STRYPER Guitarist: 'It's Our Mission To Go Out And Tell People About Jesus Christ'

Pennsylvania's The Express-Times recently conducted an interview with STRYPER guitarist Oz Fox. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

On the band's Christian message being the most important thing:

"We've never changed our faith and everything else as far as what we believe. We definitely want people to know what we believe in. We feel it's our mission to go out and tell people about Jesus Christ and having eternal salvation through Him. That's just never changed and never will for us. We've done it before; we still throw out Bibles at shows. And that's our message; that's the reason why STRYPER is here, to tell people about Christianity and why He came."

On spreading a Christian message during their current tour:

"There's not too many groups out there that play the kind of music we play and has the type of history we do and just flat-out tells people right to their face what we believe in. The response so far is just incredible. A lot of groups that are out there have crossed over from Christian to mainstream, but they don't really come out and say it. A lot of them hide. We've never hidden our message. And as for changing our approach, it's like I tell people, we've been successful with doing that in the past; why should we stop doing it?"

On whether STRYPER's members have changed since the band's inception:

"People do change — and we're hoping that however we do change, we'll grow together. We're looking to be together for a long time. We feel like this is a gift; to be able to do this and be the kind of group that we are is quite an honor.

"And the support we've gotten from so many people, across the country and around the world, is amazing. We've played to crowds of about 12,000 recently. To me, that was a signal someone wants to hear this band. So as far as I'm concerned, we'll keep doing it as long as people want to hear it."

On whether STRYPER's sound has changed:

"There's definitely a STRYPER sound there but the music has evolved more into a modern rock type of sound. The music on this new album ['Reborn'] is very modern; there's still heavy guitars and the signature vocals. One of the things I like about this album is that the lyrics really have a lot of meaning and this album, in a short amount of time, has really spoken to my heart and it's given me the passion to want to play it. So all around, from the sound to what the music says, it's such a step up from what we've done in the past. I'm really excited."