THE TOYAH WILLCOX INTERVIEW ARCHIVE

2012-01-08T19:40:00.001Z

LINKS TO PREVIOUS POSTS
ARE IN THE SIDEBAR
(PLEASE SCROLL
DOWN)

2012-01-07T21:05:00.011Z

THE CHANGELING
RESURRECTION

TOUR 2012

Here are the dates of the
eagerly awaited

"The Changeling
Resurrection Tour"

Saturday 14th April 2012
Concorde 2
Brighton

TICKETS

Wednesday 18 April 2012
The Tunnels
Bristol

TICKETS

Friday 20 April 2012
Classic Grand
Glasgow

TICKETS

Sunday 22nd April
Bush Hall
London

TICKETS

Saturday 28th April 2012
The Robin 2
Wolverhampton

TICKETS

Monday 30th April
The Ruby Lounge
Manchester

TICKETS

FROM THE OFFICIAL
TOYAH WILLCOX:

Toyah will perform six very special special
live dates in Spring 2012 which celebrate
the 30th anniversary of "The
Changeling" & "Warrior Rock".

THE CHANGELING, often sited as the beginning
of goth, was produced by legendary record
producer Steve Lillywhite. Its accompanying
tour of 1982 produced the live album
WARRIOR ROCK which has been critically
acclaimed as one of the best of all live
albums because of its powerful sound.

Following up the acclaimed 2011 From Sheep
Farming To Anthem Tour, which saw Toyah
perform songs from her first three albums in
the original iconic 80s costumes, comes
a brand new live Toyah show.

Celebrating the thirtieth anniversary
of The Changeling, Toyah & her full band,
will perform a selection of songs from the
album alongside classic material as heard
on the Warrior Rock live album.

THE CHANGELING RESURRECTION is a
treat for Toyah diehards, 1980s fans &
goth/rock music lovers. With only a
handful of dates for 2012 of this
show, it is not to be missed.

2012-01-07T20:51:00.004Z

TOYAH
DOLLS

I can't get enough of these brilliant
Toyah dolls by Andi Westhorpe.
The details are just astounding!

Please click on the images to
view largen versions

Check out these and the rest of
Andi's creations in HERE

He has also made some marvelous
mock magazine covers

2012-01-01T15:11:00.007Z

TOYAH ON
STEVE LAMACQ
MUSIC SHOW
“GOOD DAY - BAD DAY”
BBC RADIO 6
21.12.2011

STEVE: “Good Day Bad Day” - continuing our week talking to stars of this years panto season. Today a team mate of mine - the only time I ever appeared on “Never Mind The Buzzcocks” - I was on the same team as this legend and watching her trying to act out “Centerfold” by The J. Geils Band (Toyah laughs in the background) is something which may tell you quite a lot about her – Toyah Willcox! Hello!

TOYAH: Hello! How are you?

STEVE: Yeah, not too bad, thank you very much. Now - you’re on stage very soon, aren’t you?

TOYAH: 5 o’clock. I’ve already done one show this afternoon and I’m back on at five and I’m having a fantastic day!

STEVE: How much does it take out of you? I mean it must be quite demanding the fact that you have to do so many shows over this short space of time?

TOYAH: OK, it is demanding and if you kind of enter into it thinking “oh, 93 shows in two months” kind of thing – you’re going to get down about it but this is about my 19th pantomime –

STEVE: Is it?

TOAYH: And I’m learning to be a bit more chilled and a bit more relaxed and I’m really really enjoying the venue I’m in – I’m in St Albans Arena and it’s a really comfortable venue to sing and speak in so I’m having a fantastic time here! And we’re all really excited coz Warrick Davis, who’s in “Life’s Too Short”, he’s in tonight - he’s just picked his tickets up. I’ve worked with Warrick on many pantos and we’re just thrilled to have him in. But it’s just – we get so excited! I think you’re either into panto or you’re not and I get very excited about everything. For me it’s the best way to do Xmas.

STEVE: In this production of the “Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs” you are playing – aren’t you the Wicked Queen?

TOYAH: Yeah, I’m the Wicked Queen. I will never be the young heroine again, I’m too old.

STEVE: No!

TOYAH: I’ve been playing the wicked characters for the last (hesitates) … eight years.

STEVE: Really? So do you have to adopt a persona? Coz You’re not – you don’t strike me as a wicked person, y’see there Toyah?

TOYAH: I love being rude to children (Steve laughs), I don’t have any children and I don’t even know any children and the only time I interact with children is when I do panto. And I think because of that I can really push the boundaries out and be extraordinarily rude to the point that they love it –

STEVE: Right, right. So you’ve obviously - have you grown into these sorts of characters over the years then?

TOYAH: I love it! The baddie is just the best to play because no matter what mood you’re in, you can - even if you’re in a really kindhearted, samaritan of a mood, you can really make people think you’re evil. And if you’re in a really bad mood it doesn’t matter – people think you’re evil anyway! So it’s a win-win situation.

STEVE: Tell us about – because we obviously know your own music, but some people don’t and certainly I didn’t – about your musical taste and I know a couple things about you now which I’d like to share with the listeners if that’s alright? What was the first single you ever bought?

TOYAH: T. Rex “Ride The White Swan” (below). Massive Marc Bolan fan! I saw him on Top Of The Pops and it was love at first sight.

STEVE: Really? And your best gig – and there is a good story here I think, is your best gig a David Bowie show?

TOYAH: It was David Bowie at the Milton Keynes Bowl, it was outdoor festival – it was 1983. I was backstage with Phil Daniels, who I’d been in “Quadrophenia” (below) with and Phil and I we were given access all areas and we walked the gantry up to the back of the stage and Bowie suddenly walked out mid song to have a cigarette … and sat next to us but didn’t speak to us.

And there was 75 000 people out the front and Phil and I just sat there not knowing what to do! It was as if God had manifested and proven himself right and we were rigid with fear and joy at the same time. It was the most amazing concert!

STEVE: No-one teaches a protocol for that do they? It’s the same thing – the first week I joined the “New Musical Express” – I went to the gents toilets and I while I was standing there Mark Smith of The Fall walked in (Toyah laughs). And I loved The Fall but what do you do? It’s one of those moments where you think “I don’t know if I say anything, don’t say anything?” Just move on. So I very silently moved away –

TOYAH: What do you do?! I mean they are away from their persona, they’re away from their God likeness – what do you do? You allow them to be invisible and you know I just wanted to scream my head off “David – I love you!” but you know he would’ve probably hated me for ever and this is before I married Robert Fripp who has worked with him many times. I played it cool and I think I did the right thing.

STEVE: Now – talk us through your "Good Day Bad Day" records. One which is from the depths of time and one relatively new one: The Cure and “The Forest” (below, left) if it’s a good day. What – for that bass guitar line is it?

TOYAH: I just think the opening is a classic lift-you-up and sweep-you-away opening. I have never heard this song and not been lifted by it. It’s fabulous, it’s just classic and I love the fact that it’s really really long.

STEVE: It is! And if it’s a bad day – now, Antony And The Johnsons, this because it tucks at the heart strings?

TOYAH: (noise in the background) If you can hear that in the background they’re just calling us to stage but no panic, we’ve got ten minutes. Antony And The Johnsons, “Hope There's Someone” (above, right) – it’s the voice, it’s the composition, the arrangement. It stands out on it’s own as completely re-inventing a music genre of the “torch” song. It’s also unbelievably sad. It’s the saddest song I’ve ever ever heard – I can not listen to it without wailing!

STEVE: Alright – it’s The Cure, Antony And The Johnsons. We’ll just say very quickly – you’re doing some of your own dates next year as well aren’t you? It’s the 30th anniversary of "The Changeling" and "Warrior Rock” which you're taking out on tour?

TOYAH: We’re out on the road – we start in April, we’re going to be gigging all through April, we’re announcing more dates this week on my web site which is toyahwillcox.com. And we will be touring that throughout the year around Europe. It’s going to be a very busy year because I also have a band called The Humans and we’ve got to write album three and tour that as well. So out on the road virtually the whole of 2012.

STEVE: So far today – good day or bad day then? You having a good day?

TOYAH: I’m having a fantastic day!

STEVE: OK. Now there is just the one last thing I’d like you to do for us before I play The Cure for you. What’s your opening line in about 15 minutes time?

TOYAH: I open with “Sympathy For The Devil”, I sing the first chorus and then I speak “It is I, Ivannah, Queen of Marelia, so girls and boys you better watch your behaviour!”

STEVE: That’s superb! Toyah Willcox – have a great rest of the day and thank you very much for coming on!

TOYAH: Thank you, good to talk to you!

STEVE: Take care!

TOYAH: Bye!

2011-12-10T13:53:00.012Z

TOYAH TALKS
"DESIRE"
AND MORE
WITH
CHRIS LIMB
1987

CHRIS: Shortly after I started running Toyah's fan club I recorded an interview with her. This was not printed in the fan club magazine - it was used as part of my "audio portfolio" for my attempts at getting a job in radio. In it she talks candidly about (the plays) “Cabaret”, “Three Men On A Horse” and (her solo album) “Desire.”

Toyah Willcox appeared earlier this year in the ill fated production of “Cabaret.” Now she’s back in the West End playing Mabel, a 1930’s gangster’s moll in a comedy “Three Men On A Horse” at the Vaudeville Theatre. I asked her how she got the part.

Toyah in "Three Men
On A Horse" 1987

TOYAH: I went along to an audition. I was called to audition for “Three Men On A Horse”, about two months ago at the National Theatre and they sent me the script and you go along and you do a reading with the casting and with the National Theatre you don’t always meet the director straight off. I didn’t meet Jonathan Lynn, who directs the play - I didn’t meet him until a week into rehearsals. So I did the reading with the casting people, got the job and started two weeks later.

CHRIS: Do you enjoy it?

TOYAH: Do I enjoy … ?

CHRIS: Do you enjoy the play now?

TOYAH: Oh, yeah - I enjoy the play very much, it’s great fun. It helps when the mental attitude of the character you’re playing is healthy and the character “Mabel” is just very – I don’t think she’s thick even though on the surface she’s a dumb blonde. I don’t think she’s thick at all, I think she’s quite shrewd and a lot if instinct and things like –instinctive creature.

CHRIS: She seems to be a bit of a Marilyn Monroe type character when I saw it -

TOYAH: Yes, she is a fashion piece of the 30’s. It was very peroxide and women were performing a feminine role then. It’s very very dated to a woman’s place in a society now but at the same time a lot of her reactions and actions are done upon instinct. But anyway, I enjoy it very much and it’s nice to come off stage feeling good rather than wretched. “Cabaret” left me feeling very depressed at the end of each show because it’s just the way “Cabaret” was.

CHRIS: I suppose it has a rather depressing ending?

TOYAH: Yes.

CHRIS: And did you have any doubts about going more or less straight from play to play without leaving time for the promotion of your album “Desire” which was released shortly after “Cabaret” finished?

TOYAH: No, because my attitude toward the music industry isn’t very good at the moment. I don’t feel – I found myself in a situation of emotional prostitution to sell a piece of music. And I’m not prepared to do that any more. “Desire” is my last solo album, I won’t do another one. And I certainly – say if I ever -I’m in a band now and if the band takes off and I want to do a solo vocal project I will never sell it in a way I used to.

Especially in this country because I feel there is an attitude geared towards success, a superficial success rather than the success of the piece music you’ve done. And people don’t see the achievement within the music, they see the achievement on the surface level of you know, what clothes you’re wearing and what TV’s you’ve been on and how many fans turn up when you do something. I think that’s just not important. And I’d rather be - have the music recognised for what it is at that moment. With “Desire” – which was an hell of an album to make - I had a lot of arguments with A&R and things like that.

One person in particular who tried to stop the album because I wouldn’t do any cover versions. Things like that. I’ve decided not make another solo album. But my commitment to music is greater now than it’s ever been and I’ve now formed a band and I will only work with that band in the public eye.

CHRIS: How do you feel about “Desire” as an end product? Were you pleased the way it came out?

TOYAH: I think it’s got very good songs on it. I’m not pleased with the way – it was taken out of my hands once I’d put the vocals down on it – it was taken out of my hands by someone who I had lots of arguments with who’s now left this office. Because it was him or me.

And I literally divorced myself from the album as soon I’d done the vocals and I’d already shot the album cover and as a piece of marketing, the image and everything I’m very happy with.
The songs I think are very good songs. But I couldn’t get involved on the production side because there was someone involved who I wouldn’t work with. And it became a huge political issue. So I just walked a way from it.

CHRIS: I gather it wasn’t your idea to do the cover versions?

TOYAH: No, not at all. But I could only raise the money to do rest of the album by saying I’d do the cover versions.

CHRIS: Did you actually get to choose the songs you were doing or were they suggested to you as well?

TOYAH: No, they were suggested as well. I mean my biggest argument is “Love’s Unkind” which I think is a pile of trash! And I was stopped from doing interviews because I was mentioning this person and what this person did. And the record company said look "don’t do interviews if you can’t support the album – don’t do it" so literally I had nothing to do with it. Went straight into “Three Men On A Horse”.

CHRIS: And how was it working with your husband on the album because it’s obviously it’s the first real musical project you’ve worked with him?

TOYAH: It was great! I mean he was the only thing that kept me sane on that album. I think the team was very good. We had Mike Hedges producing and Haydn Bendall engineering. Perfect team – no problem at all. Very good musicians as well.

But it just took one nerd who really wanted to put his impression on this album and wouldn’t see me as an individual. Just saw me as a female. And that literally was the cancer within the project.
But working with Robert was great. Robert kept me sane and if anything I had to pull him in on meetings all the time to get things done.

The new band is with Robert and Robert’s contributing the music, I’m contributing the lyrics. We realised that’s the only way that I’ll be able to work within the chauvinistic industry. I’m fed up with fighting men all the time. So if I’m in a band I can just get on do the singing and do the writing and be left alone and let the politics happen with someone else.

Toyah leaving the Vaudeville Theatre
with husband Robert Fripp in 1987

CHRIS: Do you think that’s something you’ve suffered with for a long time because even though officially in the past you were the “Toyah band” you were always seen as a solo artist?

TOYAH: I didn’t mind that because the band was good and you had a relationship with musicians. What I don’t like and haven’t liked - say on the “Minx”, which I think is a very good album and won’t suffer in time -I didn’t like working with different session musicians coming in for different numbers.

I like having a team that you work with. And I think that is the strength of the music when you have a team with one language and that’s what I’m looking for in the future. I’d tried to get it on this album but just didn’t get it.

CHRIS: It was still just various musicians coming in and going out again?

TOYAH: We had a pretty solid set of musicians but still we didn’t have the rehearsal time. I wanted to tour this album before we recorded it and that just wasn’t feasible and I think the songs would’ve grown from that. Robert believes in that way too.

So what we’ve literally had to do is to put a wall around us to stop these things happening. But I don’t feel bitter - I feel they’re lessons learned. I really don’t think “Desire” is a bad album at all. I think it’s pretty good in places. But I want to take my future seriously and I’ve just had to iron out certain methods really.

CHRIS: What are you planning to do when you finish your run in the play?

TOYAH: Well, I start recording next week. I’m recording with Steve Harley – a separate project and then I go on to record an another single project which is me and Robert, songs that I pulled out off the album because the album wasn’t being recorded in the right way.

And these are songs that have to be performed live so I am still recording on certain levels. Robert and I are writing for the band which we plan to be recording and touring by April next year. But Robert has a King Crimson album to deliver in November.

CHRIS: Oh, it’s still going on then?

TOYAH: Oh yeah. So we’re pretty busy on the music side. It’s just focusing and developing. I go to Australia with him in February to be writing and recording for the band project. So I’ll probably leave “Three Men On A Horse” by February.

CHRIS: So is this quite a long time in a play then? A long time commitment to the play?

TOYAH: Six month commitment. I’m due to leave at Xmas but I might stay on. I don’t want to have any holiday or anything like that so I’ll stay on 'til my next work commitment and there’s possibly a film. Robert’s doing music for a science fiction film next year and they’re interested in me for the second female lead. But I don’t know if I’ve got that yet. If I get that that will radically change next year.

CHRIS: How’s the play been received generally by the press and everything?

TOYAH: It’s a hit by the press. It’s a huge hit. We haven’t had a bad review yet. The only criticism I had it was in the paper called “The Stage” which said I hadn’t got the rhythm of my accent right and that’s literally the only criticism I’ve had. In the industry and in the review stages it’s the biggest hit I’ve ever had. And it’s now selling out so it looks it will be running after I’ve left, easily.

CHRIS: So it must be in a way much more satisfying than “Cabaret” because in “Cabaret” you were joining a successful production already whereas in this thing you help start something up?

TOYAH: Well, it’s – I try not be involved on that level because I don’t think that is of importance to a performer. It certainly is a very gratifying play to do, because you’re working with a team – I think that if you work with good people they pull you up to their level. And I’ve learned a lot from this team. They’re highly professional, highly skilled and very nice people to go with it.

They’ve pulled me out of the black rut I ended up in after “Cabaret” because the “Cabaret” thing was a battle to keep going and it is nice to step into something like this that’s lighthearted and good. And it’s been appreciated. But I had the same with “Trafford Tanzi” - that was very enjoyable too. And it just all helps alter your attitude.

Toyah in "Cabaret" 1987

CHRIS: Out of all the acting mediums which to do prefer? I mean you’ve been working in the theatre a lot lately but would you like to get into a television series or a film or something like that?

TOYAH: I’d like – I don’t think I want to get into a series as such. I like short term things. So to do a film over a space of three months or to do TV over three months is perfect. Yes, I’d like that. In an ideal world I’d like to spend my year: six months on stage doing a theatre, three months doing a film and three months touring a band. In a perfect world.

But that’s just impossible. I’m not really in a league of doing films regularly. I haven’t done a film now for four years. And that’s nothing to be ashamed of. That’s quite natural and it’s quite normal. But I would like to be involved in that media more because through work I improve. If I don’t work I can loose five years experience through not working for six months.

CHRIS: Would you like to get involved in films on the other side of the cameras, perhaps directing or anything like that?

TOYAH: No, the only time I would like to get involved in that is to make my own videos and direct my own videos, budget them and everything. Because I do think it’s almost a contaminated area, it’s over budgeted. A lot of money is spent. OK, it gives people employment but I think money is wasted in certain areas. I’d like to be involved more on that.

Usually I just story board. Get involved on the image side and leave the rest up to a team and I’d quite like to be just more involved on the three minute epic. But really directing humans beings within the acting field - I don’t think I'm made for that.

CHRIS: Not even if it was perhaps some project that you were acting in and directing it?

TOYAH: No, I don’t think so. I think I might one day, just once. But it’s certainly not a life time ambition. I think it’s been many people’s downfall apart from Orson Wells or someone like that who are epic people and have that kind of energy. But I think - I suppose a few women have done it. Who’s done it? Umm – oh god, Diane Keaton’s done it I think, with success and a few other women. American women seem good at it. But I just don’t think I’m cut out for that.

CHRIS: What would you like to be most remembered for? Because you’ve come from being a “punk” singer as a lot of people called to being a respected and serious actress but what would you most like people in the next century to remember you for?

TOYAH: I’ll be remembered for what I do around the age of 50 to 55. I won’t be remembered for the last ten years and in a way don’t feel I’ve done - I’ve touched anything I really want to do in the last ten years. I’ve looked on that as my training for what I’ll hopefully get onto next. I think I’ll be remembered as a performer, singing and acting but not within – not touching remotely on what I’ve done so far. I don’t know what it’ll be but I kind of know that I’ll be remembered for my middle age rather than my teenage.

CHRIS: Thanks very much.

TOYAH: Thank you!

You can listen to the interview HERE

Chris Limb is the author of
I Was A Teeange Toyah Fan

Toyah with Chris in October 2011

2011-11-22T15:55:00.007Z

TOYAH LIVE
AT THE RAINBOW
1981
&
THE BEAT CLUB
GERMANY
1982

A double treat for Toyah fans!

The legendary 21.2 1981 gig at The Rainbow,
which was released back then as a BBC video,
has now popped up in Youtube -
all 54 glorious minutes of it!

TRACK LIST

War Boys
Neon Womb
Waiting
Tribal Look
Ghosts
Victims Of The Riddle
Race Though Space
Angels & Demons
Insects
It's A Mystery
Danced
Ieya

And even better than that The Beat Club
concert from Germany 1982 is on
Youtube now as well!

2011-11-22T13:48:00.016Z

SUPPORT A CHARITY
CHOSEN BY TOYAH

By buying a print of this fabulous painting by
Melissa Mailer-Yates (based on Toyah's 1982
"Brave New World" image) you can

support a charity chosen by Toyah.

St. Richard’s Hospice in Worcester looked
after Toyah's mother Barbara Willcox
during her illness earlier this year.
She passed away 2.9.2011.

The painting will be on display in Las Vegas next
April during "The Creative Face" Exhibition.
Toyah will also be performing live.

2011-10-03T14:01:00.021Z

T*O*U*R
A*R*C*H*I*V*E

CLASSICS
REVISITED

During 2011 the 30th anniversary
"FROM SHEEP FARMING
TO ANTHEM”
tour rocked the width and
breadth of the country.

The fans were in 21st century Toyah heaven
during the 23 gigs with classics like
"Bird In Flight", "Neon Womb","IEYA",
"Jungles Of Jupiter, "We Are", Demolition Men",
plus many other all time favourites.

THE BAND
LINE-UP

Toyah Willcox: Verbals + Unusual Sounds
Chris Wong: Guitar
Tim Rose: Bass
Andy Doble: Keyboards
Shan Chana: Drums

Check out the ever brilliant
toyah.net's page dedicated to the tour
HERE including my review of the
Leicester Square (17.6.2011) gig

Toyah Official has a
"From Sheep Farming To Anthem"
tour page with photos
and videos as well

TOYAH TALKS
MUSIC

Toyah talks music in the
toyah.net interview
"Sheep Farming To
Anthem and beyond"

TOYAH ON THE ANDREW
EASTON SHOW 12.7.2011

The tour, the costumes, the make-up,
the hair and much more!

Read the interview
HERE

MY PHOTOS FROM
THE LEICESTER
SQUARE THEATRE
17.6.2011

More fantastic photos from The Leicester
Square Theatre by CHRIS JEPSON
HERE and HERE

OFFICIAL TOYAH photos including
some great backstage shots
HERE

TOYAH.NET "From Sheep Farming
To Anthem" photo gallery
HERE

VIDEOS FROM THE LEICESTER
SQUARE THEATRE
17.6.2011

My tribute to Toyah's amazing career:
song from 1981 - photos from 2011
(by Greg Fowler, Chris Jepson,
Damon King (thank you)
and myself.

MORE VIDEOS FROM
THE LEICESTER
SQUARE THEATRE
17.6.2011

War Boys

Demolition Men

Masai Boy

Good Morning Universe

Neon Womb

Pop Star

Blue Meanings

Good Morning Universe / Rebel Run

Elusive Stranger

PHOTOS FROM THE
02 ACADEMY
LONDON
5.11.2011

A special thank you to
Martin Saint

More photos from
02 Academy

HERE
(Thank you to
Damon King)

and

HERE
(Thank you to
James Hammick)

VIDEOS FROM THE
02 ACADEMY
LONDON
5.11.2011

IEYA

Demolition Men

Latex Messiah

War Boys

Bird In Flight

Good Morning Universe

Neon Womb

Thunder In The Mountains

Danced

SOME LYRICS

Computer

Love Me

Obsolete

Bird In Flight

Elusive Stanger

Blue Meanings

For You

A VERY SPECIAL THANK YOU to
Davie (Dreamscape - toyah.net),
toyahwillcox.com plus all
photographers who's
images I've used

2011-10-03T13:21:00.010Z

TOYAH ON
GAYDIO
THE LOOP
WITH
JOHN RYAN
2.10.2011

SONG: "I Want To Be Free"

JOHN RYAN: Did you have a good time (at Manchester Pride)?

TOYAH: Oh - I had such a good time! I loved Europride (in 2003) and the audience was wonderful!

JOHN: And do you know - the weather wasn’t brilliant, when you came on stage – the clouds parted! Did you notice that?

TOYAH: Yes, I did notice that! (laughs) I thought that was just perfect timing but also what was great fun was when the rain got really heavy all the umbrellas went up and they were swaying in time. It was so sweet!

JOHN: I’ve got a picture of that from the very back of the arena and you’re right - it looks amazing. It was a very Manchester sight. A sea of umbrellas and you on stage and if I had a pound for everybody who said “Oh my God - doesn’t Toyah look amazing!?” I’d have hundreds of pounds!

TOYAH: Oh, good! Well, pass them over here! I have to say that audience was so friendly and just so up for it - it was great.

JOHN: Tell us about the outfit that day for people who weren’t there?

TOYAH: Well, at the moment - all of this year I’ve been touring a show called “From Sheep Farming (In Barnet) To Anthem” and it’s a three album span and all of those three albums went gold, platinum and “Anthem” was triple platinum. So I’m not only doing these albums which start from 1979 to 1981, I’m wearing the original outfits as well. Because I can just shoehorn myself into them.

JOHN: I was going to say there probably aren’t many women who can say they can get into something they were wearing 30 years ago!

TOYAH: I know! And on Gay Pride Manchester I was wearing an original costume from 1981 which was made for Top Of The Pops. And obviously I don’t have pink hair today but I have a fantastic hairpiece maker called Sean Chapman who does all my make-up as well and he made this incredible clip-on pink hairpiece which just looks so good!

SONG: THE HUMANS “Quicksilver”

TOYAH: The Humans is a romantic concept. About four years ago the President of Estonia phoned my husband Robert Fripp and asked him to play on his birthday –

JOHN: That’s an everyday occurrence!

TOYAH: With my husband it is. You wouldn’t believe – we get David Bowie to Kanye West to phone up here and sadly I never get to talk to them! And my husband turned this offer down so I phoned the Estonian President – the embassy – and I said I’ll put a band together and write the music especially for this birthday. We did, it was a huge success and I created a sound where my voice wasn’t competing with drums, it wasn’t competing with keyboards. It was sitting right in the middle of the sound spectrum.

And if I was to describe to you what The Humans music is it’s like fragments of consciousness during a dream. It’s kind of European film noir, it’s the kind of music you see on a surreal landscape when you go to the movies. I personally really love it. It’s experimental. It’s out there, it has extreme moments of energy and beautiful moments of sincerity and colour and odd sound scapes. And we’ve been signed to the End Records in New York and they released our second album “Sugar Rush” on the 27th of September. We get to England on the 3rd of October and we play Manchester on the 4th.

The Humans live in
New York 2011

JOHN: 4th of October. Where are you playing that night?

TOYAH: Ooh!

JOHN: Do don’t know, do you?! (laughs)

TOYAH: I’m going online to my website …

JOHN: Toyah’s consulting her own website to see where she’s playing! (laughs)

TOYAH: I do this daily!

JOHN: I bet you do! Looking at your website as I did earlier, in fact I might be able to tell you, let’s have a look ...

TOYAH: The Rugby Lounge!

JOHN: The Rugby Lounge? The Ruby Lounge!

TOYAH: Yes, it says Ruby Lounge (John laughs), I need to learn how to read!

JOHN: The Rugby Lounge sounds interesting! I don’t know where that is!

TOYAH: I was getting quite excited at the Rugby Lounge!

JOHN: We’ll try and get you some rugby players down there for you Toyah but it’s amazing, it’s a very intimate venue right in the middle of town.

TOYAH: Is it?

JOHN: You’ll love it, yeah yeah yeah – it’s good!

TOYAH: Intimate is incredibly important because this is all about sound and how sound affects your emotions.

JOHN: Now you said “experimental”, you said “out there” and I think that is one of the reasons why we love you. Royal Court, Derek Jarman, punk, pop – you've never settled on one easy route, have you? It’s not you. You’re a bit of a butterfly artistically? In a good way?

TOYAH: I am an eclectic. That’s the way I prefer to see it that I live by an eclectic rulebook. And that is I’ve never seen the point in focusing in one thing in a world that has over six billion people. It’s kind of "how can you focus on one thing?" There’s so much out there, there’s so many flavours and textures and I kind of – I’m a bit (?) that I want to experience kind of everything.

JOHN: Just as The Humans but you’re playing here just as Toyah?

TOYAH: Yeah and I’ve got it up on my website!

JOHN: Where and when?

TOYAH: I’m playing the Club Academy, the Academy in Manchester –

JOHN: Another great venue, you must’ve performed there before I’m guessing?

TOYAH: Yes, at the university?!

JOHN: Yes, it’s the big venue on Oxford Road where all students are.

TOYAH: Oh God, that’s going to be lively!

JOHN: Just a bit!

TOYAH: That’s – it’s a really fabulous show because we start off with the “Anthem” album which was triple platinum and then we slowly through the hour and a half on stage work our way into the punk era so the energy just builds and builds and builds. By the end we have the whole venue pogoing!

JOHN: Sounds amazing! And also at Pride we saw you play new music, the single “Fallen” which I’m going to play next.

TOYAH: Yes, which is Yomanda featuring Toyah. This is Paul Masterson (below with Toyah) who’s a wonderful DJ. He’s also written and produced for Kylie Minogue, Boy George and many many others. And he sent me this wonderful track and said would I write a lyric to it? It happened, it worked, he loved what I did, we shot the video which you can view on toyahwillcox.com. It’s very very gay pride!

SONG: "Fallen"

JOHN: Are you happy with yourself right now?

TOYAH: Yeah, I’m OK. I like being busy. And I kind of didn’t intend the next three months to have three different projects –

JOHN: I was going to say! They’ve all come at the same time!

TOYAH: They’ve all come at the same time which is because America - obviously I have a very different career in America than in England. In America I’m a new kind of cult artist so when they released “Sugar Rush” this month they didn’t realise it would kind of be coinciding with something very different that I’m doing over here. So it just is a very eclectic time!

JOHN: I do love your website. 27th September The Humans play the Highline Ballroom in New York. Three days later Friday the 30th September –

TOYAH: The Isle Of Man? (laughs)

JOHN: Toyah plays the Isle Of Man! (both laugh)

TOYAH: We are going to be so jet lagged!

2011-08-24T15:02:00.011Z

TOYAH ON
ABSOLUTE RADIO
AT REWIND FESTIVAL
WITH MARTYN LEE
21.8.2011

MARTYN LEE: It’s Absolute 80’s, it’s Martyn Lee here at the Rewind Festival joined by 80’s pop royalty, Toyah, thank you! (Toyah laughs) Thank you for spending the time with us!

TOYAH: Thank you!

MARTYN: My first question was going to be about your costume but you’ve answered that one, wow!

TOYAH: Yes, well, this is all original. I’m on the road at the moment. I’ve been on the road since February touring an album called “Anthem”.

MARTYN: Yes.

TOYAH: Which in 1981 went trible platinum. And this is all original costumes. On the road I do about 6 to 7 costume changes during the show wearing original costumes. So back in the 1980’s I had all the hair, I had all the kind of weird outfits and stuff like that and kept it all.

MARTYN: May I touch it? (goes to feel the fabric and Toyah pretends to shy away) Is it – the costume, Toyah! C’mon! This is (touches the hairpiece (below)) – wow! Yes, that is perfect retro clothing.

TOYAH: It’s very very retro.

MARTYN: Have you been wearing this when you’ve been performing in the last 30 years or has it been in some sort of storage?

TOYAH: It’s all been storage – I only started wearing this this year because look at it! It has a contemporary feel.

MARTYN: It’s beautiful.

TOYAH: It’s beautiful but also you could imagine this on the John Galliano catwalk before he left the job. I just thought it works. It’s come round full circle, it works again. If I wore this in the 90’s I would’ve been booed off stage but somehow in 2011 people want it.

MARTY: Well look, we’re at Rewind where the crowd here are in costumes - they’re going to love you coming out looking like this!

TOYAH: Yeah and what I thought was rather clever, I’m not in day-glo. Coz a lot of the audience are in day-glo which is mid 90’s.

MARTYN: You’ve got the sunnies, the day-glo sunnies.

TOYAH: I’m in early 1980’s - it’s very specific, it changed each year.

MARTYN: Now look, was this in your wardrobe or was it in some sort of lock-up you had to go to “now - what do I wear?”

TOYAH: I have a costume room in my house.

MARTYN: Fabulous!

TOYAH: Everything I’ve ever worn I keep. So I have a whole room with a few hundred costumes in.

MARTY: You had to hand pick just a few for the tour?

TOYAH: Yeah, well, when you imagine I play mainly rock clubs and I’m getting changed on the side of the stage (Martyn laughs) and I want to protect the costumes so I can’t really take everything on the road with me but I take enough to give people a really good show.

MARTYN: You are the busiest 80’s pop queen around. You’re still working as hard as ever before … you did the "Let’s Dance thing for Comic Relief" (below)?.

TOYAH: Yes, gosh I did! I forgot about that!

MARTYN: You’re doing some more "Children In Need" stuff?

TOYAH: I just finished filming for "Children In Need". I’ve done "On The Antiques Trail" with Tony Blackburn, an hour special for "Children In Need". I was rubbish on it – Tony cheated all the way through it.

MARTYN: I would expect nothing less of Tony!

TOYAH: So that’s coming out in November. And I’ve been on the road the whole year. Doing festivals and doing the what I call the "Sheep Farming To Anthem" show, the first three albums. It’s been fantastic!

MARTYN: What’s it been like going back – playing those songs that existed once a time in your life and you’re rediscovering them almost in a way?

TOYAH: I do rediscover them because at the time I was writing them and performing them originally there was a lot of pressure.

MARTYN: Because you used to write very quickly? You had like a couple of hours – "right, I’ve got to write a song!"

TOYAH: We had two hours to get the song ready for the afternoon recording session and we had to have a new album every six months. I mean that is a ridiculous pressure! So I never really got time to appreciate what I was doing but now I can cherry pick from about 21 albums and I’m really really enjoying it.

And I’m singing songs that – I mean for instance “I Want To Be Free”, if you listen to the lyrics of that it’s completely reflecting what’s happened in the last month! I just think of my goodness, have we gone a full circle or am I writing about something that was due to happen!? It’s just so weird, so ironic. Lot of the lyrics have content in that have become more and more relevant as time’s gone on.

MARTYN: So you discover when you pick those songs you want to do on your tour - because the first time round there must’ve been outside pressures to "you’ve got to write hit records for the radio, you’ve got to perform these ones". Now you must be freer to go "I want to this and I want that, I want to pick these songs from my catalogue"?

TOYAH: Oh absolutely! I can pick any song I want to do. My main priority is that the audience gets songs that they know and love. The songs are really really good. The show has a beginning, a middle and an end like a film, like a story. So that the audience are taken on a journey and I do that visually with costumes as well. That’s really important to me.

But as a writer I enjoy writing now more than ever before. I’ve just got a single coming out with Paul Masterson called “Fallen”. Now Paul has written for Kylie, he’s worked with Prodigy, he’s worked basically work with everyone. And I wrote this song while I was in Seattle filming a documentary last month. We recorded with Progidy’s engineers about a month ago and it’s going out next week. And it is good, it’s really good. I enjoyed every minute of that, I didn’t have any sense of pressure whatsoever.

MARTYN: Is it one of those records that you can kind of make in your own home almost – a lot of musicians have facilities now -

TOYAH: I’ve written my last three albums on GarageBand on my computer.

MARTYN: Isn’t that amazing!?

TOYAH: I end up in a studio with musicians and a producer but all my writing I do on my laptop.

MARTYN: You’ve got Mac open, your GarageBand on? Wow! So you sound like you probably embrace the new technology. Are you Tweeting – are you on Facebook and all that?

TOYAH: I love new the technology. I own my own record company, I have two record labels actually. I have "Willow" with my co-writer Simon Darlow and I have "Vertical Species" which is my own personal record company. I run "Toyah Willcox.Ltd" which is multi-media. I have my own website "toyahwillcox.com", two L’s in Willcox … you’ll get some rap star in America (Martyn laughs) and I Twitter, "Toyah Willcox Official", I have "toyahwillcox TV" on Youtube. It’s fabulous!

MARTYN: You are multi – you are blogging as well, you –

TOYAH: I do blog, yes. But I absolutely love it! I have completely cleared out of my path everyone who goes to lunch on my name which I’ve never ever liked people doing.

MARTYN: Well, you are on the stage very soon so we’ll let you go. Have an amazing time. This (points to the outfit) is fabulous.

TOYAH: Thank you very much!

MARTYN: Thanks for talking to Absolute 80’s.

TOYAH: And hello to everyone at Absolute 80’s. Absolute pleasure!

You can watch the video of the interview HERE

2011-08-13T22:00:00.008Z

TOYAH ON
BBC RADIO 4
SATURDAY LIVE
“SECRET LIFE”
13.8.2011

RICHARD COLES: Do you remember the safety pin divas, the short and sweaty summer of punk? Siouxsie Sioux, the late lamented Poly Styrene, Laura Logic and occupying a slightly different place the actor and singer Toyah Willcox.

Today she is well known as a writer and television presenter too, perhaps the only person to have presented both the "Good Sex Guide" and "Songs Of Praise." Back then as Miranda she rattled and lisped her way through Derek Jarman’s marvellous punky version of the “Tempest” and it was she who skipped up and down on a spot in pixie boots singing “It’s A Mystery” on Top Of The Tops. Well, mystery no longer for here she is in confessional mood.

(Toyah is being interviewed at the her house by JP Dewlin, a regular of the BBC Radio 4 “Secret Life” spot.

TOYAH: My “Secret Life” collection is meteorites. I’ve had a romantic passion about them all my life. This is about two inches in length and an inch wide. This is my very first meteorite. And I absolutely adore it. I didn’t actually give it much thought or attention when I first had it. It was in recent years when the satellite was sent out to photograph the light at the beginning of our universe. Which is about 360 000 light years old. And then you start to think - wait a minute – this meteorite has travelled through this time! Which I just find utterly exhilarating. And it frees me from fear of death, fear of boredom, fear of the trivial. The mundane price of baked beans information every day and I actually look on these stones as an escape!

JP DEWLIN: So you wouldn’t know the price of a can of beans?

TOYAH: Well, actually yes I do. But it’s not the reason I get up in the morning! I’m going to pick up one that is radically different to the other lumps of rock we are surrounded by.

JP: It’s shinier!

TOYAH: It’s shinier. This is a common chondrite stoney meteorite. Chondrite are the oldest class of meteorites and represent chunks of material that condensed within the solar nebula around 4.6 million years ago. I had to read that! (both laugh)

JP: Don’t spoil it!

TOYAH: I don’t want people thinking I’m that intelligent! (laughs) But what I love is it actually looks like a piece of metal that has been chewed in a very strong mouth. But you can see it’s been melted by an incredible force. Fans kind of realise what I’m interested in because a lot of my lyrics are about the relationship we have on this planet and I’m far more interested in the relationship we have with the sky than relationships we have with aunts and uncles. Grandparents -

JP: Really?

TOYAH: Oh totally! I’m not connected to family at all.

JP: Why do you think?

TOYAH: I am just not interested in the kind of things – which sounds awful - if someone said to me tomorrow "would you like to be on the mission to Mars that never returns?" my immediate answer would be yes. I just don’t feel connected. Not at all.

JP: Is that why you’ve never had children?

TOYAH: It was probably one of the reasons (laughs) I mean I just – I suppose if you feel no connection to that kind of life cycle and possibly yes, that is the reason. (Picks up another meteorite) This is incredibly small. This is almost like a small smooth black pebble.

JP: A piece of rabbit dropping perhaps?

Toyah with her rabbit WillyFred

TOYAH: If my rabbit passed that he’d be in pain! But there is a kind of aeration on the top which means that chemicals burned off entering the atmosphere and it feels almost volcanic and it’s so much lighter (bangs it against the table). Now here’s an interesting one. This actually looks like a metallic leaf. It’s leaf shaped like a holly leaf.

JP: It’s very flat –

TOYAH: It’s flat. But again it’s metal, it’s melted, it has arrived in incredible heat.

JP: Can you walk past a New Age shop without going in? (Toyah laughs)

TOYAH: I can walk past a New Age shop but I do collect crystals. I have rooms full of the most amazing –

JP: What’s that all about the crystals?

TOYAH: For me a crystal is just a beautiful formation of a chemical. Do you want me to go and get you some?

JP: No! I think we have enough with these here
honestly ...

TOYAH: OK! I mean they are astonishing and crystals resonate. Everything resonates. You resonate, I resonate –

JP: Do I ?!

TOYAH: Yeah, we all vibrate. It’s all the nature of light, light vibrates. That’s how we see the rainbow. It’s all vibrational.

JP: Hmm, well, if I’m resonating it’s probably my restless leg! (Toyah laughs)

TOYAH: My meteorites for me are romanticism of the universe. I believe the universe is a very big violent thing that we will never grasp. But when I look these meteorites I see the potential to go beyond what I am. Because there is so much to learn from …

JP: I suppose the universe, it’s a mystery isn’t it?

TOYAH: (not impressed) That’s really bad! (laughs) But I don’t know, they are a mystery! Yes, I do admit I’m quite bonkers! But these meteorites they’re everywhere and it’s just a wonderful wonderful connection with this very baffling thing called the universe.

2011-07-13T14:51:00.017Z

TOYAH ON
BBC RADIO HEREFORD
& WORCESTER
THE ANDREW
EASTON
SHOW
12.7.2011

ANDREW: The most famous person ever to come out of Pershore is Toyah Willcox and she’s with us this afternoon. You did come out of Pershore, didn’t you?

TOYAH: I’m not the most famous, the most famous is J.R.R Tolkien.

ANDREW: Really?

TOYAH: Yeah, he spent part of his childhood in Pershore.

ANDREW: I’ve missed that entirely.

TOYAH: Well, you see I’m an absolute boffin when it comes to Tolkien so … that’s partly why I like living there!

ANDREW: OK. I knew that at one stage John Betjeman when he became the Poet Laureate, he wrote a nice poem about Pershore railway station.

TOYAH: Of course! It’s the most romantic station in the world.

ANDREW: Do you think?

TOYAH: I love it!

ANDREW: Well, it’s one little platform –

TOYAH: I know! I never want it to change!

ANDREW: It’s old signs – I don’t think there’s any ticket office there either –

TOYAH: No and everyone thinks they can walk into town! They can’t! (laughs)

ANDREW: I remember doing the first time – what we call a "radio car bit" when I was young years ago and thought the same thing in the morning, parked up, probably best thing to walk into town to get a bacon sarnie.

TOYAH: Yes! No way. I have journalists turning up virtually every day and I warn them – I say "you can’t walk into town" and they’re always late! (laughs) Because they can’t walk into town!

ANDREW: It should actually renamed "Pershore Parkway".

TOYAH: Yes! (both laugh)

ANDREW: You are just tremendously busy!

TOYAH: It’s been a fantastic year - I’m going to touch wood –

ANDREW: It’s gone all over the place -

TOYAH: It’s never predictable but this year been fabulous! I’m on the road all year touring my first three albums. Which is an adventure in itself because like a romantic idiot I’m also wearing the original costumes -

ANDREW: Oh yeah?

TOYAH: I’m doing the original hair and make-up. And I thought if you’re going to tour three albums that are over 30 years old go the whole hog. And it’s really touched people’s hearts! Having the imagery is almost as powerful as revisiting the music. There’s people in the audiences crying because they never realized how the Egyptian influence, that I brought into everything, that I did, meant so much to them and still does. So it’s very very good fun and quite powerful as well.

ANDREW: Where did that Egyptian influence come from in the first place?

TOYAH: Well, I used to have a team of costume makers and make-up artists and we’d all sit down with these beautiful coffee table books about the tribes of the world. And I was so influenced by the Masai, so influenced by Kabuki and very influenced by Egyptology. We used merge them all in to create a new tribe. And that’s how we came up with the costumes and the make-up and the hair. Very very vibrant, very colourful. And we’ve revived it all and it’s on stage.

ANDREW: Wow. Was it your idea? Did you think it was time to drag it all back out? Do it again?

TOYAH: Well, it wasn’t a question of dragging it back. For the last ten years I’ve been playing to between 200 and 30 000 people a night, doing the 80’s shows –

ANDREW: It’s quite a difference! (chuckles)

TOYAH: It’s a huge difference. I thought "wait a minute!" If I’m still playing this music and there is such a demand for this music why don’t I bring the costumes back? Part of me thought that’s a step too far but, you know I didn’t want to look like someone sad reliving the past. But I did in Leicester Square Theatre a month ago and it just went through the roof! I have no regrets now – it works.

And it works in a slightly silly way because we are very humorous in what we do. But there’s also that real finger on the pulse of nostalgia when people are taken instantly right back when I walk on stage.

ANDREW: It’s great, isn’t it?

TOYAH: It’s fabulous! And I can just about get into the costumes!

ANDREW: They are same ones?

TOYAH: They’re the same ones. They’re absolutely pristine, they’ve been in storage for 30 years.

ANDREW: Thank goodness you did that because you could’ve just thought "oh, that’s the end of an era, let’s just take them down to Oxfam!"

TOYAH: There’s a story behind that. The V&A, the Victoria and Albert Museum wants me to bequeath the costumes because they’re all handmade and hand painted. So they’re beautifully made and historically they are quite stunning. So I have to look after them really well and dressers keep them in plastic and hang them up. There’s nothing thrown about at all.

ANDREW: You’re too young to become a museum piece though … because that’s what it says "look at this what happened in the olden days" ... (laughs)

TOYAH: Well, because I think they were so extraordinary in how they were made that they stand apart from everything else really.

ANDREW: So London was the best "litmus test" for this – you said you tried it at Leicester Square?

TOYAH: Yes. We did it the first time at Leicester Square a month ago –

ANDREW: You thought "London, we’ve got to try in London" – if it works there in that sort of setting maybe we can roll it out?

TOYAH: Yeah and I had the most ingenious hairpieces made that can be just kind of slotted on in-between songs. So I do about six costume changes in the whole show. Starting at 1981 regressing to 1978. And the hairpieces all slot on, it’s just incredible! (laughs)

ANDREW: Wasn’t that good?

TOYAH: Yeah, we did the "litmus test" in London. The power of how well it went was the internet which was all up in high definition within 24 hours. Everyone saying that it was the show of their lifetime.

ANDREW: How do you feel now 30 odd years on, is it a surprise, are you flattered that there is a massive demand for you to get back and fill the auditoriums again?

TOYAH: Well, I’ve been filling them for ten years but it’s the way you fill it. And I thought I just wanted to make this particular year, the 30th anniversary of a platinum selling album “Anthem” very very special.

And I thought rather than re-invent the costumes I have them, let’s go right back and place everything back in that moment. Because there is so much based around nostalgia but no-one kind of takes it right back to the event.

(After a break)

ANDREW: We have Toyah Willcox with us this afternoon. Do you have to dust many things off apart from the costumes when you decided to turn back 30 years? Did you go back – did you try to go back to that time yourself with some of the records, with some of the original stuff that you had at the time?

TOYAH: It’s a very interesting question because I was on stage in Oxford the other week when I realised I was behaving exactly how I behaved in 1978.

ANDREW: Many men listening think that’s a good thing!

TOYAH: (laughs) And I thought "wait a minute!" I have not done that look to the side - that kind of profile look to the audience for 32 years! It is quite odd to have a memory, the muscle memory of what I did back then - is still in me. It’s dormant and kind of comes alive on stage.

ANDREW: You had to practice though?

TOYAH: Well, no I didn’t have to practice, it just came out which was a bit worrying!

ANDREW: Just throw it!

TOYAH: Yes! Just throw it! Cool as a cucumber.

ANDREW: (laughs) Oh, brilliant! The album of course was platinum, it was one of biggest albums of the year wasn’t it?

TOYAH: Yeah.

ANDREW: Do you have a wall of fame in your house?

TOYAH: No –

ANDREW: Is it hanging up there? Do you have a trophy area?

TOYAH: No, I don’t. Robert doesn’t either. I’m married to Robert Fripp and he’s got gold albums, so no. We keep them all in cupboard. They come out when film crews are around because they like to have them for reference. But no.

ANDREW: It would be lovely actually, wouldn’t it?

TOYAH: We don’t have any memorabilia in the house whatsoever and the only guitar in the house is when Robert’s practicing for playing live. So you wouldn’t guess that we were musicians at all.

ANDREW: What about when walked, when you wondered through Pershore? We talked, you did panto last year in Walvern, it was snowed in completely wasn’t it?

TOYAH: It was! If it wasn’t –20 and blizzards! (they both laugh) I got snowed into Malvern! Before Christmas!

ANDREW: Did you?!

TOYAH: Yeah, I had to stay at the Abbey Hotel, I couldn’t get back! It was just shocking!

Pershore High Street photos
from Robert Fripp's Diary

ANDREW: It sounds ridiculous!

TOYAH: I could actually see the lights of Pershore from my hotel window (Andrew laughs) and I was thinking I didn’t expect this to happen!

ANDREW: Bizarre!

TOYAH: It was so bizarre!

ANDREW: It’s great for you being local, do people still come up and want to have a chat when you’re walking down the High Street?

TOYAH: Yeah, Pershore is just very friendly. Everyone does that everyone, it’s not just me. It’s one of the best places I’ve never lived in the world. I absolutely love it. And my husband, who is a Dorset man, who said he’d never leave Dorset, said it’s the town he’s wanted to live in all his life. And he’s lived everywhere.

Across America, across Europe. It’s just - nothing compares to it. I even commute to London most days because I don’t like staying in London. It’s just a great place and people are very friendly and very supportive.

ANDREW: Remind me why you chose it?

TOYAH: When I was a child my father and my mum had a boat and a caravan in Wyre Piddle and we spent every weekend at Wyre Piddle and it was the happiest place of my childhood. So I’ve now moved mum to Wyre Piddle. And dad when he was round. I managed to get them a cottage and they lived there.

And then this house came up for sale in Pershore that we looked round just to be nosey and on the say I said to Robert "we should’ve not this" because it broke my heart, I fell in love with it and so did he. And then a month later he bought it, he managed to get it. And we’ve never regretted it.

Toyah on the boat as a child

ANDREW: Wonderful. So the tour takes you – you’re going everywhere?

TOYAH: Yeah, it’s been added to all the time which is fantastic. We’re getting about ten enquiries a day. We play next in this region, we’ve got Bromsgrove –

ANDREW: Bromsgrove, Saturday 23rd of July?

TOYAH: Yes. And – tell me name of the theatre because –

ANDREW: The Artrix -

TOYAH: I said Asterix –

ANDREW: Oh gosh, don’t go there! The Artrix in Bromsgorve is lovely, in fact I was there a couple of weeks ago. Just a great little venue.

TOYAH: Yeah.

ANDREW: You’ll love it.

TOYAH: I can’t wait! It’s exclusively Toyah material, the first three albums. Very colourful, very lively show. But then if anyone wants to try and track us down around the rest of Europe, just go to toyahwillcox.com, two l’s in Willcox and you’ll find –

ANDREW: Rest of Europe? What about it?

TOYAH: Well, Europe’s just started to be added because they’ve heard what I’m doing. Norway’s going in, Germany, France …

ANDREW: Where were you biggest in Europe?

TOYAH: All over. I was massive!

ANDREW: Yeah! (incomprehensible, they talk on top of it each other)

TOYAH: I was massive even in Africa but I never broke America and ironically I tour America in September. My fist ever tour with a different project called The Humans. I’ve just been signed to label in New York so … that is so ironic that I get to go to America with a completely different name.

ANDREW: Coz the other thing is the "Quadrophenia" nights haven’t stopped have they so that’s also kept you in ... gainful employment?

TOYAH: Yes! Well, don’t forget I do a lot of telly! I’m just off the A1 to film with Tony Blackburn! (below)

ANDREW: You’re a media tart, loiter - Toyah, frankly! You are!

TOYAH: Well, you had to call me loiterer or something!

ANDREW: I was getting all excited! (reads an email) Gareth says that "Toyah was and still is drop dead gorgeous, always gives me a thrill", he says, "when I see her in Pershore, stood behind her in a queue once and I got very excited but didn’t pluck up the courage to say hello" …

TOYAH: Aaah!

ANDREW: You should’ve said hello!

TOYAH: That would’ve been in a local large name supermarket -

ANDREW: Would it? Do you have one in Pershore?

TOYAH: Yes, we do. We have two. We have one Metro something and one very large cheapest of them all. I shop in both. But I also shop on the High Street and I support our local grocer because he sells great fruit and veg.

ANDREW: Go first thing in the morning, get the best stuff. Look, thank you so much for coming in. It’s Toyah on Saturday the 23rd of July, which a week on Saturday, "Classics Revisited", it says here (reads) "celebrating the 30th anniversary of your breakthrough hit “It’s A Mystery” and the platinum LP “Anthem”."

TOYAH: That’s correct!

ANDREW: That is it in a nutshell, I thought I’d better read it make sure I got it right. You’ll hear all Toyah stuff, it will take you back to – in fact the whole room will be back in between ’78 and 80 …

TOYAH: We start at ’81 and we regress to 1978 when it gets very very lively indeed! (laughs)

ANDREW: Do you – incidentally, clearly there will be lot of people who were there the first time round wanting to relive that and bring about these great memories. Do you see a mixture of faces, actually is it not all who wanted to reminisce about their childhood, quite a few new faces as well?

TOYAH: So many new visits it’s unbelievable but I think that’s because artists like Marina And The Diamonds and Florence Welch (below) have all cited me as influence so a lot of young students are in as well. But then there is my age group who’ve come to reminisce and they don’t have a problem with it, they love it.

ANDREW: Flattering, Marina to say, you know, you are –

TOYAH: It’s not only flattering, it really is a big help because I’m virtually ignored by the critics in the music business. So when they actually name me it makes a huge difference! It’s fantastic! And I absolutely adore what they are doing so it’s really nice to be put under the same umbrella with them, as it were.

ANDREW: Well, never stop because we love you. You’re going to do this until Christmas and then you’re back in panto but not round here?

TOYAH: No. St Albans.

ANDREW: In St Albans so it’s less commutable but it’s still a nice place to be –

TOYAH: It’s a great place for a visit, I love that place!

ANDREW: We were just talking about that, got friends nearby and they’ve got the Abbey and the Roman ruins and the quaint town center, yeah, it’s got everything.

TOYAH: Olde English.

ANDREW: Toyah, for now, thank you so much.

TOYAH: Thank you and it’s good to see you!

ANDREW: See you next time!

2011-07-06T11:21:00.025Z

TOYAH ON
WFMU 91.1 FM
JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY
DARK NIGHT OF THE
SOUL WITH JULIE
17.5.2011

JULIE: She’s a New Wave icon, an accomplished actress, an author, a speaker and a reality show star and of course a fabulous musician with 13 Top 40 singles in UK as well as 20 albums in her long career. She’s getting ready to start a tour called “From Sheep Farming to Anthem” to celebrate the 30th anniversary of her album “Anthem”. Please welcome Toyah Willcox. Hello Toyah!

TOYAH: (On the phone) Hello Julie! How are you?

JULIE: I’m fine! How are you today?

TOYAH: I’m really good! Here in England we’re still feeling really good about the Royal wedding. The weather’s been fantastic so it’s quite a feelgood country at the moment.

JULIE: Oh, that’s good! You watched it, didn’t you? It sounds like you really enjoyed it?

TOYAH: I spent seven hours watching! (laughs) I’m not usually a Royal watcher but this was so special.

JULIE: Did you have a gathering or did you watch it by yourself?

TOYAH: No, funnily enough I didn’t have a gathering. It was one the first days off I’ve had this year so I just stayed in bed.

JULIE: Well, that’s the way to do it! Stay in bed and have a little breakfast or whatever …

TOYAH: And watch someone else’s wedding!

JULIE: How did it compare to your own?

TOYAH: It was far grander! My own (below) was quite eccentric because my husband, who’s Robert Fripp, the guitarist - he’s quite reclusive and I’m very well known in England and someone, a member of the press, cottoned on that we were getting married in secret so when we left the church they were there ready to take a photograph of us and my husband did a runner! He disappeared and I didn’t see him again till the reception!

JULIE: So you did your ceremony and he vanished?

TOYAH: He vanished! So the Royal wedding was the perfect romantic - "the Prince saves his young girl" - type of wedding. It was just unbelievable.

JULIE: Yeah, that’s … there are people here that it was like a fairytale to them.

TOYAH: Well, even people here who aren’t pro-Royal and who are pro-marriage really saw it as something quite special and everyone entered into the spirit of it which I think made it even more magical.

JULIE: What did you think of Beatrice’s hat?

TOYAH: You know, I was looking at it this morning and it didn’t bother me at all because everyone in Westminster Abbey had this beautiful kind of English eccentricity about them. They all had quite strange hats on and I thought how wonderful that these new young kind of Royal blooded people are slightly eccentric. And I thought it was glorious and it didn’t bother me at all. I don’t know Fergie - the mum - at all but I know her sister Jane.

I’ve actually worked with Olivia Newton-John and for Jane for a hospital in Australia. And they are an eccentric family! So it didn’t surprise at all and I think hat’s off to Beatrice, excuse the pun! Because she dared to show that to the world and I don’t think she deserves the ridicule. I actually think she deserves a big pat on the back for being individualistic.

JULIA: That’s a good point! Did it remind you of any of the hats you’ve worn over the years?

TOYAH: I didn’t wear hats, I just had big hair!

JULIE: I’ve seen some pictures of you – some newer pictures where you’ve got like a big headdress?

TOYAH: Oh, well yeah, in recent years I’ve had kind of quite big headdresses on but 30 years ago I just had bright pink hair and it was massive! It was bigger than me! (Julie laughs) I’m not a very tall person but my hair would stand up about two feet! So I’m kind of used that kind of expression.

JULIE: You’ve always had fabulous hair. Did you colour it - did you cultivate your look already when you were in school still?

TOYAH: Oh yes! I was your typical rebel in school. Pretty soft by today’s standards but I went to a religious all girl school. It was Church of England, very very strict. We weren’t allowed to talk to boys if we were in school uniform so I started dying my hair when I was about 14. I had blue hair and then I had yellow and green hair, then I moved onto pink which is far more flattering. But I was doing it at a time when people weren’t really doing that. It was considered so outrageous that taxi’s wouldn’t pick me and take me home, buses wouldn’t let me on the bus. People really had a problem with me.

JULIE: So this is really before the onset of punk rock?

TOYAH: Oh, yes. This was about 1974.

JULIE: Oh, my goodness!

TOYAH: Very early.

JULIE: So you were definitely ahead of your time, ahead of the curve.

TOYAH: I was ahead of my time and I was still in my early teens, I was 14 so people just couldn’t get a handle on it at all.

JULIE: What did your family think about it?

TOYAH: My father kind of, being a rebel himself, and a survivor of World War II, he was away for six years in the Navy so he’d seen anything and everything you could possibly see so he was quite accepting. My mother, who was a dancer who retired to have a family, just couldn’t handle me at all and there was a time when I was sent away to live with a Hindu family who took me under their wing and looked after me while my mother and I tried to sort our relationship out.

And they were fantastic. The mother of that family would lecture me and say I wasn’t to influence her daughters. Well, I mean the daughters were already influenced. There is a sense of freedom in England that no tradition can hold onto. Their daughters who could’ve had arranged marriages were just beyond saving (laughs). They were out there being worse than me! So it was it a very interesting period for me.

JULIE: Were you already pursuing the music thing? Were you writing songs at that point?

TOYAH: I was writing poetry. Most of the poetry that went onto an album called “Anthem”. But I’ve never really been a musician. I’m a lyricist primarily. I can sing melodies, I can sing a melody to someone and it can be a good complex melody but I can’t physically play it. So back then I was writing poetry and learning what I loved about a song. But I wasn’t really a musician.

JULIE: Who do you consider your musical influences?

TOYAH: Well, back then it was Roxy Music, Alice Cooper - who I think is the sexiest man on the planet!

JULIE: Oh, my goodness!

TOYAH: (laughs) I know! Davie Bowie, huge influence! Bowie kept me sane. The kind of middle glass girl in Birmingham in the early 70’s - when really all I was being educated to do was to get married young and have children - was pretty frightening to me. When Bowie came along and he was so descriptive and so expressive it just gave me a sense of vocabulary I couldn’t find on my own. It gave me a lot of strength to just break away and move to London.

JULIE: That’s terrific. I know he was a big influence on another singer I’m very fond of – Kate Bush has mentioned him as an influence.

TOYAH: Kate comes and visits us here.

JULIE: That’s wonderful! I wish you guys would do a project together. That would be phenomenal!

TOYAH: Well, is she asked (laughs) I’d fall through the floor! The thing with Kate when she works, she works in an insular way with her team. She doesn’t like to be distracted by any other influences. And then we get to hear from her when she’s finished a project because she seeks kind of advice on who the best press are to talk to. Because she’s not a very public person –

JULIE: That’s the impression I get that she has a reputation, at least here, of being one of those people who doesn’t leave the house very much.

TOYAH: That is a true representation but she comes to see me in shows and she likes my husband a lot. And she’s incredibly connected with the arts. She loves film and theatre. But she just doesn’t like being photographed so that’s where the privacy is.

JULIE: Right. Yeah, I can understand that. I don’t like being photographer either! Back to David Bowie, he’s another one who is very much ahead of the curve as far the crazy clothes and the crazy hair so that could’ve also been a big influence on you?

TOYAH: Oh, huge influence. And the thing with Bowie, he never had a bad day- he never did an outfit where he went "oh, mistake!" Everything he did was a revelation and an epiphany. You’d just look at it and go "woohoo!!!" and you just felt so connected to the future. For me he never made mistakes in the 1970’s. It was such a glorious decade for him. And you never had to forgive him anything.

JULIE: Right. His Ziggy Stardust hair is not dissimilar from a lot of the hair you had? Similar colour –

TOYAH: It is similar except I have better hair! (Julie laughs) It’s been around longer and it’s good healthy hair!

JULIE: In addition to your music you’re an amazingly accomplished actress. Unfortunately a lot of your stuff doesn’t make it here as far as the television and movies and stuff. I saw "Quadrophenia" and I saw you in "The Corn Is Green" (above) with Katharine Hepburn.

TOYAH: Oh, my god!

JULIE: Which is fabulous film. Was that a television project?

TOYAH: It was by Lorelai productions in 1978. Katharine Hepburn and Geroge Cukor, the director, came over to England with Lorelai because they wanted to make "The Corn Is Green", which is a Welsh classic play, in Wales. They were looking for two new young stars, a boy and a girl. And I auditioned with about 2000 young girls. Katharine Hepburn took to me immediately when I did the first audition. I wore a wig because I was working at England’s National Theatre and even though I was a punk rocker with bright red hair having just been in a seminal punk movie with Derek Jarman called “Jubilee” I wore a wig that made me look like a normal everyday person.

So when I went to meet Katharine Hepburn the first time I wore this wig and she just took to me and I was called back the next day and I went back the next day without the wig. And when George Cukor opened the door to me he asked me if I’d like to take my hat off! I said "it’s not my hat, it’s my hair!" (Julie laughs) He had this kind of look of “oh, what have I done!?” He took me to the lounge where Katharine Hepburn was on the sofa and he said "can you believe this girl’s hair, Katharine?" And Katharine got up and ran her hands and fingers through my hair and she just said "I wish I could’ve done that when I was your age!"

We had these great conversations and when she started out in theatre in Washington DC she had terrible reviews about her manliness and her angular features and her discordant voice. And those reviews came at a time when her mother always used to come and see her in productions and the mother wanted her to leave the business. And it really badly affected Katharine Hepburn (below) so her to meet someone like me, who was just always challenging establishment, we got on like a house on fire!

JULIE: That’s terrific.

TOYAH: I adored her.

JULIE: Did you and Katharine Hepburn become buddies?

TOYAH: I wouldn’t say we became buddies, we were working together every single day for about six weeks. And in that time we did eat together, we talked a lot, she’d always invite me to her dressing room in the morning when my make-up had been done and hers was being done and we’d just sit down and talk about what life was like for me as a young girl being a singer and what it was like for her as a young girl. I wouldn’t say that we were buddies because she was exactly like Kate Bush – phenomenally private. So once the filming had finished I never met her again. But she very kindly wrote about me rather brilliantly in two of her biographies, her autobiographies. So I kind of made an impression there I suppose.

JULIE: Do you find that a lot of people didn’t take your acting seriously back then?

TOYAH: No, it was the opposite because I was nominated for awards and I was nominated for best newcomer awards –

JULIE: So they didn’t take the music seriously?

TOYAH: They didn’t take the music seriously and then suddenly, it was 1978 when I was working with Katharine Hepburn, and at that point I was the bright new young acting star being nominated for everything. Then four years later, three four later, I suddenly was commanding audiences - well, my largest audience was 12 million!

JULIE: For a concert?

TOYAH: It was a live BBC broadcast concert on Christmas Eve 1981 (above). So even though people always found me kind strange, the only comparison really is Lady Gaga, I commanded such huge audiences it made people kind of take note I suppose.

JULIE: And it wasn’t similar to a lot of the music that was around back then - it was very, except for the punk rock which back then was never really accepted, probably more so in England than over here but it was probably still more fringe over there – certainly that early on so I think a lot of people didn’t quite get what you were doing. With the wonderful fabulous outfits and the music that wasn’t necessarily always sing along or a dance kind of thing, it was much more artistic than that?

TOYAH: Well, they did get it because I was nominated the best singer in 1982.

JULIE: Oh, that’s terrific!

TOYAH: Oh yeah. I won a lot of awards - I was huge!

JULIE: I know that you are huge, I really don’t have a clear view of that because I grew up in the States.

TOYAH: Well, there you go, yeah.

JULIE: Yeah. Speaking of Lady Gaga – what do you think about her?

TOYAH: I think she’s amazing. Firstly she’s a great songwriter, she has a great voice and it’s so wonderful to see someone who is so fully fledged – the singer songwriter, musician. I’m a huge of fan of people like Tori Amos, and obviously Kate Bush and PJ Harvey and Goldfrapp. But what - for me - is so exceptional about Lady Gaga is you’ve got someone on a par with Elton John, who is just completely beautifully formed in her talent. I really enjoy everything she does.

JULIE: That’s terrific. What do you think of the outfits?

TOYAH: Well, you know this is a really interesting one because as a woman of 53 I can see that she doesn’t need the outfits. That her character is so strong but when I was her age I didn’t believe in myself enough to not have pink hair and not dress outrageously. So as someone who’s twice her age looking at this remarkable talent I actually slightly prefer it when she dresses down a bit. But that’s purely because I see this exceptional human being. I think her outfits are great when they are those beautiful kind of science fiction moulded plastics - they’re my favourite, I love them.

JULIE: Not so much the meat?

TOYAH: No, I didn’t get the meat one (above) at all to be honest but I don’t think anyone did in England! (they both laugh)

JULIE: She is certainly huge over here, she is that huge in England right now?

TOYAH: Massive! Everyone talks about Lady Gaga every day!

JULIE: Yeah, she’s a spectacle, that’s for sure. What else do you listen to? Well, you said you like Goldfrapp?

TOYAH: Love Goldfrapp. I’ve loved them since … is it "Felt Mountain"? The voice it’s just so extraordinary and again beautiful writing technique. So a big, big fan. I mainly listen to people – women - like Goldfrapp, like Kate Bush – Is Tori Amos a big name in America?

JULIE: Yes, she is. She’s quite a big name. She has a huge excessive following.

TOYAH: I’m pleased because I think she’s great. The critics here give her a really spiteful time. But that gives me strength because they give me spiteful time too!

JULIE: Do you think part of that is because she’s American? An ex-patriot?

TOYAH: That’s just racist, no-one would stand up for that. I don’t know what it is. She just presses men’s buttons over here probably because she speaks out politically about women and has very strong opinions about politics which I think always riles men over here. A woman with a mind, what do you do with that? They prefer their women to be servile and horizontal.

Some of Toyah's favourites
Top Goldfrapp (left), Kate Bush
Bottom Tori Amos (left), PJ Harvey

JULIE: She gets kind of a bad rap from the men around here too.

TOYAH: Does she?! Oh my god, I’m so surprised!

JULIE: It’s more women and gay men who love Tori –

TOYAH: Well, they’re the best!

JULIE: Do you have a similar experience there?

TOYAH: Yeah, I’m just writing a lyric now for a guy called Paul Masters who works with Boy George so I’m totally in tune with my gay following!

JULIE: That’s great. Back to the acting thing. I read that you’re a big "Doctor Who" fan?

TOYAH: Huge "Doctor Who" fan! At one point KD Lang and myself were up to play the first female Dr Who. That was the late 1980’s, early 1990’s.

JULIE: I can’t picture KD Lang! (laughs)

Andrew York's fantastic
Dr Who poster

TOYAH: I know – it’s an interesting one isn’t it! I think she could do it brilliantly. But it didn’t happen and I remain eternally optimistic that one day I might get to be in this brilliant series. It’s huge over here and it always has been huge. When I was a child I used hide behind the sofa and watch it, extreme feelings of terror running through me. I was so scared of it. But now I just think it’s really magnificent.

JULIE: It would be wonderful to get you a little guest starring shot –

TOYAH: Oh, I don’t want a little guest starring – I want the big job! I want to be the Doctor!

JULIE: That would be fabulous, definitely it’s time for a woman to be Doctor Who. I was also very happy to see you – I’m a “Secret Diary Of A Call Girl” (Toyah with Billie Piper as "Belle", below) fan and it was so lovely to see you appear on that show as her mum. Are there any more “Call Girl” appearances coming up?

TOYAH: I only did – I did the first series and then the second series the family were in the first episode and then it went very “young”. It’s as if the exec said they only want people under 30 in the programme so the family do not appear again. In the second series it’s quite a funny scene, it’s a nightmare scene but they’ve finished filming here now as well.

JULIE: The current series has pretty much just started here and they keep giving her – they gave her a teenage girl to hang around with, it’s like she’s too old now.

TOYAH: Yeah, that’s when the family started to disappear. I was in on the readings for that series. You all sit around a table, the cast and you read through each episode and I was there when the young girl was introduced. You could see the writing on the wall! (laughs) "Right, OK, anyone over 30 can leave the room now." (laughs)

JULIE: (laughs) It’s such a shame. It’s very much that way here in the US too and you always hope that other countries would be a little more accepting.

TOYAH: Well, the BBC here has had a lot of public arguments about the fact that they tend to get rid of women over 40. There’s been a lot of criticism and I think they’re trying to make a huge effort to reinstate women from each decade. They’re more interesting. I don’t watch anything if there is no-one from my age group in it. I’m not interested. I think the BBC is trying to address it.

JULIE: Right. Well, there is an older character, an older female character, I can’t remember her name, on "Dr Who", has a lot of scenes, she’s semi his love interest I think.

TOYAH: It’s not his –

JULIE: No, not his companion, there’s Alex something or other –

TOYAH: Oh, she’s wonderful!

JULIE: Yes, she’s on the show.

TOYAH: She’s extraordinary! She as a person in real life can speak five languages and has diploma in ancient Greece. She’s just remarkable!

JULIE: And you’ve also done a lot of reality television?

TOYAH: Well, in England reality television is all there is to do! (laughs) I mean it’s ludicrous over here! Every other program is a reality program!

JULIE: It’s the same here and unfortunately it’s killing scripted television. You did “I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!” (below)?

TOYAH: Yeah, did that in 2003.

JULIE: That’s a while ago. Where did they stick you?

TOYAH: We were in the – we were in Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the rain forest.

JULIE: How did you manage that – did you enjoy it?

TOYAH: I can’t say I enjoyed it but it's one hell of a life experience. You were genuinely locked in the jungle. Do you have an American version of this?

JULIE: We did, I don’t think do any more but did for a while.

TOYAH: They genuinely lock you in the jungle and starve you. So it’s quite an phenomenal experience.

JULIE: It’s a "Celebrity Survivor" –

TOYAH: "Celebrity survivor". 17 million viewers in England - in Great Britain so it’s big big show. It was absolutely fine, I have no regrets about doing it and I don’t feel it was life changing but it was exceptional.

JULIE: Do you consider yourself an outdoor girl?

TOYAH: Yes, I am an outdoor girl, definitely. Bearing in mind that I’ve lived for 25 years with an indoor husband!

JULIE: (laughs) Somebody has to go out!

TOYAH: He is really reluctant to go out and if it’s raining he won’t even get out of bed. I love being outdoors.

JULIE: If you hide in bed every time it rains in Britain, you’re not going to be out much! (laughs)

TOYAH: Well, that’s true!

JULIE: You also did something - going back – you mentioned Olivia Newton John, another woman I’ve been listening to my entire life. You did a walk to Beijing with her?

TOYAH: Yeah. That was four years ago. We were flown out of Beijing. There was Olivia Newton-John, the sister of Kylie Minogue - Dannii Minogue (below with Toyah) and Jane Ferguson,who’s Princess Fergie’s sister - was the main organiser. We were walking to raise money to build a cancer hospital in Australia. And it was phenomenal, it was a great experience to go into the kind of Mongolian desert where the wall starts and just be walking desert day after day, day after day. And the wall at that point is only mud and straw, it’s not a massive brick wall that you can see from outer space. It was a fabulous experience.

JULIE: So it was basically a walk along the wall?

TOYAH: The idea was a walk along the wall but the wall was so big we only had two weeks to do it in, that we flew, we had five flights along the wall, right into deep China. Right up to old Tibet. As you probably know Olivia Newton-John is a Buddhist so we asked permission to be able to pray in some of the old Buddhist sights. The Chinese were incredibly friendly and hospitable and they allowed us to pray. They could’ve stopped us – they took and showed us Buddhist caves and things like that. They were fabulous to us.

JULIE: Sounds like such an exciting experience. You never stop, do you? (laughs)

TOYAH: I don’t stop because life is short and as you get older time goes quicker, it speeds up! I’ve no interest in stopping, I don’t feel I’ve arrived anywhere. I have a permanent feeling of "well, that was the journey, I don’t think I’ve arrived! What shall I do next?" It’s quite an odd feeling so it spurs me on.

JULIE: Do you ever go on holiday?

TOYAH: No, I don’t but will next week. It’s my 25th wedding anniversary, it’s my husbands birthday –

JULIE: And your birthday-

TOYAH: And for the last six months we’ve been nursing my mother who has cancer and we’re having a week off. A week of respite. So we – I have a home in France, we’re going there (Toyah with Robert in France, below) and the telephone will be turned off.

JULIE: That’s wonderful. A little second honey moon action I guess?

TOYAH: Ah! We need it! It’s been a long hard slog so I’m looking forward to it.

JULIE: After 25 years people are still saying it will never last, right?

TOYAH: Yeah, everyone’s still cynical!

JULIE: That’s so funny. It is a very unusual pairing, but why would you say that it’s not going to last. It’s cruel! And obviously it has stood the test of time.

TOYAH: For me, as you say, the test of time is there and if people want to be cynical then that says more about them than it says about my relationship. So I tend to just ignore those kind of people anyway. They’ll move onto someone else to be spiteful to. I just don’t give them much time.

JULIE: Right. I find very interesting that you were very big in England and Robert is very big here. Have you ever played in US at all?

TOYAH: No, I’m playing in September.

JULIE: Is that the House of Blues gig?

TOYAH: Possibly, yes, there is that as well. My band The Humans (below) are about to sign a contract with a record company based in New York.

JULIE: Oh, wonderful!

TOYAH: I’m not allowed to say who it is yet. And we will be touring in September.

JULIE: Through the US?

TOYAH: East and West coast.

JULIE: That’s wonderful! Maybe we can actually have you come in while you’re here?

TOYAH: It would be a pleasure!

JULIE: Awesome. It’s well overdue for you to play here –

TOYAH: Well, it’s about 30 years overdue!

JULIE: Yeah! You don’t have commercial name recognition but you do have huge following here -

TOYAH: Well, if I have only you it’s worth coming over!

JULIE: (laughs) I had mentioned you on Twitter and people I guess were doing searches on your name and found you and started listening to my show so there you are! People here who are very committed and who have been listening nearly as long as I have.

TOYAH: Well, that’s fantastic because hopefully around September/October I’ll come over and do the Toyah concerts which is the first three albums.

JULIE: Oh, wow! That’s wonderful!

TOYAH: And then we’ll do The Humans concerts as well. The Humans is myself, Bill Rieflin who’s been drumming in R.E.M for the last 7 years but he is a multi-instrumentalist so in The Humans he plays bass and keyboards. So basically The Humans is three people, there’s Chris Wong on bass, Bill on everything and me on vocals. We are going to come and tour our new album which is called "Sugar Rush" (below).

JULIE: Right. And Robert is on the new album as well, right?

TOYAH: Robert is on the new album but Robert doesn’t tour anymore.

JULIE: He doesn’t tour – he did play not too long ago in downtown New York, I think just by himself?

TOYAH: Yes, doing “Soundscapes”. That was his last ever live appearance.

JULIE: Really? You don’t think he’s ever going to do it again?

TOYAH: I’ve heard this about every two years (Julie laughs) in the last 25 years –

JULIE: So he’s like The Rolling Stones – he has retired every couple of years?

TOYAH: Well, with The Humans he liked what we were doing so he turned up at the studio and joined in. So as long as you don’t hem him in and corner him and trap him –he gets involved.

JULIE: It needs to be his idea?

TOYAH: Yes. With us playing in America - say we go down a storm, he’ll be there!

JULIE: Right. There was a story - were you in Estonia when you put that band together?

TOYAH: Yes, the President of Estonia phoned up Robert and asked Robert to play at his birthday party four years ago and Robert said no. (Julie laughs) So I phoned up the embassy and said I’ll put a band together and write the music especially for the President and they said yes.

They flew myself, Bill Rieflin, Chris Wong – out to Estonia a week before the actual performances and we wrote 45 minutes of material, ended up touring Estonia to sell out venues and performed a private performance for the President. He loved it so much that we then flew straight to Seattle and recorded it all in Seattle. And released the album dedicated to Estonia.

JULIE: How did you end up recording that in Seattle?

TOYAH: Because Bill lives in Seattle.

JULIE: Oh, I see, OK. You've still quite a following overseas – do the Angels and Demons still hang around outside your shows?

TOYAH: The Angels and Demons have turned up at my last four shows because I’m performing those critical first three albums. So I was playing a venue in Birmingham which is in the middle of England –

JULIE: And your home, right?

TOYAH: It’s my home town and I looked out over the audience and I recognised virtually 80% of the audience.

JULIE: Wow! That’s fantastic! Are there some new young ones as well?

TOYAH: There’s a lot of new young ones. For some reason Florence and The Machine have named me as an influence and Marina and The Diamonds and quite a few other people recently have named is as an influence and it’s brought in a very very young audience for me.

JULIE: That’s terrific. How do you feel about the old material now?

TOYAH: It’s fun, I can see why it’s not mainstream! But it’s really great to perform live, it gives you something to think about. None of it is predictable. I did learn to sing within a four bar structure - until about ten years ago I used to sing cross bars and just improvise so to relearn this material and to perform as it was is quite demanding in many ways. And the subject matter is quite bleak and gothic so it’s intriguing to perform it now.

JULIE: You’re digging out some of your old outfits – do they still fit?

TOYAH: Yes! They still fit. I’m digging them out for a show in the center of London at the Leicester Square Theatre -

JULIE: Yes, I’m hoping to come out to that one!

TOYAH: For that show I’m going to have full hair, full make up and costume changes (above)

JULIE: That’s definitely the one I need to see then!

TOYAH: It’s the one to be at.

JULIE: Are there any songs from that time or any albums that make you cringe when you hear them now?

TOYAH: “Bird In Flight” (below), which is probably one of the most popular songs with all of the fans, makes me completely embarrassed.

JULIE: That was one of the singles, right?

TOYAH: Yeah.

JULIE: Was it one of the "Four From Toyah" ones or –

TOYAH: No, it was single, I think it was a double A-side with “Tribal Look” about 1979. And it’s probably the worst lyric I’ve ever written!

JULIE: (laughs) So you won’t be doing that one?

TOYAH: Oh, we do it and they go mad!

JULIE: Right! That’s the hit and you’ve got to do it?

TOYAH: Yeah.

JULIE: What was the biggest hit you had in England? Was it "Danced"?

TOYAH: It was a song called “It’s A Mystery” –

JULIE: Oh, yes - yes.

TOYAH: Which went gold many times over. That was probably a biggie.

JULIE: Just listening to your records not knowing what charted and what didn’t, I always thought that “I Want To Be Free” could’ve been a fabulous hit. Was it?

TOYAH: It was massive.

JULIE: I do that, that’s the one song of yours I see in karaoke -

TOYAH: Aha! SingStar have just licensed it off me so it’s going in all the karaoke –

JULIE: I do that on a regular basis and people are like "I don’t know that song! It’s really cool!"

TOYAH: Oh, brilliant! Well, that song was a huge hit virtually everywhere but America.

JULIE: Does it frustrate you to have not really broken here?

TOYAH: Um, yes and no. Because I’ve never gone out and spent time and worked the market. I’ve always been a bit of home bird being mainly based in England. It’s my own fault. Really I would love to be in America acting because I love your drama and I love your films a lot more than I do English stuff. But that’s because your drama is so broad and its spectrum I really think it’s fabulous. I still have enough energy to bring The Humans out there and make a go of it.

JULIE: That’s going to be so exciting and you may hook up with some film people while you’re here - certainly in LA.

TOYAH: I’m going to try! (Julie laughs)

JULIE: I also know you played, I’m not quite sure how long ago it was, I never notice the dates on the articles I read … you played the Cavern Club?

TOYAH: Yes, about two months ago.

JULIE: That must’ve been so exciting and there’s a brick (above) with your name on it?

TOYAH: I was so honored because a lot of the time I just get ridiculed the whole time in this country. Partly ridiculed because I’m a household name which is always a problem with people here. But I arrived at the Cavern and they said "would you come outside with us." These were the organisers.

They took me to the Beatles museum where there is a wall of fame and they said "we want to present you with a brick in the wall." Next to Jimi Hendrix, Robert Plant and Robert Fripp. And I was just so bowled over! It’s the first time I’ve been shown any respect as a musician in about 30 years! It really moved me and the concert itself was just mind blowing! It was a great day.

JULIE: In a place with so much history.

TOYAH: Ah! Just brilliant! Brilliant!

JULIE: You say they give you a hard time over there – do you think that the English are resentful of success?

TOYAH: Success tends to be a problem for people in the long term here. They're just snobby. For instance The Humans played last year in London and Robert was guesting with us. The reviews said that this some of the most exciting stuff they ever heard - Robert’s playing at his best and writing at his best, this is The Humans ... Well, I wrote it!

JULIE: They just overlooked you entirely.

TOYAH: They just overlook you.

JULIE: Oh, my goodness!

TOYAH: And they overlook you deliberately and insult you.

JULIE: Do you think a lot of that, even in this day and age, is sexism as well?

TOYAH: Probably a little bit. I mean I don’t think anyone would put their hands up and say "oh yeah - I’m sexist!" It’s just snobbery.

JULIE: I know it’s really hard for female musicians. When I first got back to Kate Bush again, the “Kick Inside” album, I think she was 19 when that came out and she of course wrote all the songs and I had a friend of mine say "she didn’t write the songs, you know David Gilmore and one of those guys wrote the songs." I was like … how can you say that?!

TOYAH: I know.

JULIE: It’s hard to believe!

TOYAH: But Kate doesn’t get any ridicule, she’s just loved all the time.

JULIE: Well, that’s good. I’m sorry that you don’t get that kind of respect. I certainly have a lot of respect for you.

TOYAH: I do get it from my fans and that’s all that matters.

JULIE: Yeah, it is. I know you’ve got quite a devout presence on Twitter (below with her blog). Are you fan of the social media thing?

TOYAH: I don’t … You’re going to think I’m awful … I send the messages out, I prepost them but I don’t do any social networking at all because I wouldn’t be able to write lyrics, I wouldn’t be able to write my books - I have to learn a phenomenal amount of music. I’ve just finished a Beatles compilation album with Chris Neil who is Celine Dion’s producer. I’ve just finished that this week.

JULIE: You said you did two songs?

TOYAH: I did two songs solo and guested on another song.

JULIE: With Kim Wilde, right?

TOYAH: Yeah, I’m just doing the backing vocals in the end. It’s a finale song on the album – everyone on the album does the backing vocals in the end. But I couldn't work at the rate I work if I was socially networking. Just can’t do it.

JULIE: And you do the occasional blog as well?

TOYAH: I do the blog, I send out the messages, and I help run the site but I can’t communicate with people 24 hours a day. I’m running an office from six in the morning till about 8 at night so you know, I’ve got to be where I’m needed.

JULIE: Do you feel it’s a good source of visibility these days?

TOYAH: Twitter is vital. If you want to walk up on the night, you need a few hundred people walking up to a venue, you’ve got to be on Twitter and Facebook. That’s where music is happening now.

JULIE: Right. Are you at liberty to say which Beatles songs you recorded?

TOYAH: I’m not allowed to say.

JULIE: Do you know when that’s going to be coming out?

TOYAH: I hope very soon, it’s a fantastic album! It’s mainly well known singers in Europe but I think it will cross the Atlantic.

JULIE: Just the fact that it’s Beatles, really …

TOYAH: Yeah.

JULIE: That gives you an instant market anyway.

TOYAH: Absolutely.

JULIE: And Kim Wilde is another fabulous English singer who’s never really – she’s had one hit here, she did “You Keep Me Hanging On”.

TOYAH: Well, she’s had one hit more than me then! (Julie laughs)

JULIE: Well, maybe your time is coming. When does The Humans album come out?

TOYAH: September.

JULIE: September. Oh, my goodness! It’s so far away!

TOYAH: Not that far away in terms of getting a release ready though.

JULIE: Right. You’re getting ready to go to Seattle and work on that, right?

TOYAH: I’m in Seattle in two weeks filming a documentary for the Discovery Channel. That gives me chance to get things done with Bill. But it’s all mastered and finished and all ready to go anyway.

JULIE: Right. Thank you so much for spending a little time with us. Happy anniversary to you and Robert. Happy birthday to both of you. Thank you so much, Toyah!

TOYAH: That’s a pleasure, Julie.

JULIE: Thank you so much.

TOYAH: Okey doke.

JULIE: Bye!

TOYAH: Bye!

You can listen to the interview HERE

2011-06-15T18:15:00.023Z

TOYAH ON
GAYDAR RADIO
WITH
PHIL MARRIOTT
14.6.2011

PHIL: I am so excited about my guest on my show tonight. She is mid way through a very long tour for 2011. It is one of the most vibrant faces from the 80’s still going strong today. It’s Toyah Willcox! Hello Toyah!

TOYAH: (on the phone) Hello! Hello!

PHIL: Thank you for coming back on Gaydar!

TOYAH: How can I not?!

PHIL: Always a joy to chat to you! As ever so much to talk about – not enough time! It’s always the case isn’t it?

TOYAH: Well, there’s just generally not enough time is there? (laughs)

PHIL: I don’t know where you get your energy from coz you’re always doing so much stuff!

TOYAH: You know someone said to me today am I going to retire and it hasn’t even occurred to me …

PHIL: No, that’s a dirty word isn’t it?

TOYAH: A bit of a dirty word. I would just be twiddling my thumbs after two days.

PHIL: (laughs) Well, I’ve got to say I’ve just finished reading your book – I know it’s been out for years, the surgery book, the facial surgery book? (Diary Of A Facelift - below)

TOYAH: Oh, OK!

PHIL: Amazing!

TOYAH: It’s a funny book isn’t it?

PHIL: Yeah. Loved it. Loved it coz it was written with a sense of humour – I was kind of feeling the pain a lot! I can’t believe I’ve just got round to reading it – it is a few years old isn’t it?

TOYAH: I so enjoyed writing it. It’s about six years old. But I laughed so much writing it it made my face hurt! It is a funny book! Because anecdotally it is quite a ridiculous subject and stories relating to plastic surgery do tend to be ridiculous.

PHIL: And I think you’re honest as well because a lot of people that were thinking of having the same thing probably would avoid it having it done – now they’ve probably done it and got the results! I think you’ve comforted them as well.

TOYAH: The thing is people get drawn to the book mid 40 onwards because they all start thinking about surgery and it’s not just women - it is men as well.

PHIL: Yeah, absolutely. Now - we’ve got to talk about the tour coz this is – I came to see you in St Albans (below).

TOYAH: Oh, did you?!

PHIL: I’ve been a life long fan of yours and went to see you - well, we’ll talk about this in detail later – you were the first person I saw live at the age of 12 actually at the Hammersmith Odeon.

TOYAH: Oh my goodness! Those were great gigs at that venue.

PHIL: It was amazing. St Albans I felt like I’d done ten hours at the gym! (laughs)

TOYAH: It was good fun! I love the Horn Of Plenty, it is such a brilliant venue. I mean it’s like playing in your living room.

PHIL: Yeah - it was intimate.

TOYAH: And very hot!

PHIL: It was very hot! I felt like I had been kind of exposed to this big gym workout, ten hours or something. But it was brilliant. I don’t think I’ve pogoed since I was very young.

TOYAH: It is unavoidable when you’re in a venue that size.

PHIL: Yeah. Did you enjoy it?

TOYAH: I loved it. I’m enjoying these gigs a lot because they are more intimate than the big 80’s shows. And we are doing stuff that is quite testing on us. And we’re doing it up close to the audience and it’s quite challenging and it’s great.

PHIL: It’s a real joy for the real hard core fans that have been with you from day one really, from the late 70’s coz it’s from the "Sheep Farming" to "Anthem" isn’t it, the tour?

TOYAH: The first three albums and it’s brought all those faces back into the venues. They really are the hard core punks that kind of moved into the New Wave era and they’re coming back and it’s great to see them all again!

PHIL: Do you know what, I loved it Toyah, was the fact that I used to follow you on tour back in the 80’s and there were people that I hadn’t seen for 20-25 years, probably more than that – and I saw them all again in St Albans, it was incredible!

TOYAH: It was quite remarkable because I was looking out and I’d think: "I really know that person - where do I know them from?" And then I realised it was about thirty years ago!

PHIL: It’s quite emotional, isn’t it?

TOYAH: It is amazing and I’m glad they’re still around. Sometimes they bring their own children with them which is … I find quite shocking! But you know all generations are welcome.

PHIL: I think it’s also a reminder that time goes so quickly, you’ve just got to embrace everything, haven’t you? Got to do it.

TOYAH: That’s it. Embrace it. Totally.

PHIL: Now we’ve got a bit of surprise for the London show, Friday the 17th June. One of my favourite theatres actually, you’ve picked the best theatre in London!

TOYAH: It’s beautiful.

PHIL: It’s the Leicester Square Theatre. I saw "Taboo" there, the Boy George musical.

TOYAH: Yeah and that’s partly why I really want to play that theatre because it’s established itself as a good music venue and again it’s intimate. It’s only the one floor and everyone gets a really good view. And I want to do something slightly more theatrical which we’ll try and continue through the rest of the tour. So it’s quite an adventurous night.

PHIL: I think that’s suits you very well as well Toyah, because lyrically and I think a lot of your songs are theatrical – quite dramatic?

TOYAH: They’re very. And we’re adding songs off "Anthem" that have never been performed before.

PHIL: Oh, wow! I can’t believe that! That’s amazing!

TOYAH: So we’re really excited! (Toyah & band band during rehearsals for Leicester Square, below)

PHIL: Yeah! Is it quite surreal performing songs some of which you haven’t done for 30 years?

TOYAH: Not only have I not done them – I haven’t listened to them for thirty years!

PHIL: Really?

TOYAH: And to sit down and decide what are going to be the penultimate songs, the songs that are going to make it onto the set list has been really difficult! I’ve chosen them by enjoying listening to them. So I’ve kind of put them on the hi-fi and thought "oh, that’s alright, I like that! I’d like to hear that myself" - so that goes on the set list.

PHIL: Presumably coz obviously we all evolve and as you get older you kind of change and you’re inspired by other things, these songs are going to be quite different? Done in a different way?

TOYAH: They’ll be the same arrangements, they will hopefully be more similar than not, I don’t want to re-invent them - especially "Anthem" because after so many artists in the last two years have been so dedicated to the 80’s sound - new artists - that I don’t want to be away from (that) for Leicester Square so we’re doing all the samples and everything that were in the album. So I want to suddenly surprise people that we’re actually a little bit techno.

PHIL: I read somewhere a few weeks ago that you’re digging out some old costumes. Are these going to be sort of re-made costumes?

TOYAH: No, they’re the originals and I’ve got to be really careful with them because the stitching is just starting to get a little bit kind of frail but I’ll have at least five and I have to wear the black core under garment so that the changes can be really quick. But no, they are original. I’ve been starving for a month!

PHIL: (laughs) Haha! Love it! You’ve been eating raw food haven’t you, I saw on Twitter?

TOYAH: I’m absolutely fine except when you get older your boobs get bigger (Phil laughs) and I can not shift the size of my boobs!

PHIL: Some people like that though!

TOYAH: I don’t! But you know if the boys like it that’s fine by me!

PHIL: I think some of the girls might like it too!

TOYAH: That’s fine by me too! Yeah, I can just get into the originals.

PHIL: Are these going to be the Melissa Caplan outfits?

TOYAH: Yes.

PHIL: Coz they were the real striking Egyptian stuff weren’t they?

TOYAH: Yeah, it’s the Egyptian stuff.

PHIL: Brilliant. That’s really good to hear. And the tour closes in London - we have to mention that this is a year long tour isn’t it, as well?

TOYAH: Yeah, it’s been added to daily and we’re not only just doing Leicester Square in London, we’re going to be doing the O2 Academy in Islington in November, on the 5th of November.

PHIL: Yeah! Are we to expect fireworks for that?

TOYAH: Well, not inside! (Phil laughs) But hopefully by then we’ve really honed what we’re aiming to do. So that is the end of the tour.

PHIL: Brilliant. Also gay artist Andi Fraggs (below) is supporting you in London on that date?

TOYAH: I know! I’m really excited about that because of these costume changes and he is so theatrical –

PHIL: He loves you as well doesn’t he?

TOYAH: He’s perfect.

PHIL: Yeah. I started my own indie night –alternative 80’s night myself in London last Friday and he turned up actually. He’s a lovely guy and he is heavily influenced by you work as well, isn’t he?

TOYAH: Well, that’s perfect. I mean I love it. To have an electro singer and my fans are so supportive of the support acts, they love the support so Andi will have a great night.

PHIL: I think you’ve always had a really massive gay following as well. I remember St Albans just recently I was talking about that - half the crowd were gay I think and anyone would think it was Liza Minelli up on stage! (Phil laughs)

TOYAH: Oh! I mean that’s fabulous! I don’t think it matters and it shouldn’t matter, it shouldn’t be about …

PHIL: Divide.

TOYAH: Divide - at all. Because there’s some heavy punks come along and everyone just kind of - they’re involved in the memory of the night. So all generations welcome, all kind of preferences welcome. It’s not an issue and not a statement.

PHIL: Totally.

TOYAH: It is about individualism and that means everybody.

PHIL: I think that’s why the gay audience really love you as well because with gigs – gigs of yours - people feel welcome. They feel like even if they do look a bit strange, they’ve got the make-up and they’re very creative, they can feel like they’re not going get picked on because they’re part of the same family – sounds a bit cliched but –

TOYAH: No one will be picked on. My fans just don’t do that. And they’re not snobby and I think what is remarkable about the kind circle of my fans and myself is we tend to have a similar background that we have experienced bullying. We have experienced the feeling of standing outside from the others. Therefore they come to Toyah gigs and it’s family.

PHIL: Absolutely. I’d agree with you on that. Are you filming any of this tour? Because like I said my first concert was your "Warrior Rock" show which I still actually have dreams of, because I want to see it on a film and it wasn’t filmed was it, that Hammersmith Odeon?

TOYAH: No, it wasn’t. But we’re in negotiations to do a DVD probably at the O2.

PHIL: That’s brilliant! Because I know a lot of people who knew I was going to chat to you, they want that DVD in their grubby little paws!

TOYAH: Well, if it’s not the O2 it’s going to be a specialised venue specifically to film it and it will be kind of open to the fans as well.

PHIL: That’s great coz it really needs to be filmed. The St Albans show was just incredible. Do you think back - that 1982 show was – I think it was really a pinnacle wasn’t it of the time?

TOYAH: It was absolutely stunning. And that album, the "Warrior Rock" album, which was a double album – even today music critics resentfully say it’s one of the best live albums ever made. I suffer because I almost work exclusively in England and the reason I suffer is England is so snobby … the critics who get in free to everywhere just can’t bear to mention my name!

It’s fine by me – I make a great living and I have great fans and I’m inspired daily and I love my work. But it’s ironic that I’ve chosen to stay in this country - not leave it, not move away and I pay the price for that. So when it comes down to "Warrior Rock", I know it’s one of the best live albums ever made! And I’m confident about that and two fingers to everyone else about it really!

PHIL: Oh yeah! I think that probably makes you more determined and you know what, I think your band at that time were the tightest ever as well.

TOYAH: Oh wow what can you say? They were extraordinary! And I’m so relieved that Simon Phillips the drummer still tells people today after he’s played with Toto, he’s played with the biggest and the best and the most diverse – he still tells people to go back and listen to that album as a representation of what a live albums should be.

PHIL: I watched an old Youtube clip last night - The Wide Awake Club - I don’t know if you remember doing this - you had to make a candle out of a banana which you rolled in jam and nuts (Toyah sniggers) and then you had to stick it in a pineapple ring and there was this hysterical laughter from the TV crew, you were quite composed. If that was me I would’ve just been on the floor rolling around!

TOYAH: The thing is I don’t remember making it and I watched it about a month ago and I thought I really must’ve known what was going on (Phil laughs) because it is the most phallic …
I mean the cherry on top of the cake would’ve been if I took a bite of it!

PHIL: (laughs) I was king of waiting for that actually coz I remember seeing it at the time as a kid but obviously I’d forgotten about until I watched last night.

TOYAH: But also back then we did have fun and there was never – I mean we didn’t know about inappropriate behaviour with children back then. Because Tiswas and everything was about schoolboy naughtiness so it probably didn’t genuinely occur to me that it was utterly politically wrong.

PHIL: Coz you got flanned didn’t you on Tiswas (below) as well and you look like you were having a great time?

TOYAH: Oh, everyone loved Tiswas. Tiswas was just one great big party.

PHIL: It was a punk party wasn’t it?

TOYAH: It was a punk party. I mean anywhere where Chris Tarrant is is a party. That guy just doesn’t allow the air to be still. He’s fantastic. We’d just turn up and you couldn’t get us out of the building, we were in heaven.

PHIL: I think your face on the Wide Awake Club with the banana was just priceless!

TOYAH: Perhaps I should come on stage at Leicester Square and recreate that recipe?

PHIL: That would be hilarious!

TOYAH: In a little interlude!

PHIL: (laughs) You’re kind of like a schoolgirl who wanted to break free from your classroom?

TOYAH: The outfit I was wearing for that sadly got nicked from my one and only package holiday in Barbados in 1982. My suitcase got opened and that outfit was in there and I don’t have it anymore otherwise I’d put it on and make the banana phallicy thingy.

PHIL: It’s on Ebay somewhere! Oh, what a rotter! (Toyah laughs) Now you’re still doing mad TV. We caught you on "Sing If You Can" (below). How crazy was that show - with Keith Lemon?

TOYAH: Oh God I loved it!

PHIL: You were brilliant on that!

TOYAH: Well, thank you! You know I didn’t stand a hope in hell – I realised as soon as the audience came in and they were all Jedward fans and the audience were voting - I just knew I was dead in the water.

PHIL: (laughs) Well, I was thinking Toyah - are you mad doing this?

TOYAH: But I love things that are dangerous and catch you out and that’s why I did "Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here". I just love the concept of it. Also, with "Sing If You Can" it was really important that you actually could sing and I enjoyed that even more.

PHIL: More of a challenge isn’t it I expect?

TOYAH: Oh, yeah! But Jedward never shut up! They just don’t draw breath!

PHIL: I kind of warmed to them because they do get ridiculed and I think they’re quite brave guys aren’t they?

TOYAH: I thought on Eurovision they were absolutely brilliant!

PHIL: They were brilliant - it was kind of Pet Shop Boys as well the whole visual thing going on?

TOYAH: The visual was the best of the whole night. I made my husband watch it. My husband, who is so critical, he’s been in the business for 40 years, if not longer –

PHIL: Robert Fripp.

TOYAH: Robert Fripp. He just said "that was really good."

PHIL: Now must mention gay photographer Dean Stockings. He’s got an exhibition hasn’t he which I think you’re opening?

TOYAH: I’m opening it on Monday the 20th, two days after Leicester Square.

PHIL: He’s pretty incredible isn’t he, he’s a talented guy?

TOYAH: He’s a fabulous guy and I kind of owe my re-invention in the last ten years to him because he’s made all the videos in the last ten years. Sean Chapman who he works with does all my images and make-up and stuff. So I’ve worked with him very closely for a decade and I just adore his work. So the idea of this exhibition on the 20th is it’s a collective of photographers who are putting on the exhibition and everyone is welcome and I’m officially opening it between 5 and 7.

PHIL: That’s going to be a really good night as well because I think a lot of really creative and important people will be there as well, won’t they?

TOYAH: Oh, they will and that is – can you remind me where it is? Is it on The Strand?

PHIL: Erm, I think it is on The Strand and I think Crissy Darling, who we know on the scene in London, who wears the most incredible head gear as a part of being a hostess of night clubs, she’s ... I say she… he is going to be there as well. I have a tendency to call him she coz of the outfits he wears but -

TOYAH: He/She will forgive you.

PHIL: Yes! I’m sure he will! I was talking to him on the phone this morning when he knew obviously that I was going to be chatting to you. I’ve got a couple of questions if that’s alright Toyah?

TOYAH: Yeah, fire away!

PHIL: From listeners. One from Paul Stevens: What was the inspiration behind the "Anthem" track “I Am”? Of course these are the tracks, "Anthem", "Sheep Farming In Barnet" and "The Blue Meaning" that you’re doing on tour aren’t you?

TOYAH: Yes, “I Am” – the inspiration behind that was – the track arrived to me before the lyrics was written and it was a beautiful fluid track. And I just wanted to write about the fluidity of life and the connection of how everything floats and how time floats and all of that. So it was mainly about creating a lyric of that sense of water and the imagery as well. I think it’s a really beautiful track.

PHIL: I’ve got a little confession actually to make about that track because when I was kid at school – I think I was about 13 or something, 13 or 14 – I took that the lyrics of that track to my art class and the art teacher actually asked me which poet it was? He said it was incredible, so visual coz we had to kind of collect together some words which were really visual and that was the song I used.

TOYAH: Ah. You see back then I did write lyrics as … I did write them as poetry first and then kind of gave them the rhythmic structure they needed to be lyrics. But I think it was also slightly Pagan as well, the approach to it was kind of based in English Paganism.

PHIL: Conjurers up a lot of images.

TOYAH: It does.

PHIL: One from Vin here as well: have you ever considered writing a movie script? I would guess that it would sci-fi or horror?

TOYAH: It would – it would be one of those. No, I haven’t considered it coz scripts are a law onto themselves. When a script arrives on your desk, there is certain mindset you have to be quite apt at to understand how that’s going to made into something solid. And sometimes the best scripts have the least in. And I wouldn’t know how to do that – I wouldn’t know how to make a script workable. So I would much rather stick to story writing and start delivering the novels that I’ve got piling up on my desk that are half finished.

PHIL: And for someone with dyslexia as well I think that’s a job in itself isn’t it?

TOYAH: But I think most writers are! See, I don’t think dyslexia is about book writing, book writing is about imagination so I do actually think most of the best writers are dyslexic.

PHIL: Ah, interesting. Can we talk about dance music coz obviously we play a lot of dance music here at Gaydar. You released a dance album called “Dreamchild” back in the early 90’s, mid 90’s …?

TOYAH: About '95. It’s been re-released, it’s on Cherry Red Records.

PHIL: And you worked with Tim from Utah Saints – he re-mixed one of the tracks?

TOYAH: Yes!

PHIL: Do you have the desire to do that kind of thing again – we play obviously dance music here and we want to play your stuff!

TOYAH: Well, I’m writing at the moment with a DJ called Paul Masterson -

PHIL: Oh! Yomanda's Paul? Is that from Yomanda? I think he was massive on the gay scene about 10-15 years ago?

TOYAH: I hope it it’s the same guy -

PHIL: Yeah!

TOYAH: Because we’ve been working via email and we’ve written a track called “Fallen” which I put the vocal down on at the end of the month and that is a dance track. And I send him the lyric at the weekend and he said this lyric is perfection.

PHIL: Oh, that’s really exciting.

TOYAH: Yeah.

PHIL: That’s really exciting! Maybe that could be a future Gaydar Radio anthem I think!

TOYAH: Oh, it’s definitely got an anthem in it!

PHIL: Stick it on the A-list!

TOYAH: Please!

PHIL: Listen Toyah, it’s been an absolute joy to talk to you again. You’re going to have to see us next time!

TOYAH: I will and thank you so much for talking to me and I can’t wait for Leicester Square and it’s going to be quite visual and the theme of the night is “Jungle.”

PHIL: Oh! Jungles Of Jupiter, maybe?

TOYAH: It’s tribal. It’s a tribal night.

PHIL: Brilliant. So that’s Friday 17th of June at the Leicester Square (Theatre) in London and the tour continues right the way through to November?

TOYAH: Yes, it does. The next venue is will be the Oxford Regent (sic, it’s “The Regal”) on the 2nd of July if you can’t get into Leicester Square - if the tickets have gone and you fancy a trip to Oxford. That’s on the Saturday 2nd of July. All the dates are on toyahwillcox.com but please put two L’s in Willcox or you end up in some far away southern American country!

PHIL: That does happen a lot doesn’t it? Obviously your name is spelled – it must drive you mad … people do that with me - that’s why they call me Double R Double T because it’s (mockingly) Marriott, two R’s Two T’s.

TOYAH: OK. I’ll remember that.

PHIL: Toyah, a joy to chat to you as I said and listen, best of luck with the tour and we’ll see you at the Leicester Square Theatre on the 17th.

TOYAH: Thank you! I can’t wait!

PHIL: Have a great show!

TOYAH: Alright!

PHIL: See you!

TOYAH: Byeee!

SONG: "Latex Messiah"

You can listen to the interview HERE

2011-05-21T13:27:00.008Z

TOYAH ON
SANCTUARY EXPOSED
AT THE HMV INSTITUTE
BIRMINGHAM
16.4.2011

SONG: Race Through Space

DAVID DAVIES: You’re going back into the past and playing all the old songs again?

TOYAH: It’s the 3oth anniversary of a platinum album I had called “Anthem” which was just massive worldwide. And rather than just play "Anthem" I wanted play the build-up to it because I was such a different person back then.

And also everything back then tended to be very very weird. I wanted to be weird, I wanted the lyrics to be weird, I’d dress weird, sounded weird. So I just wanted to include all three albums because I think it makes the evening more diverse.

SONG: IEYA

DAVID: How did you get your break back then? We’ve got a young girl who’s come from Germany, 16, who’s playing tonight (Toyah's support act at the gig) and it’s her first chance of playing in front of a crowd -

TOYAH: Back then and we’re talking 33 ... 34 years ago the pub circuit was healthier than this kind of venue circuit. You wouldn’t play a nightclub back then, you’d play a pub. And thousands would turn up! You could do 40 dates in a tour only doing pubs. And you would play to … almost 120 000 people.

It was ridiculous how many people you could play to. Slowly pubs have changed their position in culture. I think that makes it harder for young bands to get established. You know - it makes it necessary tonight to have Vera on - it’s just fabulous. I don’t know how else she could get on in front of an audience without a record deal.

DAVID: This is the test.

TOYAH: This is the test. I think it’s very brave of Pete Newton as a promoter to do that. She’s doing it front of the right audience because my audience love to support the support. They are supportive of the supports. I think they’ll love her. And they will really be listening and support her which is nice.

DAVID: So have you got any advice for Vera or anybody who’s trying to make it in music? What would you say?

TOYAH: Oh God - I don’t want to be pessimistic because it’s such a difficult time. I think the saviour as well as the enemy is the internet. I think it’s so important to put yourself out there on Youtube. Pick a song that you don’t mind people listening to for free, put yourself out there. And then hopefully you’ll get enough interest that you can go to a promoter and say "I’ve had 40 000 hits on this, let me come and play your venue."

DAVID: That just shows how different things are from when you made it?

TOYAH: Ah, totally different! I can’t tell you how different! Everything when I was working was word of mouth. There was no mobiles, no internet, it was purely word of mouth on the street. And that was incredibly powerful.

SONG: Good Morning Universe

DAVID: How’s the internet changed your career since it developed?

TOYAH: It’s given me complete autonomy which I really like. That’s always suited me -

DAVID: You’re in control now rather than the record label?

TOYAH: Yeah. I’m in control and the other side to this is I am in my office 14 hours a day doing contracts and doing licensing but it means that I do mail order through the internet, I can post the video on the internet, I can put things out there that would’ve taken a three week tour 35 years ago.

DAVID: Who would’ve thought that being a musician entails so much sitting down at a computer, do you know what I mean?

TOYAH: Oh God, yeah. And the paperwork is still there. What I am doing today with my albums took a team of 10 people two years to do 35 years ago. I can now do it all in one week.

DAVID: So do you do it all on your own or do you have someone helping out?

TOYAH: I have. It’s really important that once you’ve got any form of success that you’ve got a really good book-keeper, you’ve got to stay on top of it. Because once the taxman whiffs success they’re on top you like a –

DAVID: You can’t get away with -

TOYAH: Well, you can’t hide anything and you’ve just got to show that you can run it.

DAVID: They’re out to get you?

TOYAH: They’re out to get you and you’re in big trouble. But I just have a team. I have a web manager who also acts as my kind of absent PA, and my web draws in a fantastic amount of work. I mean I’m well into quarter of a million on my web alone per year. I have a contact on my website for personal appearances.

So my web manager runs me visibly as a PA and as a web manager and then I have a book-keeper who is like an absolute, I was going to say she’s like a nazi but that’s not the right thing to say … but she’s really strict. I have five agents. Now the agents book me and do contracts but I still have the autonomy and final say. No-one signs anything other than me.

SONG: I Want To Be Free

DAVID: Are you happier with how the music industry is for you now than you were then? Back in the day?

TOYAH: Well, back in the day I needed the industry. I was young, I knew nothing, all I wanted to do was to be famous and to write songs and to perform songs. I couldn’t run with the knowledge that I run the company now, it’s taken all this time to do it. I’ve learned as I’ve gone along and I’m a really keen learner. And I still don’t understand how publishing works, I really don’t understand it at all!

But also being a 52-year-old there is no way I could start in the business now at my age. I work on what I am and what I’ve established through the past. I use that and I use the power that that has. And that’s going to diminish. By the time I’m sixty that’s going to diminish. So I’m making the most of it while I can.

DAVID: That’s why you’re re-visiting the old stuff tonight. Kind of you can’t forget where you come from? Is that what this is all about tonight?

TOYAH: Well, absolutely. I’ve sold hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of albums so I’m performing really to my age group but also there’s a new generation kind of college kids out there that are discovering me thanks to people like Marina and The Diamonds and quite a few others who’ve cited me as an influence. Even the Ting Tings. So those people citing me as an influence - I mean it’s done me so much good. So I’m doing all that material bearing all that in mind.

DAVID: So what artists are you into at the moment? Is there anyone in particular that you really think is going to be the next big thing, that you’re backing up?

TOYAH: I’m not really good with new stuff, I’m crap on new stuff!

DAVID: Yeah - me too!

TOYAH: But I’m a die hard Muse fan. Absolutely die hard. I tend to love most women I hear, I think there’s some fantastic women writers, women performers out there. So interesting. And I can now stand back and look at the dynamics of fame, look at (Lady) Gaga in comparison with Madonna. Gaga is evolved as a voice and a songwriter and a person of image, so evolved. And then you look at Florence and The Machine and you look at The Diamonds, how they’re all evolving so quickly –

DAVID: Do you think this is a lot to do with artists themselves or do you think it’s the record company that’s kind of –

TOYAH: Well, it’s interesting because record companies don’t know their place at the moment. I think when you look at certain artists they’re achieving staggering fame. When you at Adele, it is world wide fame. You get a very few artists nowadays what I call regional, just England or just Europe. The ones that tend to be just UK have come from X-factor. They don’t cross over the Atlantic.

So I think how do regional artists work because I’m a regional artist, I’m mainly UK and Europe – I never crossed to America. So I kind of – I’m aware of my territories. But you were asking about record companies. I think they can only really deal with major major names now. I think the smaller names will -

DAVID: There’s no room for the smaller names. I think you’ve got to be the big fish now otherwise it’s hard to break on there –

TOYAH: The internet I think makes the smaller fish survive, I really do. You can build your fanbase on the internet. I think there is such a thing as the pop-up gig, if you can find a pub that would take you. It could be that music will be saviour of the pubs because pubs are closing ten a week. You know perhaps if we got that as a live music circuit again, it might bring back to the music business what punk did. Punk was so instant. You could do a gig anywhere.

DAVID: It was new at the time as well –

TOYAH: Thousands would turn up. Perhaps we need –

DAVID: We need something new and exciting that will change everything!

TOYAH: Absolutely. Perhaps Pete Newton’s the man!

SONG: Blue Meanings

DAVID: So you’ve worked with Pete before haven’t you?

TOYAH: I did the Asylum last year and I did The Robin.

DAVID: So how is it to work with Pete and (?) ?

TOYAH: They’re very very conscientious, I’m so touched by the fact that they’re putting Vera on tonight. I think their heart is totally in the right place. You come in, everywhere is clean, the rider is there. I can’t tell you! They’re the only people that put the rider out in the dressing room. They’re good and they’re positive and you see them. I mean often I do a gig and you don’t see the promoter.

DAVID: I know exactly what you’re talking about.

TOYAH: Good luck to them because I think they love music and you really need to working with people who love music, who aren’t exploiting you. They definitely love their music.

2011-02-09T13:24:00.007Z

TOYAH ON
BBC RADIO ONE
TALKABOUT
FEBRUARY
1981

HOST: We will at this stage of the evening say hello to Toyah Willcox. Thank you ever so much for joining us!

TOYAH: Pleasure.

HOST: Are you impressed by these romantic people, sat on our panel tonight?

TOYAH: I think they’re marvelous, when I was their age I was so giggly and silly over Valentine’s. I didn’t … the first I ever received a Valentine’s was last year. I was 21 last year!

HOST: Shame! (Toyah laughs)

TOYAH: If I’d received one at the age of 16 I would’ve had a heart attack.

HOST: Toyah, do you think it’s … no, I can’t say that – unethical, that’s not the right word but do you think it isn’t right for ladies to send cards to gentlemen? Do you think that’s far too much?

TOYAH: It’s a drag. I don’t buy Valentine’s, I make them and the ruder I can make them the better. I cut out acne adverts and stick them on piece of card and send them off (everybody laughs) I have great fun with things like that!

HOST: I’m sure you do! If you ever received a card with an acne advert on the front –

TOYAH: It’s boring as a woman not to have the right to ask a man out etc etc. I have never even thought about not being allowed to send a Valentine’s or if you’re being too promiscuous.

HOST: Do you remember your first date, Toyah. Is it something that is special to you? How were you asked?

TOYAH: Pardon?

HOST: How were you asked out on your first date?

TOYAH: On my first date I asked the boy out because no-one would dream of asking me out! (audience laughs) I was 13 and it was the first mixed party I’d ever been invited to. I was the one who was left behind because no-one would ask me so I invited the boy.

HOST: What was his reaction?

TOYAH: He said yes, that was good enough for me! (everybody laughs)

HOST: There’s no real answer to that. Ahem! Have you been asked out by somebody who you felt, well, I really don’t want to –

TOYAH: I’m asked that every time I play with my band. I’m just very polite. I’d been persisted to the point last year where I had a guy following me around everywhere and breaking into my home with very rude message scrawled on walls. And he used to phone me up every day with very filthy phone calls.

I’ve been persisted to that point by a man who started off once he’d taken me out and then it got further and further until had to get the police to try and arrest him. But I’ve never ever been pursued by a man that I know of. I get little boy fans following me about and I’m always very polite to them but never to the point of being –

HOST: You seem, you know! But being serious – do you think it’s better, Toyah, to say no immediately or maybe make an excuse -

TOYAH: Oh, of course. If you’re going to be silly and play around with guys emotions then you’re asking for trouble. You deserve what you get.

HOST: That’s very philosophical.

(Later in the show)

TOYAH: I’ve never ever worried about this equality thing before. As far as I’m concerned you’re a living being. I pay for everything in my relationship with my fiance (Tom, below with Toyah) because I support him but if the record company take me out then I make sure they pay and they take me to the most expensive restaurant!

HOST: You’re in a very invidious position, we ought not really look too closely to the entertainment business where there are some pretty unique situations aren’t there?

TOYAH: Right. I’ve never worried who owes who, who pays for what. It’s who ever has got the most money in the pocket.

HOST: Have you had any real upsets in your life as far as emotions are concerned because we’ve been on a very up mode so far, let’s look at the other way a little …

TOYAH: I’ve been permanently in love with someone. As far as I can remember I used to have a permanent crush on somebody. Whether it was feasible or not but I should have a crush on somebody. Every one I’ve had a crush on has lead to heartbreak. I don’t why!

But I could count about 12 people I’ve had a crush on for the past 20 years as far back as I can remember. I went out with someone when I was 13 and when that finished I never went out with anyone again until I was 20. And that is now a very permanent relationship. I live with the guy and I’m very happy. But I always have dreadful crushes!

You can listen to the interview HERE

2011-01-28T13:36:00.013Z

TOYAH ON
BBC RADIO WEST
MIDLANDS
WITH MARK REGAN
25.1.2011

MARK REGAN: I’m joined now by Toyah Willcox. Good evening Toyah!

TOYAH: (on the phone) Good evening! How are you?

MARK: I’m absolutely rocking and rolling. Nice to hear you! Now then … obviously everybody remembers you from your singing days, very high profile and that kind of stuff. And you’ve been on "I’m A Celebrity" as well but the reason we’ve got you on this week is because you are also a bit of a champion of “Women Who … “ and business and entertainment, that’s an issue close to your heart?

TOYAH: Absolutely. I think it’s always good to just get up and talk about what you do and I’m basically a singer and an actress. What the public never see is I’m also a business woman. I’m giving a talk at Birmingham Commerce on Friday about longevity. I’m talking about how you work for a long time. Not just work as a pop star for a few years and then just go into the wilderness. I’m talking about how you re-invent yourself and how you run a business.

MARK: I want to get under the skin of this because you made your headlines in the way of the pop music which is far from an easy industry to make any kind of headway in. We’ve had loads of headlines about women in football. Sian has been criticised as we know, over the weekend, had to be withdrawn from the game because of comments made by Andy Gray, he’s got the sack. How difficult is it for women to get over this kind of sexism?

TOYAH: We are talking about two women who are in a very male dominated career (laughs) and good on them. Sexism is definitely there and you have to let it roll off your back and get on with it. Which is kind of my approach. If I have to deal with someone who is nasty to me I tend to just ignore them and get on with my life. But if it’s something that’s terribly damaging or physically endangers you them I’m so glad to hear that in this particular case the comments have been addressed. But rock’n’roll is incredibly sexist! You just have to listen to songs to hear the sexism!

And there is ageism too but I think it’s how you deal with it. If I stopped my career in its tracks every time I had to deal with sexism and ageism I wouldn’t be getting anywhere. I would be fighting every day. I just get on with dignity and I’m a creative person and I have a lot of autonomy what I do but I’m not going to waste my time with bigoted idiots. I just get out there, I have an audience and I work with my audience and I’m very good at business as well. I’m amazed how large this argument has become today and I’m amazed how stupid the people were who made those comments. We are in a very modern world and we’re in a world where women are proving that they are very good at what they do.

MARK: Are you surprised Andy Gray has got the sack?

TOYAH: I am a little surprised. I think it’s very harsh. I was talking to someone who knew him today and the general consensus was that we all, in this day and age, we all need to keep in check what we say and what we do. We’re in an ever changing culture. We’re in an ever changing way of how we perceive men and women of many many cultures. We all need to re-learn how we were brought up 40 years ago. I think it’s very harsh that he has been sacked. It’s sad but I suppose he’s been used as an extreme example and he’s had quite an extreme punishment.

MARK: I’m surprised to hear you say that you’re quite sympathetic to him from what you said about –

TOYAH: Oh God! You should hear about what they’ve said about me daily! I once had a manager go on-line to a web page called celebrity skins and he phoned me up and he said "I’m not paying $16 to see you naked." You get it every day! I’m 52 and if I don’t keep my weight in check, my wrinkles in check - I’m going to get a pain in the neck from the opposite sex! But a part of me accepts that and part of me deals with it and 99% of me ignores it. But if the opposite sex ever made me feel unsafe or uncomfortable then I would do something about it. But the majority of the time it’s said in humour.

MARK: I think there’s too sides to this. There’s the being offensive side to it as well but I think the more condemning is the denial of opportunities to people, particularly women. What’s going with this at the moment: lines woman Sian Massey, through no fault of her own, has been withdrawn from officiating a game of football because of something somebody has done because of her sex!

TOYAH: I totally agree with you there. That is the point and that is the very serious issue. When you look on Sky News today the point is that women are exceptionally good and well informed at what they do. They are fair and honest. And that is the point: if you do the job well it really shouldn’t matter what sex you are.

MARK: Are these the kind of issues you’ll be addressing on Friday?

TOYAH: I’m not going to get up and give a kind of militant “men must die” speech –

MARK: Let’s hope not!

TOYAH: (laughs) But I am going to talk about how I’ve had to combat ageism since I was 23. I was 23 when a camera man first told me I needed plastic surgery to get rid of wrinkles! And it is endemic in showbusiness but I also hope I’ll be giving a very funny and inspirational talk as well.

MARK: Excellent. It’s this Friday isn’t it, the 28th of January?

TOYAH: Yes! Yes, oh gosh, sorry I had no idea what the date is today! (Mark laughs) You are dead right!

MARK: Don’t miss it! (Toyah laughs) It won’t be the same without you!

TOYAH: I’ll be there!

MARK: Fantastic! Toyah, thank you very very much for joining us this afternoon!

TOYAH: Thank you Mark!

-----------

Staying on the subject Toyah appeared on the Daily Politics Show "Soapbox" on BBC2 on 9.2.2011 to talk about her experiences of ageism and sexism

2011-01-26T13:49:00.016Z

TOYAH ON
THE PULSE
RADIO VICTORY
PORTSMOUTH
OBTOBER
1998

SONG: “It’s A Mystery”

HOST PHIL MARRIOT: We tracked Toyah down at the Brighton Theatre Royal, when she was there appearing in the production of the "Live Bed Show" to talk to her about it. What is it about?

TOYAH: It was written by Arthur Smith. It’s a two hander and it’s about a dream. But the dream – you never quite know if it goes into reality or what it’s quite doing. It spans about 30 years. It’s basically probably ever cliché or every kind of hidden experience people have had in the bedroom that are never talked about but it’s all happening on stage.

So it’s very much a play of recognition of the audiences point of view. Because there are certain scenes where people draw a breath and go "oh no!" because they recognise themselves in it. But it chops and changes. One moment it can be at the beginning of the relationship and the next moment it can be at the end of the relationship. It’s quite surreal.

PHIL: It’s been advertised as being a strictly adult comedy. Amongst other things you have to fake an orgasm on stage, tell us a little bit about that?

TOYAH: Well, the play appears far ruder than it actually is because the language is just naked. It’s very very crude. There’s no nudity on stage. The play opens and closes with a faked orgasm. But all the dialogue is explicit. I mean to the point where a child would not understand it so if people wanted bring a teenager in who hasn’t had sex yet, they just wouldn’t understand it. Because it is deeply expressive.

PHIL: From an adult point of view would people relate to that … what’s in the play – if they’ve been in a relationship themselves?

TOYAH: It’s possibly what everyone’s thought but hasn’t said.

PHIL: So that’s another reason why children wouldn’t enjoy –

TOYAH: Also, it’s very autobiographical of Arthur Smith. He’s written it about his past. For instance it’s quite hard for him to see an actor play him. Joe McGann is really playing him. Whereas up until this date only comedians have played Arthur’s role. Like Paul Merton and Arthur played it himself. Arthur’s being really critical about actors playing that male role. He came in last night and he just loved Joe in it so he’s willing to see it go into other people’s hands now.

PHIL: Were you embarrassed about the controversial aspect of sex in this play? You’ve done a lot of things in the past which have tackled the same thing – not in the same way but ... ?

TOYAH: No, I wasn’t embarrassed. The problem is people always think you’re playing yourself. So I’m playing a woman who’s had 500 conquests and the trouble happens in the bar afterwards when people think you’re an easy prey! (laughs) But apart from that no, I don’t suffer embarrassment at all. In rehearsal I said to the director that there is a potential scene where there is nudity and I said "do you want nudity?" and he said no, it far more interesting, it’s far more sexier not to play that. Just leave things to the imagination. Because the dialogue leaves very little to the imagination. So visually we just stay in pyjamas all the way through.

PHIL: It’s more of a mystery? It’s all in the mind?

TOYAH: That’s it, yeah. You need some kind of veil up. I think it works.

PHIL: How do you think your audiences have reacted to this play so far? Have they been shocked do you think, by the content?

TOYAH: Well, we have an average of 8 walk outs per show –

PHIL: Really?

TOYAH: And you can guarantee their age group. They’re usually over 50. Obviously because Joe McGann comes from an background of sitcom and having played the perfect male in “The Upper Hand” I think his audience are more shocked than mine are. But there’s a relative layer of shock. There’s one speech I have about weighing a man’s penis which really upsets the men in the audience. You get jibes and sometimes kind of comments back.

PHIL: Maybe they’re insecure about that?

TOYAH: Well, I’m afraid it actually freaks them out, it really does. It lays them bare. It’s clever of Arthur Smith.

SONG: “Now And Then”

PHIL: Going back to the late 70’s your acting career when you first started out … you starred in Derek Jarman’s acclaimed version of "The Tempest". You actually appeared topless in that. Was that difficult for you to film that?

TOYAH: It was a bit nerve wracking, I was very drunk when I did it. Derek knew my sexual history from "Jubilee" and realised that I’m not happy in front of a lot of men. He said … I never had to do it, he never made me do it but I said no, I’ll do it as long as everyone in the room is gay. And my boyfriend was there, Gem, and I had bottle of vodka and I did it and really there’s nothing sexual about it at all. It was kind of OK. I was the one that made a big deal about it being incredibly shy and everything.

But the joy about that film was everyone on that film was gay so I didn’t feel intimidated or threatened at all. Very different story to when we did "The Ebony Tower" when I felt I needed to prove something. I was on screen with Greta Scacchi for instance, who is a true sex siren and I just thought I want to tackle my inhibitions and do this. My other boyfriend was there, Tom (below with Toyah), who turned into an absolute nightmare – he dragged me off the set but we managed to get the shots done before he lost his cool.

PHIL: Do you think he was upset about you taking your clothes off in front of other people? Even though most of the people were gay then?

TOYAH: No, on "Ebony Tower" –

PHIL: Oh - "The Ebony Tower"?

TOYAH: On "Ebony Tower" (below) with Lord Olivier, none of them were gay. There were men hiding in the bushes for that one! No, I think it was his insecurity. I think OK - I’m pretty outrageous and outrageously spoken but I’m a very private person and he just couldn’t handle that.

PHIL: You mentioned "Jubilee" - the other film that you starred in the late 70’s which was the punk epic, a Jarman film again. It caused outrage again when it showed on Channel 4 because it contains a lot of violent scenes and also kinky sexual overtones as well. One of the scenes is you castrating a policeman or trying to. Actually you did go ahead with it, not you personally but in the film. How was that?

TOYAH: That was brilliant!

PHIL: Did that shock you?

TOYAH: No, I loved it! I was with a very good actor, sadly I can’t remember his name but he was a stunning actor. He was up for anything and he allowed us to kind of kick and beat him for real which was quite extraordinary. He was in retrospect – he was quite heroic because he took that scene quite a few times and he had to put these intestinal guts in his clothes and stuff. He was really brilliant about it and he never once kind of said "hold back, stop that, I feel humiliated."

He was actually stunning. So that was for me the most fulfilling scene to have done in "Jubilee" because Derek just let us go for it. I had no problems with it at all. I think the reason it had such a uproar when it showed on Channel 4 in the late 80’s was we still had a Tory government and Margaret Thatcher brought it up in the Houses Of Parliament saying that films like that must never be made. It was around the time of section 28 and all of that. She was just closing down the gates –

PHIL: No freedom of expression? Like Mary Whitehouse -

TOYAH: No freedom of expression - censorship, everything. I think, you know, it’s a quite a tame movie by some standards.

PHIL: How did the news of Derek Jarman’s death from AIDS affect you? Has it changed your mind on the disease at all? Has it affected your life?

TOYAH: Well, it affected my life from 1984 when it was first brought into public that it was an isolated disease. Until that point they thought it was related to other illnesses like pneumonia and cancer. AIDS has probably been round since the 30’s but no-one could isolate what it was that was causing the deaths. When Derek got ill the thing that affected me most was he went underground. You couldn’t find him anymore, you couldn’t talk to him directly.

He surrounded himself with his closed gay friends. That kind of hurt. I wrote to him regularly even though I didn’t get replies back in the last two years of his life. I just wrote to him welcoming him to my life and obviously I was getting day by day accounts of what he was going through from his friends sitting at his bedside. I just think what was remarkable was how creative he was in those last few years. But I missed him and I miss him now terribly.

PHIL: Did you get on with him as a friend as well as working on films?

TOYAH: We were in love. He had an ability to love women. I think his relationship with Tilda Swinton proves that because they actually lived together. But I just loved him passionately. It was a platonic love. But he is someone I miss dearly. He was extraordinary. There is no-one I know like him.

SONG: “Prostitute”

PHIL: In the 80’s you appeared in "Trafford Tanzi" (below) the musical - fighting her husband so would you call yourself a feminist?

TOYAH: Yeah. Through and through.

PHIL: And why?

TOYAH: A feminist and a chauvinist – a female chauvinist. Because of all the psychological pain I’ve been put through. Feminism for me has given me a way of expressing myself. I’m quite proud and intense about it I suppose. It’s given me my strength. It’s given me the vocabulary I needed to remain sane. That’s why I’m passionate about. I think feminism is very different today – it’s softer but I am feminist, definitely.

PHIL: And you’ve been heard as well – you’ve made your point with those male chauvinists?

TOYAH: The main one was “Prostitute” which in America is seen as the forefront of the feminist musical movement – now. It was hugely inflamed. It did really well, it’s probably in everyone’s collection. It was seen as the beginning of the angry female. I did an interview in America the other day because they feel that without "Prostitute" lyricists like Alanis Morrissette might not have arrived. It was considered the beginning of women fighting back. Even though in retrospect it’s quite tame now. But for me even though it wasn’t a commercial success by any means it was one of the most important pieces of writing I’ve ever done.

PHIL: Do you think with artists like Alanis Morrissette - is it a dated thing now or are you inspired by that?

TOYAH: No, I just wish I learned to cover up my anger because "Prostitute" didn’t actually do me any good in Britain and in Europe. So I had to learn to cover up the anger. Even though I think “Ophelias’s Shadow” is the best album I’ve ever made I think if I’d continued in the vein of "Prostitute" it would’ve built and built and built.

But then I would have to have a career of being angry and for me anger is on the parallel of having cancer. I think you have transform that energy into something more positive. I am really only a lyricist even though I do music – I’m only a lyricist. My lyrics will always be strange and quirky but without realising it I hit the right note with "Prostitute". It’s resonated for many years.

PHIL: Quickly touching back to the late ’70 when you began your pop career – were there any sexual antics with groupies in the band or did you come into contact with the so called "sex, drugs and rock’n’roll" aspect of the career?

TOYAH: The band did – I didn’t. You have to remember I was going out with my bodyguard so things like that just – he was very possessive. If I have one regret I just wish I’d been single throughout that period. But no, I didn’t at all. I think the weirdest thing that happened to me I was in Finland and I came out of the theatre - there was a boy standing there in a loincloth in Finland in winter – it must’ve been below freezing, like –6. He had bare feet, everything and he said "I’m Jesus, I’ve come because you ought to have my baby" and my boyfriend at the time was nowhere near me and I just thought "get me out of this!"

He was really beautiful as well, I’m sure if I was single I would’ve gone off with him for the night. That was probably the weirdest thing! I think people were terrified of me and didn’t quite know how to deal with me. So there were very very few advances. There was one from a head of a record company in Stockholm - again he was gorgeous but I mean that was about it. In fact it’s only now that I’m getting propositions and my husband can’t understand it. We’re throwing away letters on a daily basis of men just chasing me. Men in the industry as well!

PHIL: Is that scary?

TOYAH: No, I love it! Because I’m 40 and if I worked harder I could be slimmer and look better but I just allow myself to be my natural self. For the first time in my life I’m actually being chased, that’s never happened before.

SONG: “Maybe This Time (From Cabaret)

PHIL: Back to the punk scene – you must’ve seen some really sordid things going on?

TOYAH: Not with my guys. With other bands. I remember Killing Joke that we often used to tour with. They used to keep away from me because I used to get in punch-ups. Me and Jaz – I’ve been held back from knifing him so many times because his chauvinism set me off. He threatened to hit me once in a hotel in Manchester and I went for him with a knife. I come from a violent background, a very violent background where men have kicked the shit out of me. Not in my family background but in street gangs in Birmingham.

So you can’t just say I’m aggressive, I protect myself. It’s not that I’m aggressive, I’m a natural … self-defence. Jaz and had the same management and they learned to put us in separate hotels after a while because Jaz knew he could press that button. But I got on with the rest of the band, Paul Raven played bass on the "Minx" album. But I can remember one night Geordie had been in the room next to me and he’d spent the night with a woman who had two rats in her hair! These rats were attached by a chain to a dog collar. I just thought rock’n’roll but that’s taking it … no I have no desire to do that (both laugh) I mean perversions are to do with – I’d rather be on top of a mountain naked having sex than in a hotel room with someone with rats in their hair!

PHIL: Of course you’re into animal rights as well?

TOYAH: Yeah. I’ve always been more a naturist when it comes to sex.

PHIL: You’re recognised as being a gay icon and you’ve hosted and performed at the Gay Pride Festival as well. Why do you think that many gay people have this fascination with you?

TOYAH: I don’t know. I really don’t know. I’m not gay but I’m not anti-gay, obviously. I have no idea. I like to think that I’ve worked so long to try to find the truth of who I am and to present that – perhaps gay people can recognise that. Perhaps because I’m not a six foot glamour model, I’m just a very basic person. But with an odd mind.

PHIL: Very colourful as well. Going back to your early pop career – you’ve always had different colour hair –

TOYAH: Yeah, that’s probably it as well, the dressing up –

PHIL: The dramatic?

TOYAH: Definitely, yeah.

PHIL: You went to advertise a women’s deodorant on TV (below) and rumour has it that you couldn’t stop laughing because every time you held it up it reminded you of a vibrator. Is that true?

TOYAH: I said this on the Jonathan Ross show and it lost me the contract. Jonathan Ross changed his policy after that never to bring up advertising with his guests. I actually said on the show that it’s strange advertising a deodorant that looks like phallic symbol. And that was it, I lost the contract! (laughs)

PHIL: So you didn’t think about that before you went to the advert –

TOYAH: No, no. We sold the advert on the fact that we had to get CF gasses out of products and it was one of the first products to successfully get CF gasses out of spray cans. So I’m quite proud for that and the two years I did the advert for that paid for the making of "Prostitute", the making of "Ophelia’s Shadow" and the making of "The Lady Or The Tiger". It made three albums.

PHIL: We’ve talked about it before but "Prostitute" - what was that all about? Did you any problems with the title - did you think about the implications?

TOYAH: No. I wanted it to be called "Pro". And then list the five numbers that come in the dictionary after Pro. So you’ve got Prostate, Prostitute, Pros … what’s it called when you lie in front of a cross? (shouts to someone outside the room) Damien?! What is it when you lie – prostate? Thank you!

And there’s a prostate gland. You can look up in the dictionary anyway. It was the five most important words in my life. When I designed the cover I had a diagram taken from a Victorian book of a medical examinations done on a human body. But what they did, they only did them on women because women were considered lower beings than men. It was disgusting. I wanted a gatefold album where you could fold out and open up the medical examination the way the Victorians saw it. It literally turned the woman into rat. You could open up – there was the “inferior liver”, “the inferior kidneys”, “the inferior lungs”, everything was listed as “inferior” to men. That record cover – the shops wouldn’t take it. They said no so we had to go with that rather obscure performance artist at the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts)

It was to be called "Pro", listing and ending in prostitute. But it became "Prostitute" because it was simpler. Basically it was about – as soon as I got married – this was the origins of it - my manager, my bank manager, my financial managers, my lawyers – wouldn’t call me to talk me to talk about my business. They’d call my husband. At that point I decided not to take a married name, sent letters to everyone saying you will sued if you talk to my husband before me about any of my affairs. I literally sacked everyone after that –

PHIL: Girl power!

TOYAH: Oh yeah, I was just furious! Furious! The marriage between me and Robert (above with Toyah) is a spiritual decision, not because I wanted to loose my identity to somebody. It took quite a few years to sort that out. But I think the 90’s consciousness has shifted so much, women are individuals in their own right now. Ironically after everything I’d fought for through the late 70’s and early 80’s came back in my face in the late 80’s.

SONG: “Ophelia’s Shadow”

PHIL: Just quickly let’s touch on the Good Sex Guide. Have you got anything juicy to spill on that? Any perverse sexual fantasies or sexual habits?

TOYAH: It was medical programme and also it was telly. The oddest one for me that I couldn’t get my head round was the pony people who wear shoes with hooves on and like to drag carts and have their hair in a pony tail. I just thought how can you get a kick from that? I mean I understand it more now than I did at the time. That whole thing of the security of childhood when you play games but we could never get into things like triple penetrations and all those. We talked about them off camera but we couldn’t do it on camera but it was a great show to make. Off camera we spent more time discussing things.

PHIL: It looked a real scream –

TOAYH: It was a real scream. The sexiest thing, we had woman on, I think she was called Trish who has a shop called Shhh! in the City. It’s for women only, men can come in only if they’re escorted by a woman. She was very beautiful and incredibly lady-like in that 50’s sense. I discovered on air that she is a lesbian who likes to have strap-on dicks and I think she was the sexiest thing I’d ever met! I thought that was the closest I’ll ever come to a lesbian experience. She was wonderful.

PHIL: So do you think you learned on a personal level from doing that show?

TOYAH: I learned so much! You’ve got to remember I haven’t had many partners, I’ve only had four partners in my life purely because I’ve come from a background of abuse. So everything I’ve experienced about sex has been in dialogue and in discussion. So it was quite good for me. I’m open to Robert about this – my only regret in life is that I haven’t had more partners because I’ve been very under developed on that side. The Sex Guide was very good for me because it meant I almost grew up to my husband’s sexual maturity. Because he’s got a very vast sexual background! (laughs) When I started doing the Sex Guide I became less jealous of him.

PHIL: Thanks very much for taking to us about all this and good luck with the "Live Bed Show". Thanks Toyah.

TOYAH: Thank you.

SONG: “IEYA”

2011-01-23T16:18:00.012Z

TOYAH ON
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE
AUGUST 2000

HOST: What a career you’ve had: you’ve worked with Katharine Hepburn, Adam Ant, Derek Jarman and Olivier … who else?

TOYAH: You!

HOST: Me! You’ve done all the greats!

TOYAH: I did a radio play with you –

HOST: Yeah, we’ve acted together on radio –

TOYAH: Yeah!

HOST: Darling, you were just a joy to work with! Let’s have a listen to this (plays “It’s A Mystery”)

TOYAH: Yeah, it’s meee!

HOST: From a very fine collection (Toyah laughs) My record collection, I dug it out this morning!

TOYAH: My youth! And it’s not scratched (looking at the record) (host plays “I Want To Be Free”) Oh, you’re really fielding them out!

HOST: I didn’t want to go to school, I didn’t want to be nobody’s fool (Toyah laughs) I identified with that (plays Thunder In The Mountains)

TOYAH: (getting annoyed) Oh, please can you just stop this!

HOST: Oh, great stuff! Great memories. All classics! (Toyah laughs) They are aren’t they?

TOYAH: They are to my generation.

HOST: And my generation too, late 30’s. How old are you?

TOYAH: I’m 42.

HOST: I’m 39 you see. I was having unseemly fantasies about you (Toyah laughs) when you were on Top Of The Pops. And I still am! (Toyah laughs)

TOYAH: I have unseemly fantasies about you when I do radio shows!

HOST: Really? You carry on! (Toyah laughs) We’re off for lunch at The Ivy! Where is it again?

TOYAH: I’m not telling you!

HOST: This book that’s coming out, there is so much to write about. A very diverse career. Derek Jarman’s "The Tempest", "Quadrophenia", "Trafford Tanzi" (below) and it all started very badly as a child. You were very unhappy weren’t you? You didn’t want to go to school?

TOYAH: (quotes the lyrics to "I Want To be Free") I didn’t want to be nobody’s fool! You know I dyed my hair, I still had a brain up there. I wanted to be free.

HOST: Hmm. So what was it like? (puts on a mock psychiatrist voice) Tell me about your childhood!

TOYAH: I’ll tell you about my childhood. I just loathe anything to do with convention. I suppose I was just brought up in Birmingham - I wasn’t intellectual, I wasn’t academic so everyone thought I’d get married and have babies. There’s nothing wrong with getting married and having babies, I just didn’t want to do it so I just wasn’t very happy in the situation I was born into I suppose.

HOST: A true rebel?

TOYAH: Well, yeah –

HOST: You were bullied weren’t you?

TOYAH: Well, I was bullied until I smashed the chair over the head of the main bully and then the role reversal happened really quickly.

HOST: Tell us what happened?

TOYAH: Well, I was psychologically bullied because you know I have a lisp and also had a very bad limp then because I was born with a spine defect. And I used have the mickey taken out of me relentlessly and I used to lie awake at night, virtually years on end worried by this. So I was quite psychologically disturbed by it and then one day the last straw on the camel’s back happened.

I was being ignored as I walked into school and I got into class and I picked up chair and threw it at the main bully. She burst into tears and said how can I do something like that to her, completely unaware how she destroyed most of my childhood. Then onwards I was perceived as the hard nut of the school. I kind of played that role to the full until I left.

HOST: It was a real turning point?

TOYAH: A huge turning point. I don’t recommend everyone does it but it really is amazing if you stand up to a bully they really are the cowards.

HOST: This unconventional marriage you have – there was something in the paper about it today?

TOYAH: I know!

HOST: Is this fair … it will be the – (finds the paper) Oh it’s The Express!

TOYAH: The Express!

HOST: That rag from the gutter! Well, once upon a time. Now dragged to the Elysian fields of intellectual journalism –

TOYAH: They printed this story as if there is a problem and there isn’t a problem.

HOST: Sorry - can I read it, just quickly, so you can say it in context.

TOYAH: OK.

HOST: “Toyah Willcox has issued" – in fact you read it! (to another person in the studio) You have total responsibility for this!

TOYAH: Yeah, you read it!

HOST N:O 2: “Toyah Willcox issued an extraordinary ultimatum to rock star husband Robert Fripp. The former punk princess turned actress” – that’s very good isn’t it – “has told him to leave if he doesn’t spend more time at home. Toyah, 42, who says she’s only seen her spouse for one week this year" -

TOYAH: That’s true.

HOST 2: - “Has been conducting a bizarre long distance relationship with her husband of 14 years.” That sounds true if this is what you’ve said?

TOYAH: That’s true.

HOST 2: "King Crimson guitarist Fripp, 53, is frequently" –

TOYAH: That’s not true! He’s 54 ... (they all laugh)

HOST 2: Well, this is erring on the side of caution. “Is frequently away for months on end on tour across the Atlantic in Seattle where he also runs an internet company.”

TOYAH: True.

HOST 2: “The marriage is conducted mainly through telephone calls.”

TOYAH: Very true.

HOST 2: “Toyah, currently starring in the children’s TV series “My Barmy Aunt Boomerang”-

HOST 1: Smash a chair over his head now! (all laugh) This is a typical bully isn’t it, once they have it confronted then they’re quiet, the tough guy, aren’t they?

TOYAH: I know …

HOST 2: I must point out I had nothing to do with this article –

TOYAH: Look - shall I read it because I can read it – Majority of this is true but it’s context which is – it’s written in the wrong context. I was doing an interview and I said to them I’ve seen my husband for one week this year and I’ve demanded that he stays home for July. Which is true because I’m missing the guy! And it’s been printed as if I’m having a terrible time – I’m not! I’m having the time of my life, how many wifes out there would like not to see their husbands for six months! (laughs) I have a great social life, I have fantastic friends –

HOST: Well, it keeps the freshness in your relationship –

TOYAH: Well, it does! Yeah! When we got married we had a rule that we would see each other, wherever we were, once every three weeks. That rule has been broken so I did give an ultimatum, I said "you are home for July" and hopefully home for August. He’s broken that already because he flies to Seattle on Monday. We are going have fun together and we have. And ironically we were in Paris -

HOST: (to the other host) Your editor is going to apologise –

TOYAH: But it’s not a story if “Toyah’s really happy – her husband is away”

HOST: Is it an open marriage?

TOYAH: No. Of course not. (laughs)

HOST: As bad as you are! OK. Listen Toyah. You’ve seen it all, you’ve done it all, career to career to career, you still here – you’ve been up there, you’ve been down there, you’re back again – you must be pretty reflective and philosophical about it all?

TOYAH: Is that a question?! (laughs)

HOST: It’s a speech!

TOYAH: Yeah!

HOST: No - you must look at it wryly, the whole showbiz thing and done so many things?

TOYAH: I hit 40 and I thought nothing can hurt me now. I bounce like rubber ball, I’ll be back!

HOST: Yeah, yeah ... (Toyah laughs) There’s loads of TV stuff you’re doing at the moment?

TOYAH: I’ve got tons of stuff going on. I still do “Holiday” and -

HOST: You’ve done “Songs Of Praise”!

TOYAH: Of course I’ve done “Songs Of Praise”!

HOST: Are you a religious bent?

TOYAH: No, I’m very spiritual. I’m not religious. I’m a heathen.

HOST: Are you?

TOYAH: I think that makes -

HOST: And you do “Songs Of Praise”?!

TOYAH: It makes it more interesting! You don’t want a saint doing “Songs Of Praise” do you?!

HOST: (all talk on top of each other) – what … is some people’s answer “yes, I’ll do it!” I’d rather you were spiritual than have certain beliefs! Thank you very much Toyah and good luck with your book which comes out next week and it’s going to be called … ?

TOYAH: “Living Out Loud”

HOST: Now that’s a good title!

2011-01-21T16:54:00.009Z

TOYAH ON
PAUL AND LUCY’S
BEST KEPT SECRETS
OCTOBER 2010

PAUL: 80’s legend Toyah Willcox is playing two special dates in the North West at the end of October. On Saturday 23rd she is playing at The Beat nightclub in Blackpool and then on 24th of October she is playing at Jack Rabbit Slim’s, in Hoylake. So we had a chat with her to find all about it. The thing I asked her, knowing that she’d been to Blackpool before was what did she think of Blackpool?

TOYAH: (on the phone) Well, I do tend to come in and do the show and leave again, but that’s purely because I just don’t get any time off. Blackpool’s an interesting one because all of my friend’s actually love it, they always go there for long weekends. Blackpool is somewhere where I get to hear good things about but I’ve never actually managed to savour it for myself, other than I’m always sending people out to Harry Ramsden’s to get me food just before a show!

And that’s about my knowledge of Blackpool. I did a fantastic Gay Pride there two years ago. On my birthday I think it was, or it might’ve been my husband’s birthday, it might’ve been the 16th of May. Just such great fun. Really good fun day so obviously I know about Blackpool but I’ve never actually managed to have some quality time there.

I did a matinee of Calamity Jane in Blackpool which is probably memorable for all the wrong reasons. Calamity Jane is kind of family musical, bit of a thigh slapping musical of really well known songs. It’s about a love hate relationship between a man and a woman. When we had someone in the front row with Tourettes on this matinee. It’s a Thursday matinee, I think in May, 2003. This person kept shouting certain obscenity which was to with procreating (laughs) and we couldn’t get through the show, we were just in hysterics and it went down well, the audience loved it! (laughs)

It was hard for us because we had to do love scenes (above), we had to do kissing. Whenever me and my romantic interest ever got close this term started to be shouted very loudly from the front row! It’s definitely going in my next autobiography because we were trying to snog each other while absolutely dying of laughter! The show kind of took on this immense exercise of trying to act and not laugh because this person had this affliction. So I kind of remember Blackpool for that! (laughs)

PAUL: So people coming along (to the gigs), what can they expect?

TOYAH: Well, we do a retrospective of 32 years of Toyah music. So we do a lot of the old stuff. The old stuff is just so popular, the album tracks of the punky albums that we do just go down an absolute riot! But I’ve been lucky enough in the last two years to have charted again. I went to number six in the iTunes rock chart with my last solo album so we feature a lot of that as well. Basically it’s a very up-tempo evening, very feel good. I’m not into taking myself that seriously and it’s a good rock evening.

PAUL: So suitable for everybody would you say? Something for everyone?

TOYAH: Absolutely suitable. There’s something for everybody. I mean because I do big "Here And Now" shows, which are the 80’s shows, and all age groups go there, predominantly people under 25, I have a really nice age mix in my audiences. I can have 16-year-olds upwards, so it’s really good fun.

PAUL: What was it that got you into music? Was it punk or were you into music already?

TOYAH: I was into music as a good old vinyl buyer as a teenager. The very first gig I went to, I was 12, and it was Black Sabbath. I had to get in through the fire exit. What was lovely about those days and I’m talking about 1970 upwards is that if you couldn’t afford to buy a ticket, people always opened the fire exits for you.

Then when I formed my punk band in ‘77 onwards we did the same. We were always opening the fire exit because people could not afford to buy a ticket. Then you move into the big venues and it’s impossible! (laughs) Everyone is monitoring who is coming in. So punk got me into philosophy about music, definitely and as a performer I started as a punk performer. And then I kind of moved into new romantics and new wave.

PAUL: So do you think - would you have been a singer anyway if it hadn’t been for punk? Or would you have stayed with drama and stage?

TOYAH: I definitely would’ve been a singer, it’s something I always wanted to do. I think it’s a young person’s career and had I never become a singer it would’ve been the one thing that would’ve been on the back of my mind - “should I have done it?” I’ve no regrets at all and the lovely thing about punk is that it allowed you to become what you wanted to be. It wasn’t snobby or closed culture. It allowed people who had an idea to go out there and showcase their idea. It was very all encompassing.

PAUL: You’re in the film "Jubilee" (below, top), of course, slightly unusual film. What are your thoughts on that?

TOYAH: Well, it was unusual. It was made for £360 000 by the film maker Derek Jarman who’s iconic. He changed the face of British film and then he went on to make "Caravaggio" and a lot of other movies which escape me at the moment. But I did "The Tempest" (above, bottom) with him as well which was a far more formed Shakespearian film. But "Jubilee" was just completely out there, completely mad. It was the first punk rock film of its day.

PAUL: And then you moved on and you had a fairly noticeable part in "Quoadrophenia" (above, middle). Which was another youth culture film. What can you tell us about that one?

TOYAH: Well, "Quadrophenia" is an interesting one because it came out the critics absolutely slated it. And yet it’s probably one of the most persevering and endearing and it’s just proven itself world wide because it’s a film that every generation rediscovers. I mean there’s massive "Quadrophenia" events and festivals all over the world every year. Young people really love that film. It was great fun to make.

It was me, Lesley Ash, Sting, Phil Daniels, Mark Wingett. We all went on to do other things so it’s a very interesting film to be involved in because it’s just endured. It’s never gone away. And I love it because it has just proven the critics wrong.

PAUL: You did the voice for the "Teletubbies" as well. How did that come about?

TOYAH: I did all the voices for "Brum" which was the same creator. Six series of "Brum" where I was all the characters. And Anne Wood who created "Teletubbies" just asked me if I would go in and do just the opening and closing line. I never had any idea it would be that big. And neither did Anne. Within three months of me doing that it was probably the biggest revolution in children’s TV to ever have been in whole history of TV.

It was massive around the world. The only time I ever had to have bodyguards outside of England was because of Teletubbies. People were completely bowled over by it. Adults and children alike. They wanted to touch you and it was extraordinary. It was fascinating.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can listen to the interviews HERE, HERE and HERE