METROLAND MAGAZINE
@ CHILFEST
2.7.2022

STEVE: Hello, this is Steve and we’re lucky to have the legendary, and I mean legendary – iconic I think is another word – Toyah! Welcome Toyah!

TOYAH: Thank you very much

STEVE: Isn’t it so nice to be back on stage again? After lockdown and everything that's happened?

TOYAH: I agree, it’s nice to be back but we’ve been on the road for 12 months now so -

STEVE: Really? So you’ve kept going -

TOYAH: What I’ve noticed is everyone is just getting into the flow of it. They’re relaxing a bit more, trusting the situation and just letting go. It’s taken a few months for that to happen

STEVE: I’ve been asking people as well what they’ve done in lockdown but we know what you’ve done because your social media has gone off the scale with your cover versions with your husband, which are just unbelievable. Who’s idea was that? Was that a collaborative idea -

TOYAH: In the beginning it was my idea and I designed it all and put it all together but now my husband is so into it he comes up with ideas as well. So he’ll come to me and say “oh, I really fancy playing this riff” and then we just do it so it’s really very organic. We’ve been doing it now for … two years three months. We're touring it next year -

STEVE: Oh, wow!

TOYAH: We’re touring it in the UK, we’ve been asked to tour it in the US. It has suddenly become something else (laughs)

STEVE: Did you expect it to go as big as it did?

TOYAH: No. What happened on the very first film I posted, probably about April the 11th … We posted a film of me teaching him to dance - this is Robert Fripp, my husband - and it instantly went viral and it surprised us. We realised it went viral because there was a lot of people alone at that time – this was April 2020. And we just felt we wanted to keep doing it, we wanted to keep it real

As performers we felt that we should be performing and we didn’t want to just be stuck in a room doing nothing and it really became very good for us and good for our audience as well. It kept us – the muscles were exercised, we were continually running that marathon. Really great fun and very rewarding

STEVE: Fantastic. You mentioned about new music and touring, Posh Pop in 2021. Is there any new music in the horizon? Going into the studio or -

TOYAH: Oh yeah! Posh Pop was a huge success.

STEVE: It’s brilliant!

TOYAH: So in January the prequel to Posh Pop comes out. My fans will know what the prequel is. And then in a matter of months we’re starting to write Posh Pop 3. And going straight on the road with that once that’s ready and then …. October 2023 we start touring Sunday Lunch

STEVE: OK. That’s amazing. You’ve had a very successful, very diverse career over the years. You’ve had the acting, obviously we know you from "Quadrophenia". Are there any other parts coming up or is it really just concentrating on the music?

TOYAH: No, I mean the irony of lockdown was I had two movies about to come out. So finished shooting a movie called “Give Them Wings” (Toyah as Alice Hodgson, above) very end of 2019. Two months ago I won Best Supporting Actress at the Richard Harris Awards in Ireland for my role in that

STEVE: Congratulations

TOYAH: Thank you. So that’s got it Leicester Square premiere at the end of this month and then I think it will go straight to streaming. I won a Best Actress Award – or nominated for "The Ghosts Of Borley Rectory", which we shot last year in lockdown and that’s already streaming so I continue to do films. It’s just the nature of how films get out there has radically changed

STEVE: It has. The cinema now is a side product, isn’t it?

TOYAH: Yeah

STEVE: As you say about the streaming, you’re absolutely right. So what are we expecting from the set today? Is it going to be the classics, some new stuff?

TOYAH: We were told we could only do half an hour. I’m pretty temped to expand it. In half an hour we’re going to get seven songs in. I’ve had 14 Top 40 hits so we’ve got to cherry-pick that

STEVE: You have, yeah and it’s such a long expansive career and people still want to come and listen

TOYAH: Yeah, we’re going to do some new stuff today. I’ve got a single out on the 7th of August which is “Slave To The Rhythm" (below), which was the Grace Jones classic. It was originally written for Holly Johnson and Frankie Goes To Hollywood and they didn’t really want to do it

Then I did the demo that went to Trevor Horn. I sang that so we come full circle and we felt it's about time that myself, Robert Fripp and my co-writer Simon Darlow – we’re releasing our own version, which we are performing today

STEVE: Fantastic, really look forward to that. I know you’re about to go on stage so I want to thank you for your time today and we’re looking forward to your gig. Really excited!

TOYAH: Thank you, good to see you all