What has everyone been up to since the band initially broke up in 1994?

Michael Bloodgood: I became a staff associate pastor at Calvary Chapel in Seattle, then I became a senior pastor, and then I started my own church about six or seven years ago. I went from this ministry to pastoring. Plus we're all family guys—I have three sons and we've been busy raising those guys.

Les Carlsen: I lead worship at a church in Southern California called Water of Life where my wife is the children's pastor. I also own an art company, have been writing music, and basically just raising my daughter, who's 17 now. We all had children and decided to back off a bit with the band, but now that they're grown, all the guys' kids are saying, "Hey, how come you're not singing rock and roll?" So we've come back!

Oz Fox: I've been back for a while playing with Stryper, which has become surprisingly popular again, and I don't think we realized Stryper's reunion would've gone so well. But last year, Mike called me and put the bug in my ear that Bloodgood was going to reform. So I got [Stryper singer Michael] Sweet's blessing and have been balancing both since.

Is this reunion just a nostalgia trip down memory lane, or a foray into the future?

Carlsen: The way I view the group now is that we did what we did all those years ago. But now with Oz, there's a new approach to writing, and the fact is, we're older and wiser. We view this as a band coming out now—not so much nostalgia, but something that can be repackaged and come out fresh.

Fox: And I've been around the guys a bit before—we toured together in the early '80s. But playing and performing with them, I'd never realized how awesome they are! They're incredible musicians and performers and I'm really floored, excited and honored at being a part of this.

Bloodgood: And the great thing with Oz is that this doesn't seem like a reunion to me. This feels like a rebirth. We have our catalogue and history, but bringing Oz in gives legitimacy to this as a new thing with a whole new creative element. He didn't just come in to learn the parts. We invited him to write, perform, and do his thing, which even freed me as a writer. This isn't just old stuff, but a new thing happening that's new and fresh for the 21st century.

What are your plans for future releases?

Bloodgood: We're re-releasing Shakin' the World [a live album from 1990] and will put the video section of that show on DVD, which will probably come out as one piece of product. My son has designed a new logo for the band, and we have new shirts and temporary tattoos, which is all priming the pump. But the main thing now is a new record. We're shopping for the producer right now and we're hoping to re-release the entire catalogue. It was going to be a box set at first, but now it will be one unit at a time.

© Andy Argyrakis, subject to licensing agreement with Christianity Today International. All rights reserved. Click for reprint information.

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