each show.” Warrant’s 1989 debut album took them from the clubs to mainstream success. Four months after its release, they played a sold-out gig at Los Angeles’ Universal Amphitheater, a 6,000 capacity venue that reflected just how far they’d come in a short period of time.

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10. Dokken

Don Dokken’s first band, Airborne, featured future Ratt members Bobby Blotzer on drums and bassist Juan Croucier. The group was one of many Sunset Strip hopefuls that never took off, however Dokken had much better luck with his next, self-titled group. Dokken started in ‘79 and established itself as a heavy metal force to be reckoned with. As guitarist George Lynch later explained, it took a certain type of toughness to rise up the Sunset Strip’s ranks. “We’d be putting our posters up on telephone poles, [and] the next band would come along a couple hours later, rip yours down, put theirs up,” Lynch noted to Rolling Stone. “It was a very competitive scene.” Dokken eventually broke out with their 1984 LP Tooth and Nail, the first in a trio of platinum-selling releases.

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9. Poison

The glittering light of the Sunset Strip lured many transplants to Hollywood – among them, Poison. “When we finally pulled onto the Strip it was, ‘Holy shit!’” Bret Michaels recalled to Rolling Stone. “We’re driving past the Rainbow, Gazzarri’s, the Roxy, the Whisky, and there’s gotta be, like, 100,000 people walking around. And they all look like they’re in a band. For a bunch of small-town guys, that’s a lot to take in.” Poison soon blazed their own trail on the Strip, constantly performing while creating their own flashy brand of glam metal. While making fliers for their club shows, the band also lucked into creating their trademark green logo. “We went to Sir Speedy [copy shop] on Santa Monica Blvd. and asked for white. Too expensive,” Michaels remembered. “We asked for yellow. Too expensive. But they had a shitload of fluorescent green paper that they couldn’t give away. We took all of it for a few bucks. So that became our color.”

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8. Buffalo Springfield

The members of Buffalo Springfield came from all over North America, but they assembled together in Hollywood in the mid-’60s. In fact, Neil Young and Bruce Palmer famously connected with Stephen Stills and Richie Furay while sitting in traffic on the Sunset Strip. Buffalo Springfield played their first show in April 1966 at The Troubadour. They’d soon become one of the scene’s most popular acts, playing shows with contemporaries such as the Byrds. Buffalo Springfield became the house band at the Whisky a Go Go in 1966. Later that year, riots on the Sunset Strip over curfew laws inspired one of the band’s biggest hits, “For What It’s Worth.”

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7. Ratt

Singer Stephen Pearcy moved from San Diego to Los Angeles in the early ‘70s and bounced around a few bands before forming Ratt in 1976. The group spent several years honing their sound playing the Sunset Strip’s clubs, including Gazzarri’s. “I saw so many people fuck on the lawns behind Gazzarri’s that I actually got bored of watching and started to throw empty beer cans at them,” Pearcy recalled in his 2014 autobiography. Ratt’s lineup would change over the years before the classic group of Pearcy, Warren DeMartini, Robbin Crosby, Juan Croucier and Bobby Blotzer came together. It was this lineup that busted out with the 1984 LP Out of the Cellar and its hit single, “Round and Round.”

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6. The Byrds

One of the most influential acts of the ‘60s folk rock movement was the Byrds. The original lineup featured Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, David Crosby, Chris Hillman and Michael Clarke. Each musician had pursued their own respective careers, largely playing coffee shops and smaller clubs. A chance meeting at the Troubadour in 1964 brought McGuinn and Clark together, putting the wheels in motion for the Byrds’ formation. One of the band’s biggest breaks came in 1965 when they secured a residency at the Sunset Strip venue Ciro’s Le Disc. During this time, the Byrds honed their sound while also building a passionate fan base among Los Angeles music fans and Hollywood celebrities. Later that year the Byrds’ version of “Mr. Tambourine Man” became a No. 1 hit, officially launching the band to stardom.

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5. Quiet Riot

Guitarist Randy Rhoads and bassist Kelly Garni started Quiet Riot in the early ‘70s, soon rounding out the initial lineup with singer Kevin DuBrow and drummer Drew Forsyth. The band cut their teeth playing gigs at such Sunset Strip venues as Gazzari’s and the Starwood, developing a fierce reputation in the process. Despite their electrifying live shows, Quiet Riot struggled to get a record deal. Their first two albums were only released in Japan and by the time their breakthrough LP, 1983’s Metal Health, was released, only DuBrow remained from the original lineup.

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4. Motley Crue

Perhaps the most notorious Sunset Strip band, Motley Crue, got their start in 1981. The band’s first gig was just south of the Strip on Santa Monica Blvd. at the Starwood nightclub. Soon, Motley Crue would become so synonymous with the Sunset Strip that they lived there. Seriously. The band rented an apartment at 1124 N. Clark St., walking – or stumbling – distance from the Whisky. “People would pour into the house for afterhours parties,” Neil recalled in the band’s autobiography, The Dirt. “Guys in metal newborns like Ratt and W.A.S.P. spilled out into the courtyard and the street. Girls would arrive in shifts. One would be climbing out the window while another was coming in the door.” Even after the Crue became too big for the Sunset Strip’s clubs, they made sure to honor the scene where they got their start.

The “Girls, Girls, Girls” video was famously shot at the Body Shop (a strip club on Sunset) and the clip for “Kickstart My Heart” featured an intimate performance at the Whisky, back where the band started.

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3. The Doors

The Doors formed in Venice Beach, roughly 13 miles from the Sunset Strip (or a 2 hour drive if you’re stuck in LA traffic). After rehearsing together for a few months, they landed a residency at London Fog, one of the Sunset Strip’s less heralded nightclubs. Months later, the Doors would move up in class, becoming the house band at the Whisky a Go Go. This is where the band really came into their own, as bigger and bigger crowds began turning up to see the Jim Morrison-led group. The Doors’ shows at the Whisky eventually caught the attention of Jac Holzman, president of Elektra Records. He soon signed the band to their first record deal, putting the wheels in motion on an iconic – though tragically short – career.

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2. Guns N’ Roses

Formed from members of two different acts – L.A. Guns and Hollywood Rose – Guns N’ Roses’ history cannot be written without the Sunset Strip. The local scene there in the ‘80s was instrumental in the band’s rise. They played the Troubadour, the Roxy and the Whisky. Slash and Axl worked day jobs at Tower Video, adjacent to the famous Tower Records on Sunset. And then Appetite for Destruction arrived and the entire dynamic of rock shifted. GNR’s debut album made them worldwide superstars, while also having a palpable impact on their adopted home. “We left on tour in June of ’87 and were gone for a year and a half,” Duff McKagan later reflected to the New York Times. “We had no idea that people in L.A. made this shift in culture to look and sound like us. Imagine landing back on Planet Earth: People were all glammed out when you left, and now you could tell the photo of us they were trying to look like. There was the Izzy guy, the Slash guy, the Axl guy, the me guy, the Steven guy, and they were walking all over Hollywood. It was weird.”

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1. Van Halen

Even among the incredible artists who rose from the Sunset Strip, Van Halen stands above the rest. The band, with a classic lineup of Eddie Van Halen, David Lee Roth, Michael Anthony and Alex Van Halen, first began playing shows at backyard barbecues, local high schools and really anywhere they could get a gig. Still, it was on the Sunset Strip’s stages that the band truly began building their legend. The group secured regular gigs at Gazzarri’s and soon became the scene’s biggest stars. Worldwide fame seemed inevitable, and when their debut LP hit store shelves in 1978, the global invasion officially began.