For much of their career, Tim Gaines (pictured far left in the photo above) has been the man holding down the low end for Stryper. But in a new interview, the band's longtime bassist reveals that he's no longer part of the group.

Gaines revealed during an interview with KNAC.com that his exit was official, though there had been rumors of a split prior to his confirmation. "The Stryper thing is a touchy subject right now," stated Gaines. "I can't really elaborate on too much of it. You would probably be the first person that I would say to that I am officially no longer a member of the band. It's been out there for about a year now that things have been going sour. It hasn't been officially said by either myself or the band, but, yeah, I'm no longer working with them."

Opening up more on the situation, he revealed that one of the bones of contention was his recent divorce, something that is frowned upon in the Christian community. The bassist says "all hell broke loose" after his split with his ex-wife. "Nobody bothered to look into why I got a divorce. It was 20 years of a bad marriage, but nobody bothers to look into the abuse and all the stuff that went along with it," says the bassist. "They just see me getting a divorce and getting remarried and come to their conclusions. So whatever. People will be the way that they are. There's nothing I can do about it. I'm not the only guy in Stryper to have gotten a divorce. Everybody in the band is married to divorced people. And I'm the bad guy, but everybody else has done it too, so? Whatever. Live in glass houses and everything will be exposed at some point or another."

While Gaines is still mentioned in the bio for his work on the band's last album, the tab for his personal bio is no longer included on the Stryper website. In terms of his career, Gaines has been putting his focus of late on Faithsedge, a band founded by Giancarlo Floridia.

 

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