TOYAH ON
LIVE TALK, ITV
WITH KAYE ADAMS
AND COLEEN NOLAN
AUGUST 2000

KAYE: Well, talking about wild things nobody was wilder in the 80's than our next guest – here she is: a warm welcome, please, to Toyah Willcox. Now, admit it, Toyah ... we were having a little chat there and she said “I don't have anything that I could repeat”

TOYAH: It's all totally X-certificate and not to do with me. It's to do with roadies

COLEEN: Oh, they're the worst

TOYAH: Roadies and their antics

KAYE: No, we're not going to go there

TOYAH: Don't go there

KAYE: No. The 80's was kind of seen as a wild time, wasn't it? And I mean your career has spanned 20 odd years, but at that time - early 80's - you were big, big, big in the pop business. You were very, very noticeable with your dramatic hairstyles, etc. Were these your kind of golden years? Do you look back on that?

TOYAH: Nope


KAYE: No?

TOYAH: I mean it was great. It was everything I wanted. I don't know if it was the same for you, but the 80's was just blind ambition and the ambition kind of ruined everything. If you just kind of went with it and had a really good time - then it would have been (the) golden years  

But nothing was good enough - even getting to number four (in the charts). The next time you had to get to number one or then the album had to be better than the last album

COLEEN: And (it's) different today. When you did get to number four or number one, you stayed there for good amount of weeks

TOYAH: And you got there because you sold well over 200,000 units. Whereas today - well recently, only about four years ago, a very famous woman got to number one, midsummer, selling 2000 units. Now, my last number four was selling 75,000 units a day. So it's a very different world now, but it was fun. It was everything I wanted

COLEEN: Was your image and all of that - was that what you wanted or did someone come along and say “look, this is the route you should go”

TOYAH: No. The problem was I started my image when I was about 14. I was a hair model at a place called Rackhams (department store) in Birmingham and I used to have my hair dyed. I had to go home wearing the scarf and mum would pull the scarf off and go “ahhhh” because my hair would be bright blue or something

So I was cultivating the image from a really early age. I felt like I was a different person, therefore I should look different. Why try and act normal? But when I became really famous with the huge hair, the huge makeup and everything, (so) the image became more important than the music. I spent more time doing photo sessions than actually writing. I think that is just a strange irony about the business

COLEEN: And you wrote all your own stuff?

TOYAH: I co-wrote. I co-wrote with my guitarist, Joel Bogen, and a keyboard player called Adrian Lee

COLEEN: And was it always like an expression of what you were going through?

TOYAH: Oh, totally - and a responsibility


KAYE: Were you always comfortable being different? I mean you say “I was different”. What made you different? I know that you were born with difficulty -

TOYAH: I think being born with a physical disability that was very, very minor, but it meant I limped and it meant I didn't talk very well. I didn't talk properly as such, until I was about six or seven after I had intensive physiotherapy and speech lessons. I was born with twisted spine, one leg longer than the other, no pelvic joints

KAYE: (That) wasn't that minor!

TOYAH: Well, it is because you can't see it. (I had) an amazing speech impediment that meant that I sprayed everyone within 24 feet of me with saliva. Now that wasn't really a problem. I could lead a normal life, but kids at school are very aware of things like that -

COLEEN: They're very cruel at school, aren't they?

TOYAH: As soon as I started in school it was like “oh, look at hopalong” (makes a mocking sound) They were cruel. That made me feel different. But the best thing about feeling different was the birth name my mother gave me, which is Toyah Pepita Budela

KAYE: (Intrigued) Where did she get than from?

TOYAH: She said she read it in a book. But I got a letter in 1981 from the Sheriff of Toyah in Arizona saying “do you know that Toyah is a Red Indian tribe and it's a lake meaning “giver of life” and it's overshadowed by Willcox mountain

KAYE: Oh, really?!

TOYAH: I said to my mum “did you look on the map?” and she said “no way”. But that name's been a real gift

KAYE: Why?

TOYAH: It's been like a talisman because no one's ever heard it before. I was obviously quirky physically, and certainly quirky in humor, and the name just seemed to join and complete the circles


COLEEN: But how did you overcome all of that to become what you became? I mean, a lot of kids going through that would have been timid, and didn't want to stand out

TOYAH: I was like that. I was like that till I was about 14 and then I got fed up of being bullied. I walked into school one day, and there was a particularly bright girl who took the mickey morning to night out of me and I whacked her over the head with a chair -

COLEEN: Oh, good for you! (they all laugh, the audience laughs)

KAYE: That's Coleen's kind of thing! She loves that!

TOYAH: But then it went from bad to worse, because then I became the bully -

COLEEN: Alright

TOYAH: I was perceived as the bully therefore I actually got off on being perceived as the bully and I became the bully. And it was quite different. I ended school with people just begging me to leave. “Please don't stay on and do your A-levels. Just go!”

KAYE: Is all this in your autobiography “Living Out Loud” (above)(shows the book)?

TOYAH: I wrote that – firstly it's flattering to be asked but I didn't have any role models as kid because women didn't dare misbehave. I've written that as a passage through life for anyone who's told 1. You're not bright. 1. You're not beautiful. 1. You can't do what your dreams want you to do. You can. If there's a will and there's discipline and determination, you can do it. And that's what the book's about

KAYE: Is it therapeutic? Writing an autobiography?

TOYAH: (It's) Cathartic

COLEEN: I don't know what that means (Toyah laughs)

KAYE: You get it all out, love. You get it all out

COLEEN: Thanks for that!

TOYAH: The timing of it is perfect because it's now firmly in the past in the old millennium. I like that timing. And if you ask me if 1981 were the golden years - no. Now are because I've never been happier and more kind of self-confident. I can really take life on and the odd wrinkle isn't going to stop me either


KAYE: So what's next? Because one thing, and we're not going to have time to talk about it unfortunately ... you have constantly reinvented yourself, which fascinates me. You've never been kind of stuck, or (thought) "this was my golden time, and I'm gonna hang on until death". You've always changed. What's coming up?

TOYAH: Well, I'm fairly lucky because I've got back into acting. So I've got a minuscule role in a new film that opens next month called “The Most Fertile Man In Ireland”, which is just stunning. A great comedy. I'm shooting "Aunt Boomerang" (above). I don't know if your children are young enough to watch "Aunt Boomerang", which is on BBC One

COLEEN: Yes. Love seeing you in that

TOYAH: So I do that and numerous other acting projects so I'm lucky

KAYE: Well, we look forward to hearing them. I hope you're going to stay for our phone call. But in the meantime, a warm round of applause for Toyah Willcox

Watch the interview on Youtube HERE