Oz Fox

I've grown to like some Striper stuff.

Oz Fox is amazing.

All those guys are great.

But I just wanted something heavy and sounded good that didn't sound like Christian rock.

And there's none of that on Throwing Thorns with, you know, just a quick drum intro and then into the main riff or, you know, the riff that carries the song and then into the song.

And I'm not sure if that's just because it was all Michael doing the guitar work and Oz was having trouble and couldn't perform in the studio.

He is with the band still and still performing live with them.

But we talked about that too, that it was all Michael Sweet doing all the guitars on there.

So there's a couple of live records in there, a couple of greatest hits.

And in there was also that re-recorded songs or the second coming where they redid a bunch of their songs.

The other thing I wanted to mention, this had the original lineup for Striper with Michael Sweet, Oz Fox, Robert Sweet.

Tim Gaines is back on this record.

I think people attach the earlier stuff to nostalgia, and they remember him.

in that and that's a time in their life that they just absolutely fell in love with the band they loved you and then now there's so many different ways to hear music you know it gets you're bombarded with all these different ways but I do enjoy the new stuff like I say this new album and tell people about the album itself because I know Oz Fox was ill and it seems like he's doing better now but for this album you recorded like you did all the guitar parts that normally Oz would do is that accurate?

I did, and basically the way it normally works is the guitar parts are, I do most of the rhythms and all the, I call it ear candy, all the overdub, like the intro to To Hell with the Devil, for example, or Soldiers.

You

And then solos are split up 50-50.

But on this album, I had to wind up doing all the guitars.

And I tell you what, It was due basically to Ozzy's blood pressure.

He wasn't able to hear properly.

Let's talk about the band.

So Michael Sweet is the, the, uh, I think he's kind of the big name over here, but Oz Fox is also a, a big name as well, and then Robert.

So, like, those are the three people that are credited on this, right? So Michael Sweet's lead guitar or lead vocals, backing vocals, lead guitar, acoustic guitar, and arrangements.

Oz Fox is on guitar and backing vocals, and then Robert Sweet, uh, they're brothers, uh, is the drummer.

What's missing from this is their longtime bass player.

He had left the band.

Yeah.

So good.

Right? The Sweet Brothers.

Yeah, Oz Fox and Tim Gaines.

Tim Gaines is the bass player.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, this one, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, oh, okay.

I'm just saying now, they still have the same Oz Fox, Robert Sweet, Michael Sweet, but the bass player is no longer there.

And I always liked Oz Fox.

Really?

I gotta give it up for, um, Oz Fox, Michael and Robert Sweet, and, uh, the new bass player, which I'm not really familiar with his name.

But I do know he used to play in, he used to play bass in the band Lifehouse.

Oh, in Lifehouse? Yeah.

Thyroid cancer, whatever, which he's battling.

Oz Fox has had some issues, which Michael described as being...

He couldn't Oz wasn't apparently able to record the album that they're releasing this week.

And apparently his blood pressure medication was out of whack and could not play because of the effects that was having on him.