Before Stryper became a piece of Christian rock history, the band existed as part of Tara\u2019s childhood landscape. Albums, touring, and musicians surrounded the much more recognizable experience of simply growing up with her father. Below you will find an interview with Tara, along with some of my thoughts mixed throughout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
HEAVEN\u2019S METAL: You grew up with Oz Fox as your dad, which also meant growing up around Stryper and a music scene that carries an enormous history for our readers. What are some of your earliest memories of that world?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n TARA FOX:<\/strong> A child doesn\u2019t measure the uniqueness of their surroundings\u2014they absorb them. It wasn\u2019t until I was older that I could look back and understand how uncommon the world around me actually was. The Stryper family and the music were always part of my life, so to me, it was my normal. I remember being around rehearsals, shows, guitars, gear, and the people who came with that world. I also spent time on tour with my dad, which gave me a behind-the-scenes view most people never get to experience. Some of my favorite memories, though, are the quieter moments in between\u2014traveling and simply being together as a family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a kid, I was just spending time with my dad while he worked. I didn\u2019t fully understand Stryper\u2019s history or what the band meant to so many people. As an adult, I have a much deeper appreciation for how unique that upbringing was. Being surrounded by music and creativity from such a young age naturally became part of who I am and helped shape the creative path I eventually found for myself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n HM: How aware were you as a kid that your dad and Stryper were famous? Was there a particular moment when you realized other people saw your family very differently than you did?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n TF:<\/strong> I grew up knowing my dad was in a band and that people knew the name Stryper, but fame was at the time an abstract idea to me\u2014something the outside world understood long before I did.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think some of the moments that started putting it into perspective were being at shows and seeing the size of the crowds. The band or my dad would sometimes bring me out on stage to wave hi to everyone, and I remember looking out and seeing all those people. When you\u2019re that young, you don\u2019t necessarily process the significance of it. I was just excited to be up there with my dad. As I got older, I started to understand that the way I knew him and the band was very different from how fans around the world knew them. At home they were family, but to a lot of other people, their music was a meaningful part of their lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For fans, a band can become mythology. Records freeze musicians into specific eras, photographs and songs. The family sees the human beings who keep living after the stage lights go dark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n HM: What is something about your dad that people who only know Oz Fox from the stage might never realize?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n TF:<\/strong> If people follow him on socials, then it may not come as much of a surprise just how down to earth he really is. There\u2019s Oz Fox on stage with the guitars, the hair, the lights and all that energy, but then there\u2019s just Dad. He\u2019s always had a goofy sense of humor, and he\u2019s someone who really values his family and the people close to him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Growing up, I never really thought of him as this larger-than-life rock musician. I just knew him as my dad, and I think that\u2019s a side of him fans don\u2019t always get to see behind closed doors. Our father-daughter relationship has always been built around music and nerding out over new technology. A lot of my early memories with him involve him introducing me to different ways of creating\u2014whether it was making music, teaching me design, a new sound, experimenting with computers, or just showing me something new he thought was cool. He\u2019s extremely tech-savvy, and I think that\u2019s something we really share. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As artists, we\u2019re both naturally curious and always experimenting with new technology and new tools that enhance what we are trying to convey. I think that curiosity for both music and technology definitely rubbed off on me and became a big part of how I create today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stryper\u2019s longevity tells its own story. More than forty years into the band\u2019s career, the records and concerts remain the visible part. Behind them sits the less glamorous architecture of a working musician\u2019s life: rehearsing, traveling, recording, maintaining relationships with fans and continuing to create long after most bands from the same era disappeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tara grew up watching that process from close range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n HM: What did you learn about being a working artist simply from watching your dad over the years\u2014the rehearsals, touring, recording and everything happening beyond the stage?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n TF:<\/strong> I think one of the biggest things I learned from watching my dad is that being an artist takes a lot more work and dedication than what people see on stage. There are rehearsals, traveling, recording, interviews, meeting fans, and constantly having to show up and put in the work year after year. I watched him continue doing that through all the different stages of life.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n It taught me that if you really love creating, you have to be willing to keep going even when it isn\u2019t glamorous or easy. Talent is obviously important, but so are consistency, discipline, and having a genuine love for what you do. Sometimes it comes with the sacrifice of time, and a lot of yourself, but when you truly love and believe in what you\u2019re creating, it becomes more than something you do. It becomes a part of who you are and, in a way, what you feel you were meant to be doing here all along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think I carry a lot of that into my own creative work now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n HM: As you developed your own creative life, did you begin recognizing parts of your dad\u2019s personality or artistic instincts in yourself?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n TF:<\/strong> Definitely. Looking back, I realized it at a very young age. The older I got, the more I started building my own creative path. I began recognizing a lot of the same curiosity and drive in myself. My dad\u2019s always loved music, but he\u2019s also someone who likes experimenting with technology and figuring out new ways to create, and I\u2019m very much the same way. I also recognize his persistence in myself. When I believe in something creatively, I can become completely immersed in it and keep pushing until I bring the idea to life. I think we both have that need to create and evolve rather than stay in one place. I may express it differently through my own music, visual art, and technology, but I can definitely see where some of those instincts came from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That inheritance doesn’t mean following the same road. Tara\u2019s creative world has developed across a very different cultural landscape, with photography, music, digital production and visual storytelling constantly intersecting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tara\u2019s work moves easily between mediums. Photography can lead into character design. Music can become a visual environment. A single image can develop into something cinematic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She recently described her process to me in a simple sentence that explains much of her work: \u201cMost of my work starts from a visual perspective forming around the music.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That immediately raised another question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n HM: When you hear a piece of music and the visual process starts, what actually happens in your imagination? Do you see scenes, colors, characters, movement or something else entirely?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n TF:<\/strong>\u00a0 I usually start visualizing a whole world or environment inside my head when I hear music. It can be colors, lighting, a location, a character, or even just a certain kind of movement that matches what I\u2019m hearing. Interestingly, I\u2019ll even start seeing specific poses in my head, which ties into my modeling background and the artist merchandise I\u2019m wearing. I\u2019m thinking about how the pose, clothing, environment, and music can all work together to tell the same visual story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes it feels almost like scenes from a movie playing in my imagination. From there, I start thinking about how I can actually bring pieces of that world into something real through photography, video, character design, or whatever medium makes the most sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A lot of it is based on feeling too. I\u2019m not always trying to literally illustrate what the lyrics are saying. I\u2019m trying to capture what the music feels<\/em> like visually. Sometimes one small image or idea is enough to start building an entire world around a song, and that\u2019s probably my favorite part of the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tara also creates music herself, which gives that relationship between sound and image another dimension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n HM: How does your visual imagination affect the way you approach your own music and the identity surrounding it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n TF:<\/strong> My visual imagination is a huge part of how I approach music because I rarely hear a song as just a song. I\u2019m usually building the world around it at the same time\u2014the colors, atmosphere, character, movement, and overall feeling. Sometimes the visual idea actually comes first, and the music begins forming around that. That is how I identify with what I am hearing.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s helped me create an identity that feels very much like my own. I love blending futuristic and nostalgic elements, technology, fashion, photography, and storytelling with my music. I want someone to be able to see an image or visual from one of my projects and recognize the world it belongs to before they even hear the song. For me, the music and visuals aren\u2019t really separate\u2014they\u2019re different parts of the same story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her instinct became especially interesting when Tara and I began working together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stryper originally released \u201cAll of Me\u201d on To Hell With The Devil<\/em> in 1986. I recently took the melodic ballad apart and rebuilt it as an industrial metal piece, replacing much of its original atmosphere with mechanical textures, heavier beats and a darker sense of space. My version understandably divided fans<\/strong><\/a>. Then Oz Fox\u2019s daughter created the visualizer. How cool is that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n On a side note, Oz was a guy who lived on my wall back in high school. My brother Kris Olson (the bass player on my solo music, including “All of Me”) and I were huge Stryper fans. Go figure. Below is a photo of my bedroom from around 1992, where you can spot Oz and the Stryper guys in the poster, along with an old yellow-covered Heaven\u2019s Metal magazine on the wall.<\/p>\n\n\n The finished visualizer of “All of Me” moves through a cyber-industrial landscape filled with machines, prayer, electricity, wings, transformation and religious imagery. Tara combined photography, original characters, digital manipulation and contemporary creative tools to build something that responds to the song while existing as its own visual statement. Check it out below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/heavensmetalmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/tara-fox-hm-horizontal-1024x472.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nWhat You Learn From Watching the Work<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Finding Her Own Frequency<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Reimagining \u201cAll of Me\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/heavensmetalmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/seth-metoyer-kris-olson-1992.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n