#toyah2020

[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH TALKS SHEP FARMING IN BARNET WITH PHIL MARRIOTT 13.11.2020

PHIL: I'm so thrilled to be with Toyah Willcox on zoom! How are you? TOYAH: Woooo! I'm OK. It's really good to see you. I haven't seen many people in the last seven months so it's so good to see you! PHIL: I was just going to say – likewise. The last time I saw you was at Wise Buddha, a studio just off Oxford Street in Central London and we could see each other face to face TOYAH: That was about 18 months ago PHIL: I know! How have you been? TOYAH: I'm really good. Well, I'm really confused because I live in a market town, on a square, one High Street and I'm bang in the middle of all of this. I have a chemist next door, we did have a bank next door but we bought it and that's now our offices. So I'm looking outside my window and there is all normality. There's no sign of any kind of lockdown and I'm wondering if I'm being lied to because I've got people on park benches, drinking coffee, talking to everyone, eating and I'm thinking “I thought this was a lockdown!” I'm so confused! PHIL: It's crazy, isn't it? I went past a bar yesterday and they were walking in and out and my partner said "hang on a minute! It's meant to be lockdown!" I think it was take-away, it just felt like normality, it just felt normal. It's weird TOYAH: This feels normal. None of that terror of last April. Everyone's just having a lovely time out there and I'm thinking someone's played a joke on me because I've been indoors for so long PHIL: We do need it though, don't we … By the way I've been loving your lockdown shows every Saturday. It's been a real ritual. I've been pottering around and then I've been switching onto your Toyah At Home show on Saturday morning TOYAH: Oh, thank you PHIL: It's been fantastic, really enjoyed those. And they've been really honest as well because you've been talking about your life and feeling nostalgic and talking about what's happening at the moment and we don't normally get to see that – you walking around your house, showing things in your house, your books. It's been brilliant 

TOYAH: I'm going to keep it up because normally on my working year I'm running an office. I run the band, I run the record side of things, I run the gigs – booking them and I never get time for any of that so it's been fantastic for me and for my husband Robert. We've been kind of been able to address what fans need

That might sound silly because fans just need to see you live and (to) do your music – well, lockdown has proven much more than that. I'm going to try and keep it going and try and prioritise the connection we've made with the fans and stop prioritising the ridiculous amount of bureaucracy we both have to deal with. So it's been great on that level it's been a fantastic year! PHIL: It's been really good for the fans as well like you say because they really appreciate it because they're feeling a bit lonely and isolated and it's good to have that company as well, isn't it? TOYAH: It's been shocking. We do a lot of celebrity messaging. We were a bit doubtful about it at first. We thought "oh gosh is this a step too far?" It's been a absolute joy and occasionally you get the odd message from someone saying "I'm so desperate, I'm so alone, can you just say something to help shake this blackness off me" We've really really loved every minute of doing these messages and also realising that our broadcasts have a deeper meaning than just us going "look at us". It's all become so much deeper and that is beautiful. It's affected my writing. The new album Posh Pop is really deep, it's really passionate and it really rocks and that could only have happened because of this exceptional year   PHIL: We have to talk about Sheep Farming In Barnet. I can't believe it's 40 years TOYAH: Look what I've got! (Waves the box set about) PHIL: I know! I can't wait to see that TOYAH: This is an exclusive! PHIL: Amazing! TOYAH: It only arrived two days ago 

PHIL: It's new images as well isn't it, like you've shown there, new photographs that we've not seen before. This is an album that was released in 1979 as an AP – an Alternative Play (above) and then it was released as an album in 1980 so you're obviously celebrating the 40th anniversary. What are you memories of this though because obviously a lot of stuff gets forgotten about. You've got a very good memory I have to say, watching your Toyah At Home videos. You seem to remember a lot of detail. Do you remember detail of that period? TOYAH: It's shockingly bad. My wonderful archive manager and he designed this, Craig Ashley, designed with Alan Sawyers – he writes a essay about each project. We're already onto Blue Meaning and then we're onto Anthem so we're 12 months ahead. We put this (Sheep) to bed three months ago. My memories were jogged by an essay that Craig had to send me. He knows more about my life than I do. He prompted my memory with this astonishing essay that's in here (shows the boxset) I thought "I did that?! I did that ?! Oh my God!" This is a long time ago this album but what I will say about it – I've always remembered that I think it's the one of the most relevant, one of the most original, ingenious albums of that period and it's never had that credit. Cherry Red (the record company) have really taken this on board and they are giving it the 100%. It's a beautiful album. There's a beautiful innocence but there's also so many pathways we opened for other people with this album. It's a fun album. It's a real danceable album. It's about youthful energy. It's beautiful and it's a side of punk that isn't that well known. It's great. I adore this album 

PHIL: So this album was recorded – correct me if I'm wrong – Chappel Studios, New Bond Street wasn't it, in Central London - TOYAH: Yes! PHIL: Which is now the Mulberry store. There's something about quite poignant about that – it should always be that studio I guess but what are your memories of recording there? Do you have many memories of you actually recording it? TOYAH: Next door was Chanel and Hermes and I just pooh pooed them “Who wants to spend that on a handbag?” I don't want to spend half a million quid on a silk scarf. If only I knew, hindsight is a beautiful thing. The studio was upstairs, very very traditional. Almost old fashioned because the studio was a song writer's studio. There was quite a few studios in the corridor I was in. We were one of the first punk acts to go in. I found the whole recording process in this particular instance very difficult because we now know I sing without headphones on. I cannot do that (puts hands over ears) It just affects me emotionally. So this took about four albums to discover that. Steve James, our producer, realised that he was going to get the best performance out of me if he just put speakers in the room and I performed as live. That was a learning curve - it was a big learning curve. So the first songs we recorded - for me – were emotionally quite tough  because I was just trying to learn how to work within this dead space. Recording studios – if you haven't been in one – have no sound reflection.

So we've got sound reflection here, I'm surrounded by mirrors, I can hear myself speak but in a studio it's a dead sound. It's really difficult to form notes in that kind of sound so … You asked me what was the experience like? It was a major learning curve of dealing with working within dead sound. Now, if I'm acting and I'm in a studio there's nothing more beautiful than dead sound because it makes you forget about the camera. So it was very very enlightening, it was energetic, we were an energetic team I think it was challenging for the whole band because Keith Hale was brought in as an arranger and that was frustrating for Pete Bush who is the main keyboard player on this album and he felt very threatened by that. But all this rather glorious usurp thing and power play is the result of this album. That and the fact that we honed every song in front of a live audience, which is such a privileged thing to so. We would do these incredible long encores that were as along as the actual show because the audience would never let us go We would run out of songs so we'd start to play them stuff we were formulating in soundcheck and this is how we came up with these glorious arrangements because we knew what affected the audience before we went into the recording studio. That is something that all young writers should have the privilege to do today because to watch an audience affected by a bridge or a chorus – you just know what you need to do as a songwriter. So much of today happens away from a live audience and this is all about live audience work. It was magnificent PHIL: The album title itself – it still raises eyebrows today, doesn't it? Sheep Farming In Barnet. It's one of those really distinctive album titles that really stand out -

TOYAH: I know! Well, I lived in Barnet and bang in the middle of this urban kind of chaos with the A406 was a field with sheep in it and I just thought   "sheep farming in Barnet?" So I wanted to call the album something that didn't relate to an emotion and didn't relate to another song. I wanted something completely out there. This is me (show the album cover) having broken in to Fylingdales - the early warning system - where they had sheep grazing and when we broke in we found an awful lot of dead sheep and we were arrested ten minutes after that was taken Bill Smith the art director was with me as was Gem, my boyfriend at the time and we had to hide the film down my pants. We knew we would not be body searched. We were literally just marched off the premises so we got the film out. So that whole "sheep farming in Barnet" was just a big question mark of what is our reality? PHIL: Is that something you do today? Stuff the - TOYAH: Guerilla filming? PHIL: Just stuff the evidence? TOYAH: Everything? Yeah, everything goes down my pants. As I get older it it's one of my things I do with my personal dementia – everything goes down my pants (Phil laughs) PHIL: I remember NME did a review – I think it was a three star review, it should've been more obviously but for the NME that was pretty good. At the time they called you a "post punk Grace Slick" -   TOYAH: I have no problems with being the punk Grace Slick. My goodness that woman was a great voice PHIL: It's a nice comparison. Now, the album was split into two parts – much like Kate Bush's Hounds Of Love which had the Ninth wave as the 2nd part  - TOYAH: Yeah! This was 1979! (waves the box set about)  

PHIL: I was going to say – you did that before her. Both brilliant albums obviously but this had Heaven and it had Hell and there is a lot of darkness in this album because there's a lot of vivid imagery when you listen to those lyrics. I suppose it's the horror and sci-fi fan in you, is it?   TOYAH: It's very dark poetry. I mean Neon Womb is quite innocent. I was making a movie with Katherine Hepburn called The Corn Is Green. I had to get on the tube train. The first tube train of the morning in Battersea which was six in the morning and I had to walk over to Victoria to get the train. And I just remember being alone in this tube that was neon lit and I thought "this is like a neon womb."

So that's where that name came from. Indecision I wrote in my home in Birmingham, the lyrics came there and I was doing lots of TV promotion for the film Jubilee and I just couldn't make up my mind what to wear so Indecision came out of that. And then Waiting is very dark Waiting is about if we looked at the planet and it only had burn layers and every burn layer was a war and you'd cut through them you'd see a very different planet. We wouldn't see a green planet. So Waiting is about layer upon layer upon layer of wars that we've had in the past … Let's say – let's be brave about this – 50 000 years? It's an endless theme on this planet. So that's what that one is about. Danced is about a second coming because I was brought up in extreme religious education by parents who weren't religious So because I was a rebel and because I was really out there as a child and I've always been a bit like this - they thought to cleanse my soul I should go into extreme religious education which I had from the age of about 10 ten right through to 14. So that has affected the poetry of my life a lot and that's what Danced is about.

Danced is saying the 2nd coming is coming – this is fantasy – but it ain't going to be a human being! It's someone coming from up there so that's what Danced is about. I'm always questioning the metaphor of what I've been taught and there's so many metaphor's in this (shows the box set). But I think that's what the fans like is that I use the imagery of metaphors to question things  

PHIL: And there are so many anthems on this as well, particularly for fans that have been with you from day one. You know, Danced. You mentioned Neon Womb as well. These are real live favourites. There's a couple of of tracks I've never seen you perform live, Computer being one of those. Is that something that you would think about playing? TOYAH: Yeah! In lockdown we had to do the DVD filming (for the disc in the box set). Nigel Clark of Dodgy, my neighbour, came round and we performed Computer. He performed it beautifully, he even did backing vocals and that's on the DVD version of this (shows the box set). It's gorgeous so we could put that in live now but there's so much material, my whole back catalogue, I have to capture in shows today, an hour and half shows I have to capture about 28 albums. And remember 14 of those songs are hit singles. So we chop and change and we try and fit everything in. Computer might come into the show but then we'll get people complaining we can't fit in Neon Womb, Danced and everything else PHIL: Too many songs to play TOYAH: There's just too many songs to play. You got Our Movie as well. I get a big call for Victims Of The Riddle but that is impossible to sing live. It's in an octave higher register than I normally sing in today and also it's one of those songs once you've done the first two lines everyone goes to the bar or starts talking. So we've decided if the fans demand a song and they don't listen to it – we don't do it!   

PHIL: I want to talk about the digipak that you have in your hands of this album because it's a real treat isn't it, for fans because there's a lot of versions they've never heard before. We mentioned Computer just then. That sounds quite different in its demo form. Are you quite happy to release these demos because obviously these have never been released before. It's so great to hear these now after so long TOYAH: This is the first album released where Joel Bogen (the original Toyah band guitarist and composer) and myself have actually been corresponded with about having permission of them going on the album. So one of my top selling albums in the world now is an album called Mayhem which is demos that Joel and I never wanted to be heard and ironically that is the world top selling Toyah album

So this time around now Cherry Red own the whole back catalogue they have agreed that will never happen again so we're even re-vamping Mayhem for its re-release. So there are 30 additional tracks, most of them unheard   going onto this. It's a double LP and a live DVD and there's even DVD footage that's never been seen before     PHIL:  It's a real Christmas present, isn't it? TOYAH: It's perfect! PHIL: Yeah! TOYAH: When we do demos they're pre-producer arrangements so obviously when you get into the studio and having heard the demo and hopefully played the song live in front of an audience you can then re-work it. So doing a demo is like trying out a recipe for a cake and if you feel that you can improve – then you improve and most of the time that's what people do do PHIL: So Victims Of The Riddle is your debut single which is featured on this album. There was another version on the single B-side which was called Vivisection. To me that seems like a kind of outspoken view of your hate for animal experiments. Was that the case? Was it that obvious? TOYAH: Yeah PHIL: It was?

Above: Toyah with her rabbit WillyFred in 2016

TOYAH: Yeah. I like to think it's not so awful today and I think a lot of people, a lot of human beings stepped forwards and said "you can test that on us." So stop breeding animals to test on. So I put my hand up here – I'm against vivisection but I've had hip replacement, I've had life saving surgery for cancer. Animals have paid so that I can live. So it's not as if I've even avoided every aspect of the results of vivisection.

Where my argument is and if the make-up industry - which has something like a £6 billion fund for testing - keeps testing on animals they're never going to change the world and protect and do good husbandry to animals. Now at the time we were making this … '79 … this was … I mean it was rampant. Animals were just being treated so badly I was a very experimental singer in the beginning, I use my voiced as an instrument thus the stylisation on Vivisection. And I wanted to use this as a wake up call to those who didn't know about the cruelty to animals but also the amount of people who were willing to be human test people.

And it was just – if you don't bring that into your audience's intelligence then no-one could do anything about it and I think the greatest revolution we have had in the 40 years is we've stopped buying things unless they adhere to an ethic we believe in.

So good husbandry, non-cruelty to animals, respect for animals, understanding that animals do have souls, they do have an emotional life, they feel pain as much as they feel joy and this was what that was about   PHIL: I'm glad you answered that question that way because I certainly saw it as very influential at the time – like you say it was a different time back then, in the 70's and the late 70's. There was a lot more of that nastiness going on and as a result more people have become vegetarian and vegan as well over the years, particularly the last five years people have become vegan which is great. So it's a good shift, isn't it? 

TOYAH: It's very good. I think in a year's time when we have a vaccine for Covid and there has been human guinea pigs involved here ... I think one of the biggest outcomes of Covid and Covid history we probably, worldwide, will become vegetarian. What I mean by that is the easiness within Covid is mutating within the animal circuit and if we keep consuming animal flesh we are probably going to help Covid mutate even more. I'd like to think that one of the kind of strange blessings of this exceptional year is that the majority of the planet will become vegetarian   PHIL: Siouxsie and The Banshees did the Kaleidoscope album a few years ago which I saw at South Bank, I know you're a fan as well, of Siouxsie - TOYAH: Yes! PHIL: Is that something that you (want to) do with Sheep Farming? Do it as a whole? TOYAH: (I'll) do it with any album but people want Siouxsie. I've had to  - this is my career “Let me in! Let me in! (bangs the air with her fist) “Give me a fucking job!” Siouxsie, you know, gets invited because people absolutely adore her. I'm not on Siouxsie's level but I think what will change for me because in the last 40 years my catalogue has been with a record label that has actively allowed it to die and now Cherry Red- as soon as they announce these releases – I mean this went number one in the pre-order charts across the board and Cherry Red have released the demand is huge But if you don't have the record company behind you and the PR behind you and the team behind you … I don't get invited to play whole albums at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. So I now think this is going to change quite radically and hopefully my work will get the respect it deserves. But it has to be out there for that to happen and in the last 40 years it's just been buried  

PHIL: Last Goodbye, another track on this album, last time we spoke we talked about your love of horror   TOYAH: Yeah  PHIL: And you told me watch The House That Jack Built, which I saw after your recommendation and yeah – it disturbed me very much (laughs) TOYAH: That's an astonishing film. There's another one I'll recommend to you and it's very gentle. It's a love story but it also it also tiptoes into the surreal and horror and it's called Border. I just adore this film    - PHIL: I've seen it, it's amazing. It really gets under your skin, doesn't it? TOYAH: It's gorgeous. That is like reading a really good book. It translates beautifully PHIL: Absolutely, a very atmospheric film. But Last Goodbye on Sheep Farming – it's quite an evocative lyric. Again quite a dark lyric. There is lightness as well, obviously, on Sheep Farming but I'm just going to read the lyric here : “He points the knife between her eyes. Its light reflects on the one he despises. Here's one for the pain, here's one for the lies. When flood flows out I watch her say goodbye”  That is quite - TOYAH: It's a revenge song but I mean this is about the vulnerability of men and men are vulnerable and this is the ultimate revenge. He can take on someone who is more powerful than him and it's a woman. So I always like to kind of invert what people see as normal. I think woman are just as easily aggressive as men are and devious and plotting so it's revenge on someone who has psychologically destroyed someone else.

And I think historically – I need to place it in context – 40 years ago and even 50 years ago you never heard about women's prisons, you never heard about female criminals. It was always men. There were only three that we heard about when I was young that were serial killers. I'm not going to name them, let's not give them the publicity but what you didn't hear was about was petty female criminals, female prisons and female aggression. It was never reported 50-40 years ago as it is today. You know you've got Piers Morgan doing “Female Serial Killers” today so here we were in the punk movement, '79, and it was such an opportunity to be one of the first women in this movement that I could invert everything I'd been taught And one of them is about women being psychologically cruel which kind of covers a lot of the early work. So I was just inverting stories and turning them into myth really. And another thing that was emerging at this time … computers were being programmed at this time on a mass level. So a lot of people we worked with, our roadies would disappear at night to go and do binary programming into computers and this was going on 24/7 to get computers how they are today. So there was this kind of secret technology going on that fascinated us but we didn't understand I mean if we ever knew we would have a phone in our hand (shows her mobile) or we'd be able to talk like this (on Zoom) … that was science fiction. And another thing that science fiction  back then … was … oh, it's going out of my head … ah yes! Was how games were developed. So Dungeons and Dragons was very much a fantasy game then and it was the only fantasy game  as was – Lord Of The Rings was a book, you never realised it would be made into a really brilliant  digitally composed film. So fantasy for me was very very important. It was escapism from a normality that could be not only boring but could also be dangerous so all of that reflects in my work as well 

PHIL: I could sit and talk to you Toyah for hours. I know you've got other interviews to do because you've got so much to do in the coming weeks before this re-release, this re-vamp of Sheep Farming In Barnet. It's out on the 4th of December but I have got one last question which I invited people to send in and this is a question from Darren Anthony and he's asked which 3 things, if there are 3 things, would you change about your debut album if you could? TOYAH: Ohhh! Do you know, Darren, this is such a good question and the only thing I would change – because there's a beautiful innocence about this album – I would change nothing about the music. I would've changed immediately the technique I use for singing because I've only in the last ten years really gleaned my 100% technique. And I would … just … how can I put this? If you're a singer you understand “opening the throat”. I would open the throat more, I would've had more confidence as a singer Instead I'd get into the studio and lack of confidence would make me go (pulls shoulders in and head behind hands) I would just close up like that and the voice became quite small. So that's one thing I would change but I can only answer that in hindsight. Elusive Stranger is an incredibly popular song and I would've just not sung the intro in that octave. I would bring that down an octave which would make it far easier to sing live today.

And I can't find a third thing I would've changed. Perhaps the one thing I would've changed about the whole of the beginning of my career – I was very against my natural femininity where women who are hugely successful not only exhibit their femininity but they control their femininity and I saw my femininity as a barrier that I needed to either kind of break down or walk away from. So I probably would exploit it - in the right way, in the Madonna way – my femininity PHIL: I should say it's also out on white vinyl which I've ordered and I can't wait to see that either! TOYAH: Wahey! PHIL: To represent the golf balls on the sleeve   TOYAH: Oh, I know! It's a clever design. It's clever. Phil - thank you so much and I hope see you sooner than the 18 months - PHIL: Yes, me too. Good luck and stay safe. Thank you, Toyah TOYAH: Good luck everybody!   

You can watch the interview HERE

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[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH ON PEARLS OF WISDOM #NOTGOINGOUTCLUB WITH JULIE PEASGOOD 13.5.2020

JULIE: Hello Toyah! Thank you for joining me! TOYAH: It's so good to see you! It’s been so long! JULIE: Oh, absolutely! But listen, Toyah Willcox - you are a celebrated musician, singer, songwriter, actress, producer, author. You have released over 20 albums, written two books, appeared in over 40 stage plays and 10 feature films. You are truly multitalented. Are you relaxing just a little during lockdown? TOYAH: Such a good question because I don't know about you but I'm getting about 20 emails a day that start with “now you have nothing to do . . . will you . . . ?” I've never been busier! We can't get the cleaner in, we're cooking our own food. We live in a market town so we were always able to pop out to a restaurant or a cafe at lunchtime, and that saw us for the day.  

So we've gone fully vegetarian. I cook at lunchtime, and it's quite a meal. It takes about two hours to prep. Then we have cleaning jobs for the day. And then I have about 20 internet jobs to do like doing voiceovers for adverts, voiceovers for computer games, films, for TV programmes. It’s busier than ever! And I don't know if you're discovering this - I'm now not only the artist . . . I'm the camera person, the microphone person, the makeup person, the hair person, it's just . . . argh! JULIE: I know! It's extraordinary, and I am exactly the same as you - very very busy. But I have to say - we're lucky that my husband Patrick helps me with the technicals. I notice, Robert Fripp, your wonderful husband helps you, and I've also noticed your amazing dances on a Sunday. I don't know if you just stick to a Sunday but they're wonderful! “Strictly (Come Dancing)” is going to come knocking at your door because they've been an internet sensation!

TOYAH: I know! I'm supposed to be on tour now with Hazel O'Connor and it broke my heart that we've had to move that. So I thought about three Sundays ago . . . I'll wear the costume, and I wanted my character because I always create a character for a tour, even though this is a rock tour. I wanted my character to be like a demented beauty queen so I actually had a prom dress, and it's phenomenally beautiful. I invented this kind of real “Strictly” dance, and it flew! We're about to hit a million on it, a million views, which is a first for me. JULIE: Congratulations! TOYAH: Thank you! So we decided, every Sunday before lunch, we will post a new film, and my goodness! This coming Sunday, we have a humdinger! A humdinger!!! 

JULIE: Yes? I will tune in, but what I love is that both of you take it very, very seriously. I mean, that thing with the rose in your mouth and you just go for it, which is how it has to be and the best TOYAH: You never play the humour. Never play the humour! And with my beautiful husband I don't have to because he's the most brilliant guitarist. Through his fingers he can count, he can play any speed. He can't do it through the body. So trying to teach him the tango . . . it took seven days. He kept getting it wrong and even then he dropped me. It’s actually, for us as a couple, a wonderful experience in tolerance. In a positive way. JULIE: Fantastic! Now listen -  I suspect you are full of pearls of wisdom, great advice that you've been given in your amazing life. Would you like to share one or two with me now and with everybody watching this? TOYAH: Yes. Are these pearls of lockdown wisdom or pearls of growing older wisdom? 

JULIE: Very good question! They're actually pearls of growing older wisdom, but if they are pertinent for lockdown, even better, but they don't have to be just to do with lockdown. They’re Toyah’s wisdom, you might have been told something by your grandma when you were eight that has stayed with you forever. TOYAH: Well, I never knew my grandparents and I wish I did. But what I would say is always plan ahead. It really is not a waste of time to think ahead and plan ahead. With my parents - who I cared for for the last 10 years of their lives - made no plans. They did not even think about the future. And my feeling is it's such a privilege to grow older. It's nothing to do with being left behind by society. Yes, that happens, but I think it's such a privilege that we get to grow older, because we become more of who we are and what we are. 

And what I mean by this is - always explore what you've become as a result of your past. So, this morning - we're very lucky we have a garden, we're on the river Avon, I go down and I thought I was sitting there for an hour and three hours later I go back to the house … where has the time gone? But allow yourself to go inside. We so often think outside of the body and I'd say allow yourself to go inside and think about the journey and the path you've made and why. It's so informative and I think we are on a continual developing journey. So that's the spiritual side of my pearls of wisdom 

JULIE: Hmm … I love that TOYAH: The other one is in lockdown do not have anything in the house you cannot resist. It's just too much. All my friends are saying they've put weight on and it's like well, if you're going to stock up on chocolates and cakes, and the lovely tasty manufactured snacks . . . you're in big trouble. So, what we do once a week, my husband's been very good. He's done the shopping. I'm not allowed out because I've had pneumonia a few times. So I'm in complete lockdown.   We only get vegetables. That's all we've got in the house. We have to be inventive with it. There's some lunch times where I'm just saying I don't want to eat anything – I want a doughnut!  We’ve kept our weight down, we're able to do these fantastic dances and get in ridiculous costumes, and I would say to anyone do not put anything in your house that distracts you as a temptation. Because we're weak, we're all weak, I'm weak.

JULIE: And with so much time on our hands. And the focus is so much more on food. For me, Patrick is the cook in our house, but I'm the shopper because he's had pneumonia as well. And I don't buy anything as you say that will (tempt you). I've even still got my Easter egg, because I've actually managed to lose weight, which is miraculous but then it's probably because I've been doing so much more walking and cycling. I never used to go out every day, doing the levels of exercise that we're doing. But I absolutely agree with you - if there is a packet of biscuits, you'll get that weak moment, especially if you've had a glass of wine or something and you'll just think, oh heck, and just go for it and devour it. TOYAH: It's four in the afternoon with me. It’s always a weak point. So what I've done - I have a tiny jar of jelly beans. And I allow myself four at the most and it actually becomes enough. And the thing jelly beans - there's no fat, yes it is sugar, but then it gives me that pep for the rest of the afternoon, and I do a bit cleaning. JULIE: What a good idea. I used to love jelly beans and I haven't had them for ages. Do you get a whole variety of flavours or do you really like coconut or blueberry or … ? 

TOYAH: Well, I do love single flavours, there's actually a chocolate flavour one and you can't get it in isolation. I hate cinnamon. I actually don't love jelly beans which is why I've got them. So I can give myself the sweet kind of boost with something I know I'm not going to sit down and eat the whole lot. It’s always been my dieting secret. If you want to lose weight, only allow yourself to eat things you really dislike (Julie laughs) I mean nothing takes your appetite away more than looking at a plate of food thinking oh! I hate this! JULIE: I love it. Just to finish have you always been this incredibly disciplined? Because what's coming across is his great strength of character 

TOYAH: When the lockdown started, I was completely lost. I didn't know how to organise my thoughts. I was angry because career wise this would’ve have been the zenith of my career. And everything, all my albums have been rereleased this year, touring the whole year, and so much going on . . . and it's all gone. So I was dealing with anger. Dealing with grief and we've lost people we couldn't see in the end, very close people. My sister's working on the front line so the last four weeks for me have been trying to maintain, to some degree, a mental balance. And I realised that this is an amazing opportunity to address everything that I've never had time for.   So a timetable is really important. And you stick to that timetable. For instance we only eat at lunchtime. Then after that we allow ourselves a very small snack at six o'clock, therefore we've maintained our weight, and then in the middle of all that if I feel myself going stir crazy I go and do the garden. But most of the time I written five children's books, which are little kind of little rhyme books and I've illustrated them - JULIE: You've written them during lockdown?!

TOYAH: Yes. I just carry this notepad (shows the pad) with me everywhere and all my artwork is in the kitchen, and I do a drawing a day, and as you probably would guess by looking at the dance films I'm very much into stuff and nonsense. So I've invented this this character based on my husband. These (shows the drawings) are literally just sketches to remind me what to do. It’s about a little bee - based on my husband - who wants to be a unicorn. That's not the book illustration. The book illustration is more like the tray behind you with the little girl. But this is my bible of books so I always carry a notebook. Always. JULIE: Toyah! Thank you! You really are phenomenal. Multitalented just doesn't even touch it. I wish you the greatest of luck. I hope that the album's are available, that people can get hold of them if they're all being rereleased, and I wish you so much success in every area. You really are absolutely inspirational. Thank you. TOYAH: It's so good to see you! Thank you! JULIE: Thank you for joining me today, darling!

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[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH ON MEMORY LANE 80's WITH HAYLEY PALMER 25.7.2020

HAYLEY: Hello and welcome to the Memory Lane 80’s show on Spotlight TV. I'm Hayley Palmer. Really good to have you here with me today. Great news! We have got more 80's pop royalty with us today. Oh yes! It’s Toyah Willcox and here is what happened when I caught up with her. Toyah! It’s fantastic to have you on the show! TOYAH: Hello, Hayley is so lovely to see you! HAYLEY: Aww, you too! You look lovely and bright and colourful today TOYAH: Well, I found it really important during lockdown and even in semi out of lockdown to dress up. HAYLEY: Yes, you're right. Absolutely. TOYAH: I don't think I've even had one pyjama day. Just literally I am going to get up and I'm going to wear my favourite clothes and I'm going to act as if the world is as normal

HAYLEY: Oh, I love this! You'll be so ashamed to me. I've had a couple of pyjama days ... eating Doritos. Don't judge me (they both laugh) But anyway, I know you been really busy in lockdown, haven't you?   TOYAH: This is a very weird and I hope not a distasteful thing to say, but lockdown has being really OK for me and my husband. We’re  both writers, so I've done about five children's books, which have just kind of silly nonsense, rhymes, things which I've illustrated. I'm doing a solo album and I get about 50 requests a day from people who just need geeing up and I have no problem with geeing people up. I really love doing it, so it's been very busy and it's helped me realise that I'm not ready to go back to gigs where I have to share the dressing room with my band. There's no toilet backstage and the stage is sticky with beer. I've realised no! I'm going to go back into art centres and theatres and festivals! It's really helped me sort myself out.

HAYLEY: Brilliant! I've also been watching your YouTube channel as well. It's "Toyah At Home", isn't it? TOYAH: Yes. "Toyah At Home" every Saturday, which brings my music to the fans and then on Sunday what I started as a thing to keep my husband Robert Fripp - oh got my glasses on! I’m going take them off ... HAYLEY: No, I like it. I like it! TOYAH: Do you like it, shall I keep them on? HAYLEY: Yeah! TOYAH: This is a first! ... To keep my husband, Robert Fripp, who's a world acclaimed guitarist, King Crimson, played with Bowie on “Heroes” and “Scary Monsters” ... to keep him engaged with the outside world. We've been doing quite ridiculous dance videos which he enjoyed. HAYLEY: They’re not ridiculous, they’re brilliant! I've seen them TOYAH: Good good. So that's all on Toyah official Facebook (NB She means Youtube) and it's been very, very rewarding for all of us.

HAYLEY: Just fabulous. We're going play out your first song “I Want To Be Free”. Talk us through the lyrics. Is it right that you actually started writing this when you were 14 at school? TOYAH: Yes, I'm severely dyslexic. You don't get over dyslexia, but what dyslexics are utterly brilliant at doing is bluffing their way I think to the top jobs in the world. Trump is probably dyslexic. He's definitely dyspraxic. So you've got wonderful artists ... I think Gary Numan could possibly be dyslexic. We find a way of acting normal within the world.     So at the age of 14, I realised I should not be at school because the three R's were never going to work. I should have been at drama school or a music school, so in a maths lesson I was just writing down these words “I don't want to go to school, don't wanna be nobody's fool. I wanna be me, I wanna be free” and that's the birth of that song.

HAYLEY: Wow, I love that! I think I was the same in math as well. My parents always wanted me to get a C and I always got a D so it's not good,Toyah. We're going to play “I Want To Be Free”. Top Ten in 1981. Here we go. (Video plays) I want to talk about how it all started for you because I just look at you and I just think, wow, you're just born to be on stage - but it hasn't always been that way, has it? TOYAH: Not really. I was born in Birmingham, my family never believed I could be in show business. I'm ridiculously small. And when I was young, I had a very pronounced limp because I had one leg longer than the other, which is now being corrected. It was corrected when I was 51 and I'm now 62. HAYLEY: Wow, you look amazing by the way! I want to know your secret!

TOYAH: I've been through quite a lot, so movement and music as two related things mean a to me thus  I was born to be on stage. I was born to be a performer. I was very lucky that the head of Pebble Mill, which was where BBC was based during the Birmingham period, up from about the 1950’s into the 70’s. The head of that building said to my parents “your daughter is dyslexic. She is a star in the making. Get her out of normal school and put her in drama school” and he got me into a Birmingham drama school.  

And I never looked back and within a year I was the youngest member of the National Theatre in London. I starring in a play with Warren Clarke, Kate Nelligan and then I went on to work with Derek Jarman. I made a movie with Katharine Hepburn, directed by George Cukor, who directed “Star Is Born” with Judy Garland. And then I ended up at these really high end art places - ICA, the Royal Court Theatre.

I had a fabulous beginning in acting, but all along I was developing my music because I realised that if I was going to become a singing superstar, I had to do it young. I couldn't leave it on the back burner as a hobby. I had to go for it hell for leather.

HAYLEY: Yeah, because your voice is just incredible, it's almost operatic, isn't it?

TOYAH: I studied opera. Even though I don't think I fitted into my school, they taught ballet which is why I went there to help me with my disability, to give me balance and strength. It also taught music, which is the only O level I got. And it taught me opera. So my first singing lessons which I had - two weeks with German and Italian opera. HAYLEY: God! Toyah, you'd be so ashamed with me - I can't sing a note. Honestly, I've tried on this programme before. TOYAH: Really? HAYLEY: Yeah, maybe you could give me some lessons, Toyah! (laughs) TOYAH: I don't believe people can't sing because people can express so you may say you can't sing, but there is a form of music out there that you would fit. HAYLEY: Wow! I would take that! We’re going to go into your next song. “Thunder InThe Mountains” I really feel like this is when you are bringing in the punk energy here, don’t you, Toyah?

TOYAH: Yes! Totally bringing in the punk energy. I had started my career in 1976, the end of - into 77’, so I was very much a punk rocker right through to 1980 and the majority of my audience was serious punk rockers. So I felt I needed to bring that energy with me into the new wave into the New Romantic because my first international hit was 1981, so that's a long career before you have commercial success. So “Thunder In The Mountains” (sings the song)  I mean, it's all about pogoing. It's all about rebellion, so it's very much bringing punk into the 1980’s.

HAYLEY: Well, we love it. Is bringing back a lot of happy memories, I know, for our viewers. Here is “Thunder In The Mountains”. Number 4 in 1981 (Video plays) We've got a question from one of our viewers, Simon. He wants to know what's your favourite TV show that you've worked on because he's just been watching you on “Invasion Planet Earth” and said he really enjoyed that. He said it was very well made. TOYAH: Oh, that's so lovely. That was a crowdfunded movie and it was made for £60 000 and it just looks so good and I loved doing it. I did it as a favour to the director, Simon Cox, and I sang the outro song as well, which is excellent song. So what’s my favourite TV programme I've ever worked on? This is such a difficult question to answer because everything I do I tend to love with a passion.  

Doing “French and Saunders” at the end of the 80’s singing “Because The Night” with them on a huge wooden wheel in the background distracting me was a joy, but I would say they are slightly pipped to the post when I did Kenny Everett (below)

HAYLEY: Oh wow! Totally brilliant! TOYAH: He was just a master and you might be realising by now if you've watched my my clips on Sunday is that I love comedy. I don't think I'm a stand-up comedian but I think or like to think that I do have slightly good comic timing. So to be on Kenny Everett and to watch a master. Wow! It was fabulous!

HAYLEY: Fabulous! I want to know have you ever recovered from your challenge on “I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here” because I was watching it last night and I was like my goodness you are brave!

TOYAH: Thank you! It was a pretty mean thing to do because they put me in a cesspit, but what they also did is they used a chemical that stayed on my skin for five days and that chemical smelt of sewerage so they then put me back in the camp where no one would come near me. 

What I experienced doing “Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here” was that all the beautiful women and there were many - you had Daniella Westbrook, you had Catalina ... there was quite a few others, but they were all beautiful. They all got helped when they needed the gunge washed off them. With me ... I walked into the camp and everyone parted like that – like the great waves. It was like “we're not coming anywhere near you, you smell!”

HAYLEY: But you got five stars, didn’t you? TOYAH: Yeah, I did really well. HAYLEY: Yeah you did! Well, we loved it. TOYAH: Another thing - I went into the jungle weighing about 7 stone 10 pounds and I came out weighing seven stone. HAYLEY: Aww yeah, I don't know how you do it.   TOYAH: Well, it was a fabulous diet! HAYLEY: Straight to the Versace hotel afterwards though. That’s the reward! TOYAH: Yes! HAYLEY: Next song, “Brave New World” is just brilliant. Talk us through the memories for this.

TOYAH: This is produced by Steve Lillywhite, who was married to Kirsty MacColl and Steve Lillywhite then went on to produce U2. I'm very very proud of this song and it's off an album called The Changeling from 1982, which is about to be re-released at the end of this year or the beginning of next year. It's a very mature album for me, and this single is a very mature single and the video has won awards around the world. It was a ground breaking video. It was one of the most expensive videos to be made at the time with £32,000.         But to put that into perspective, I think three years later  Michael Jackson made “Captain EO” for the Epcot Centre for $10 million, so that shows the journey of video. This was the beginning of video, the beginning of MTV. MTV had only been launched in August of 81’, so it was ascending, but I'm really, really proud of this. HAYLEY: Yeah, I love the video to this one. From 1982 here is “Brave New World” (Video plays) Now we have got a quick fire 80’s quiz for you

TOYAH: Oh good! HAYLEY:  She's ready to go! So - favourite TV show from the 80’s? TOYAH: "Young Ones"! HAYLEY:  Ah! Good Choice! A thing you wish you could bring back from the 80’s? TOYAH: There’s 2 things. JR of “Dallas” or the rah rah skirt. HAYLEY: Oh yes! I like that! Best outfit from the 80’s? That's going to be hard for you because I'm pretty sure you've got an amazing wardrobe! TOYAH: Yes, my designer - she was called Melissa Caplan. She made everything by hand, but she made me a dress that was actually a Japanese Samurai outfit, so it was a Samurai armour, but made in cotton, which she painted. It was utterly beautiful. I still have it and I still love wearing it. 

HAYLEY: Ah, we love that! Favourite hairdo from the 80’s? Again (Toyah is furiously poining at her hair) I mean how can we decide this? TOYAH: You've just seen it – “Brave New World”. The pink and orange hair, standing up. For me … I nailed that one!

HAYLEY: You did! I just haven't got the confidence with my hair. I wish I did because it makes you  feel so different, doesn't it, when you dye your hair TOYAH: You look beautiful, you don't need to dye anything! HAYLEY: OK. And best thing a fan sent you from the 80’s? TOYAH: I've got it here. This (a ring) arrived in a book from a palace in Saudi Arabia. It  was a princess. She was a huge Toyah fan and obviously summered in the UK in London, the way the Saudi royals do for six months and she sent me a book and I opened the book and it was hollowed out and in it was a necklace and this ring and she said “I'm not allowed follow music but I absolutely love you” and that was about 1984. HAYLEY: God, it’s just beautiful! Oh how lovely! TOYAH: So I treasure that HAYLEY: Yes, I bet you do. Well, your next song “It’s A Mystery”. Yes! My favourite. This is your first appearance on Top Of The Pops. That was an instant hit, wasn't it?

TOYAH: And you know, it was hit because of a very lucky mistake. Melissa wasn't ready. Melissa Caplan, my costume designer, wasn't ready with the outfit I was going to wear and if that outfit was ready I'd have been leaping around the stage the way I normally do. So I wore instead a beautiful dress (above) by a designer, male designer called Brown, I can't remember his first name now, but he did all of Bowie's clothes for the “Heroes” album. And I just looked demure and beautiful, and there I was terrified on the set of Top Of The Pops, singing “It’s A Mystery” and just keeping still because I was in a dress and didn't know how to wear that dress as I never wore dresses. That I think was the winning factor that for the first and only time in my life I was really feminine because of that dress and it gave me a hit HAYLEY:  Well, it did give you a huge hit!  Here it is from 1981 “It’s A Mystery” (Video plays) Oh, Toyah! I could talk to you all day! It’s gone really quickly!

TOYAH: It does go really quickly, doesn't it, Hayley, when you're having fun! HAYLEY: Yeah! Let’s talk about the new projects because I know you've got a little bit of inside information for us, haven’t you? TOYAH: Yes, we're doing a Rewind tour and it's going to be a drive-in tour. So I can tell you the dates (reads the dates) Now, if those go well, we're going to carry on through September. That’s drive-in and they've managed to organise it that people can get out their cars and dance, which is quite a new concept because previously you had stay in cars, which is very unappealing. So that's Rewind. HAYLEY: This is such exciting news. I'm delighted because obviously everyone has had things cancelled, but it does look like things are coming back and things are being rescheduled.

TOYAH: Excuse the pun, but it's a brave new world and there's a lot of us out there who are just willing to perform. And also, I've got a movie coming out. “To Be Someone” which is nothing to do with “Quadrophenia”, but it does star myself, Leslie Ash, Mark Wingate, Gary Shail, who happened to have been in “Quadrophenia.” And it's a gangster comedy, so that's due out as well. Another another movie called “Give Them Wings” - which hopefully will make it out into the big world this year. At the moment it's at the Venice Film Festival. HAYLEY: Great stuff and we will definitely keep our eyes open for that. We’re going to leave you  with “Sensational” of course, because Toyah has been sensational on today's show. Toyah Willcox, thank you so much for your time and your energy. You’re an inspiration to us all! TOYAH: Yay! It’s a pleasure!

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[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH ON OCTOBUS TV WITH ANDREW EBORN 2.6.2020

ANDREW: Welcome, it’s Andrew Eborn here and another "Lives On Lockdown". My very special guest is my wonderful chum Toyah! How are you, Toyah? TOYAH: I’m so relieved to see you Andrew. I'm really good. Thank you. ANDREW: I’m so relived to see you as well because I was hoping to see you live in just a couple of weeks ago with Hazel as well - TOYAH: I know! ANDREW: You were going to be in Islington and many other places TOYAH: It's going to happen. What's happening at the moment is that we are trying to find ways, as you know, talking to Harvey Goldsmith, of making venues safe so the next show I've got coming up, which hasn't been announced, is a drive-in festival. Huge airport car park.     I just don't know how it's going to work as they expect the audience to stay in the cars and speakers will be delivered to the cars. Can you imagine what it's gonna be like in the summer? So I just don't know how we going move forward at the moment. But you know, I know, the promoters know we're going to do anything to make it happen as long as people are safe.

ANDREW: People have been speaking to me about doing similar drive-in movies, which is the classic way of doing it. So you are self contained or with your loved one quite close and they can deliver stuff to you as well.     I've been talking about doing holograms with that as well, all sorts of interesting things but you are without a doubt one of my favourite people, goes without saying. But also you are one of the busiest. You’re doing your movies, you’re doing your concerts, your books, your TV … How on earth have you been coping in lockdown? TOYAH: Well, this year was going to be the pinnacle of my career and it still in many ways is. I think lockdown has been both terrifying, frustrating and quite wonderful in a very strange way for creative people, because this time last year I was so busy, I was on five movies and touring and I was thinking what would it be like to take a year off where I could sit down and write a new album, write the book I've always intended to write and I thought no. I can't do that.   I'm 62 years old. You can't take a break at my age and suddenly this break was enforced on us and it's been a very creative time. I’ve still got every one of my albums being released within the next 12 months. My success this year started, along with my failures which was not being able to play live, the release of “Toyah Solo”, the box set -

ANDREW: Brilliant box set! Beautifully produced. Wasn’t it? TOYAH: Gorgeous. Went straight into the charts. Toyah and The Humans which is really obscure, it’s my Seattle band. That's a box set called “Noise In Your Head” out on the 3rd of July, already practically sold out and they've had to go to reprint and that's on pre-orders and then from September onwards all the first albums, all the Safari catalogue is going to be released, so my presence has been very good. And another thing I did, Andrew, that I've always never understood and I think part of it is as a dyslexic I see images in 3D. I don't see in a flat screen, but I started in lockdown to take social media really seriously and my goodness has that really taken off! I have a wonderful social manager and a wonderful archivist who archives everything I do on toyah.net as well and I reached an international audience for the first time in my career via social media. So the lockdown for me has been how to get through the maze. The maze of frustration, the maze of not knowing who and what you're supposed to be, but also treading very carefully because I do have a privileged life. I have a garden.

ANDREW: I know. I've seen the videos. They’re fantastic! I love it. TOYAH: I mean how do you put that into the outside world without looking firstly “oh woe is me” because there is no “woe is me”. I've been locked up for three months as my husband is 74. We're safe. But you know, how do you share that with people and I’ve done that I think through humour and observation. ANDREW: People around the world - I was doing some comedy in Cairo ... I was talking to some people in LA about the extraordinary situation going on there. We spoke to people in New Zealand and many many different places are approaching it in so many different ways, aren't they? And that's the confusing thing about this.   I mean, from an artist's point of view it's crazy because you're locked down and I think people are either reinventing themselves or they're getting really, really lost with this stuff. You have, as always, embraced the situation. Your social media, the videos you are posting - just brilliant! I love them.

TOYAH: I really enjoyed doing them and they started because I needed to get my husband Robert Fripp engaged with life again. There’s this phenomenon that I think has been growing where people over 70 are bit scared of life. And my husband was supposed to be on a world tour and I’ve just seen him shut himself away in a room. Admittedly, he's writing a book, but I needed him to engage with life. So I started the films, especially the ballets which he's had huge stick for! The intellectual Robert Fripp. King Crimson. My God has he had stick for that, but it was a way of breaking down those barriers that were being inflicted on him and getting him engaged with life again and engaged with my life. So I've got huge respect for social media but also the lockdown has allowed me to reset and what I mean by that is last year I was doing jobs where the attitude is you're an artist, you will do anything because you are an artist and what I mean by that is you turn up at venues - very few venues treating me like this ... I mean, out of the 150 shows I do, two venues would not have backstage loos or dressing rooms. How can someone of my calibre not have a dressing room?! You can't sit at the bar! So I got rid of all of that from my diary. I’ve actually blocked people on my phone for the first time in 35 years because they just do not listen to what you need as a human being and the lockdown gave me the strength to do that.

ANDREW: It has been a sort of clearing out. We’ve re-focused as individuals. This is what's important. TOYAH: Andrew, you’ve frozen. Can you hear me? ANDREW:  I’m frozen? I can still see you TOYAH: Are you going to re-join? ANDREW: So welcome back! My special guest today is the wonderful Toyah and just before the break you were telling us that the most important thing about this time is how to get rid of people and the people no longer matter in your life and all of a sudden you hung up on me and disappeared! How does make me feel? (Toyah laughs)

TOYAH: I'm so sorry about that. Whenever I do a broadcast, Andrew, I live near Worcester, they start digging up the road outside my office and disconnecting everything and I just don't know what happened then. ANDREW: I could take the subtle hint (they both laugh) What you were also saying - how creative in this extraordinary time, you're starting this social media game, you're working with these fantastic videos, which I love, with Robert doing the ballet. King Crimson, he’s one of my favourite people. The way that he deals with people, he has such a beautiful, dry sense of humour. And the way you’ve managed to bring him out in that sort of thing is superb. I love it. Absolutely love it. TOYAH: He's potentially a wonderful actor. ANDREW: There you go! That would be interesting. Are you going to bring him into something? TOYAH:  Well, I don't think I’ve got that power and I don't think he has the discipline but if they ever made “10 Rillington Place” again he’d be perfect, he's got that kind of edge in what he does. As you say, it's very dry and it's beautifully subtle. ANDREW: The two of you, when all the fans come on … “Keep walking”. He’s so brilliant at that sort of stuff, I love it.

TOYAH: I'm not like that. My husband ...you just don't cross his path. He is so clever, very good with words. Few journalists initially had a go at him for doing ballet, and my goodness did he go in for the attack. My husband is not someone to challenge because you'll get it back tenfold. Through his intellectual power rather than anything else. ANDREW: The great thing is he's collaborated with the best in history and things like that as well, hasn't he? TOYAH: Yeah, of course, yeah. I mean, he produced the first Peter Gabriel solo album. He's worked with Bowie, so he's really worked with a lot of very brilliant people. And he's been married to me for 34 years. ANDREW: I have to say I know lots of showbiz relationships and yours - that length of time. What's the secret then? This will be your "Loose Women" moment. What are the secrets of such a long successful relationship?

TOYAH: I have a lot of patience. And a lot of tolerance. I think partly we both have our own careers, were not reliant on each other in any way and that's by choice. We don't even share a bank account. We do have separate homes, even though for the last 20 years we've lived mainly in one home. We have a lot of choice, so we choose to be together and I have an art studio a mile away where I go and paint and do my writing and that's kind of a no-go zone for everyone else and not many husbands can tolerate that. I need that solitude when I'm working and I absolutely despise being in the kitchen. I wanted my husband to eat well. He's always been vegetarian, but he does eat fish now and then in lockdown we became 100% vegetarian so I wanted him to eat really well and I was spending two hours a day cooking really amazing nutritious food for him.   And I've always associated being in the kitchen with being out of work. That’s the actress in me. After three weeks I was thinking I can't tolerate this any more, so I started going to my studio and painting and just getting it out of my system. So you ask how it works, a 34 year old marriage and I think it's you need your own life.

ANDREW: And it’s respect because you're both such talents in your own right but you've complemented each other beautifully. I think coming back away from the madness out there, sometimes you come back and you’ve just got each other and its superb, isn’t it? TOYAH: Yes, you've captured it. Exactly that. We don't have children. ANDREW: You have a bunny rabbit. Or used to – do you still have it? TOYAH: I lost my bunny rabbit three years ago. If anyone out there has a white albino buck with upright ears, preferably a Newzealy, which is a New Zealand  one, I am desperate, desperate for a new little bunny rabbit in my life. I miss him so much, but we cannot get the pink eyed rabbits. So anyway, that's an appeal from me. ANDREW: I tell you what - as a belated birthday present. That's another thing you did in lockdown, 18th of May is your birthday if I remember rightly?

TOYAH: Yes ANDREW: I will make sure that we find you one because I grew up with horses and rabbits and dogs and we will find you a replacement for that one because the pictures of you together ... It's your child together, isn't it? TOYAH: We don't have children, but any animal that comes into this house is over loved. So Robert believed that he didn't have that side of him. I knew I always had that side of me. I think animals ground us so as soon as I went against his word, then brought this tiny little - I think it was three months old, WillyFred, when we got it 10 years ago and as soon as he came into the house, my husband softened so that really helped.     But we are very good together but the one thing about my husband, answering your original question, is that he is too insular for his own good and he has a very dedicated life of just practising as much guitar a day as possible and it’s repetition. As an artist I don't believe in repetition. I believe in building originality along with technique, but if you only have repetition you are losing part of yourself. So I think where Robert and I work together really well is I kind of suppressed the repetition that he needs as being slightly on the spectrum adult and I would say both of us are on a slight adult spectrum of adult autism, but it's only slight.

And he can see where I'm broken and I can see where he's broken and we really communicate about that, and I think that's why our relationship is possibly the only relationship either of us could ever have had. Does that make sense? ANDREW: Totally makes sense. What’s really weird is that all of sudden as a society we’ve become obsessed with labels and the reality is there's dyslexia and autism. We've all got challenges. It's okay not to be okay. That sort of brings where people are starting to talk about things in a refreshing way and it’s encouraging others to come forward. TOYAH: Well, I think with me I was always utterly niddled by the fact that I can actually get in a car and disappear from the world for days on end and this started when I was a teenager. I'd run away from home and just disappear and it’s haunted me as to why that means so much to me and does so much positive good to me.   I think I spent 14 years at an all girls school. I didn't really enjoy it at all, and as long as I know I can just go and I have the freedom to go I'm okay. I'm an OK person but I live for my work. I don't have holidays. I don't go to beauty spas. I don't really go shopping. I live to work. When I'm on a film set and I'm with that creative team of people and I'm one of the vital links in that chain I am a whole person.      

ANDREW: Even when you've got this extraordinary situation and you have been different and it's great to be different because you stand out. Boarding school, for example, when you went to the all girls school. It was quite tough, there was bullying involved and everything, but it brought out your rebellious teenager, I think you’ve previously admitted?     

TOYAH: Yeah, I was pretty awful. I had two teachers that recognised that I just shouldn't have been at that school. And I should have been in a drama school, so the one way they controlled my energy and my energy is off the scale. I mean, even at 62 it’s off the scale - ANDREW: You and me both! I love it! When we get together it’s sort of aaaggh! (they both laugh) TOYAH: So I had an art teacher called Karen Howell who used to find me in the corridors when I been thrown out of class. Mainly maths class or geography or history and she'd bring me straight into the art room and I'd start designing the school posters for the end of year plays and then I designed the programmes.   And then I'd start designing the sets and then I designed how the play was going to be directed and there was another teacher called Shirley Williams who realised I could write poetry so she would just give me a pencil and paper and say "just go away, write poetry while you're in detention". And that's where the song “I Want To Be Free” came from. That lyric was written while I was in detention at the age of 14.

So I had two teachers at school who realised that everything in my life is based on visuals and they allowed me to develop that in a school that really was preparing its girls for higher education, for university. And I just couldn't wait to get out of the educational system. And as soon as I got out, I spent a year in drama school in Birmingham where I got spotted by two directors because I was literally the only punk rocker in the village at this time.   And after a series of magical events I ended up, at the age of 18, at the National Theatre. And those people absolutely embraced me. They gave me speech lessons to improve my lisp. I had movement lessons. I met musicians. I put my first band together. I met Derek Jarman, the film maker. There was no looking back. I suddenly fitted in with other creatives

ANDREW: And what happened? As you say, it was a lot of chance if you like. You meet one lot of creatives, they then introduce - “you must come and meet Derek”. You go round famously to his his house and you have your cup of tea with him and you sit there TOYAH: Adam Ant was with me on that occasion (they both laugh) ANDREW: But even in your school days you are wonderfully mischievous  and creative and it's great to hear the history of “I Want To Be Free”. Tell me the story about Maggie Thatcher when she came to visit your school? TOYAH: Well, I was very disruptive at school. I did anything to disrupt the system. So I was disruptive in class and if I’d known how to make explosives I would’ve blown the school up. It was announced at one school assembly that the Minister of Education was going to come and give a talk to parents and teachers and pupils alike and the Minister of Education, I think this was 1972, was Margaret Thatcher.  None of us really knew that she was going to become what and who she was and I just thought this is a really, really good opportunity to really disrupt the whole day.  

So I got into the school early. The school opened at about 8:50 and I got there about 8:00 in the morning and already the security were there with sniffer dogs looking for explosives because we had had bombings very close to the school. This was during the Birmingham pub bombings, and there was a news agency across the road where the soldier sadly was killed while dismantling a bomb. And just going back to that exact time I was sitting in the window at a math’s class at the front of the school and the bomb went off 40 yards away and we weren't evacuated. So even though we saw the bomb go off and the glass in this Edwardian school is old glass, I saw it convex in over our heads. It didn't break, but everything convexed in. And we were in a bombing, so this is what that time was like. So when Margaret Thatcher came to the school, the school was highly politicised by this and there were MP’s daughters at the school. It was a really top school.

So I got in early with five alarm clocks and I set them under the school stage to go off from 3:00 PM onwards, which was when Margaret was due to speak. And the school day was normal till about 2:00 o'clock. Then we were all ushered into the big assembly hall. And there were talks. And then Margaret Thatcher came on at three and the alarm clocks went off on time and there was five of them, so they were going off at 2 minute intervals.   So Margaret Thatcher completely ignored them. But everyone knew the only person in the school that would’ve done this was me and I just had a lot of people looking at me and I was in my usual trouble. Threatened to be expelled and all of that. The weirdest thing about that - this was 72’ … by 1979 my management office was on Flood St in Chelsea and our next door neighbour was Margaret Thatcher ANDREW: How funny! Did you go and ring on her doorbell and play ginger ("Knock, Knock, Ginger", a kids game) or something? TOYAH: No because there were two men with guns outside the door 24 hours a day

ANDREW: But actually Maggie had great sense of humour as well. Something about them, people like Bernie Ecclestone. People who have a certain amount of power. Harvey (Goldsmith) who I was speaking to earlier.     They all have graphite exterior because they need to be … that’s the nature of the industry. They’ve got this wonderful wicked sense of humour. Robert’s the same. You’ve got to do this persona, you’ve got to do this act for everyone but at the same time one has a mischievousness about it.

TOYAH: Oh yeah, I think mischief is is part of the magical ingredient of life. I love the absurd and I love British humour and I think people that you've been talking about - the people that really stick their hands in the mess of life to keep things going. They have to have that to stay sane.     I'm an artist. I'm allowed to be vulnerable. I'm allowed to have weak moments. They are all part of my expression, but people who lead us and people who put Live Aid on ... you're talking about a different sense of humour because they just can't lose their bottle. ANDREW: Sometimes it’s just an act to get things done, but it is about that sort of side and what was interesting because sometimes when you're very tough on the outside it's because you've had a lot of trauma on the inside and growing up I know it was tough. You had quite a strict upbringing by your own recollection. Do you think the creative side came as a result of that sort of adversity?

TOYAH: Yes, the creative side came out because I think I was born creative. My mother was a professional dancer and she went to ballet school from the age of 11 and by the time she was twelve she was already touring in vaudeville and getting really good reviews and she used to open for Max Wall and she was married and having her first child by 19. So I inherited that gene from her. That kind of showbiz, "the show must go on" gene but I was always the brunt of everyone's jokes at home and at school, and partly that was my physicality because I had twisted spine. One leg was two inches longer than the other. I wasn't aware of any of this. I was a tomboy and I was very, very athletic. I did ballet. I did gym, I did acrobatics. I was always breaking my teeth, breaking my bones. I was fearless but I didn't realise that part of the reason people just found me so unbelievably funny was my physicality. The lisp and all of that, and it wasn't really til I join the National Theatre that I realised the extent of the cruelty of how people found me funny. I think my drive in the very beginning from the age of 14 upwards was just simply to prove people wrong. Now I'm just totally in love with the industry. I love what I do. I love other people's successes, other people's talents. I just dribble over the talent of J.J. Abrahams. You just look at other people and you think oh my goodness! And I’m a person that looks at someone else's success and thinks it's our success as well. What other people achieve instantly becomes available to us, so I just love the industry.

ANDREW: And you’ve  always had that can do attitude.  As you say it's been a combination of that drive where you’ve had tough times growing up and you rebel and you can show that creativity. But it’s also been opportunities, hasn’t it? People have taken you under their wing  and taken an instant shine to you. The list of names of people you've worked with like Katharine Hepburn, who saw you with the sort of fire in your eyes. Tell us about that? TOYAH: I was a serious punk rocker, this was about 1978 and I'd only done I think only one movie up to that point. That was Derek Jarman’s “Jubilee”. I had a wonderful agent Libby Glen. She was American, based on Arlington Street in the West End. She was the best thing that happened in my life. She was so dedicated and her mantra to me was “Toyah, can you just look normal?” (Andrew laughs) I had bright pink hair and I was 3 stone heavier than I am now.

And she phoned up one day and she said “Toyah, tomorrow you're going for an audition at Eton Place, and you're going to meet George Cukor, who's the film director and you're going to make Katharine Hepburn who is a Hollywood actress. Please could you look normal?!” So I went to the National Theatre and I borrowed my brown wig from a play called “Tales From The Vienna Woods”, adapted by Christopher Hamilton and I went along to Eaton Square with this lovely long brown wig on and I'm very small. I'm barely 5 foot tall. So I can easily pass, back then, for 13. And I met George Cukor. He opened the door. No idea who he was. He was just a lovely, lovely, elderly American gentleman. And he walked me into the living room where Katharine Hepburn was. I thought what a lovely, lovely lady.   ANDREW: Did you know who she was at that stage? TOYAH: No!!! Vaguely … I’d seen her with Cary Grant but you know - the arrogance of youth? I was just thinking about me, I was thinking I want a record contract, I want to be in Star Wars. I want I want I want! So I did vaguely recognise her but I was worshipping me. So anyway, we did a reading, it was Emlyn Williams “The Corn Is Green” (below) being made into a TV movie, produced by both Cukor and Hepburn.  

And then we got on to punk, and Katharine was just so enamoured at the concept of punk and I was telling her about the band and what we had to tolerate. People spat at us. People thought that we were kind of aggressive and nasty when I think punks’s were very progressive in that we were very accepting and just wanted the world to change for the better. So I went away from that just thinking I had a lovely afternoon with two wonderful American people. At midnight I got a call from Libby Glen and you could tell she was beside herself with joy and she said “Toyah, you've got the role of Betty Watty. Go back the next day and read the whole play with Katharine Hepburn". So by this time I’d taken  my wig back to the National Theatre. It was worth about £3000 so it couldn't keep hold of it.    And I went back to Eaton Square and George Cukor opened the door and with my bright red hair he said “do you want to take your hat off?” And I said “no, George, this is my hair” and he was visibly upset and what was really interesting about this in retrospect George Cukor had a reputation for being really tough with his actresses. He had reputation for shouting. And he only ever did that to me once, and that was on set, and Katharine Hepburn really, really tore him down a strip.

Cukor got a fabulous performance out of me and what I would say about him at this point, when he opened that door, is he did not lose his temper with me. And I think what he saw in me was what was necessary for women in the industry to remain strong and protected. So he let me into where Katharine Hepburn was. He said, “Katharine, can you believe that hair is bright red?!” Steam coming out of his ears and Katharine got up and she said (does an American accent) “George! This is just so wonderful! If only I could have done it when I was her age!” I think these were two people who had to play a very dangerous game within the Hollywood system because they were genuine artists, they weren’t like the roots of Hollywood, which really did start in the porn industry and how men could sleep with more women. These were two genuine performers who loved the art of film, who believed in performance passionately. Because Katharine Hepburn on her first stage performance, the critics called her manly, vulgar, ugly, should never be seen live again and her voice should never be heard. It was like nails down a blackboard. These people had received the sharp end of the stick of criticism, and I think when they met me, what they really took to was that the rebellion I had is the rebellion it took to be in that industry. Does that make sense?

ANDREW: I find it’s such an artificial industry. There's so many people who are terribly shallow and they have to live a persona which is not really there. So they go home, and the reason a lot of people in this profession get depressed and we don't see the real side of them is that they are not allowed to be themselves. And what you have done and Katharine and various others have done is say “actually were human. If you prick me I bleed”.   The industry, when it’s so horrible, even when you were getting your grant to go to school would say “don’t give her the grant because she has a lisp and she’s unattractive” They become voted the sexiest person ever! You beat Kim Wilde in 1981, I remember. If you can get rid of the artificiality in the industry and be yourself  and this is why people take a real shine with you.

TOYAH: It’s a tough one. The grant you're referring to - it was a heart breaking moment. I had no money. I was, I think, about 16 turning 17 and I auditioned for a grant for drama school with a Mr. Slade. And I saw his notes ... “she's unattractive. She has a lisp. She can't walk.” And I didn’t get the grant and I was penniless, but what that led to and talk about angels in the architecture …     The head of the drama school Mary Richards, who worked for a very famous theatre man, who worked with Laurence Olivier, Barry Evans, or someone like that - Mary Richards realised I couldn't even buy a slice of bread, so she let me go to the drama school for free. ANDREW: Oh she did?! Oh good! TOYAH: Yeah, I paid her back once I was at the National. And I then started dressing. I was a dresser backstage at the Birmingham Alexandra Theatre at the Hippodrome Theatre. Dressed Judy Geeson, Sylvia Syms, Simon Williams, the whole of Dad's Army. Many, many more and they all realised I was penniless and they all fed me. There are beautiful people in this industry. So when you say find your naturalness, the way I would interpret that is find your uniqueness.   

What fascinates me about social media is - the biggest success that is making BBC Channel 4, Channel Five employ the social media stars, is those stars are basically talking about normality and I find that quite surprising. Because I always try to turn normality on its head. It's never attractive to me, but people need recognition in their homes of themselves. So I think the price I've slightly paid is that I've admitted that I'm a bit strange. ANDREW: But I think being strange is great. The reason things like soaps work, the reason reality shows work is because first of all people are really nosey, they like to see other people’s lives. But they also are now cutting through the fake.     What I love about this medium is that I can sit down with people that have been chums for years and just talk about real stuff. But it's not like we've got 30 seconds to promote an album and off you go! It's actually ... let's be real. We have good times. We had wonderful times and sometimes really bad time. TOYAH: Andrew, you once booked me for a show where my band was stuck on the Dartford Bridge and I was due on stage in 3 minutes!

ANDREW: I remember that! (both laugh) TOYAH: Talk about bad times! I have never bricked it as much in my life. There was an accident on the Dartford Bridge and they literally turned up I think the moment I was announced. ANDREW: It was. I was announcing, I was presenting as well (Toyah cackles) I think I had to run through your whole history first! TOYAH: There was 8000 people!   

ANDREW:  It was a massive racecourse! We had Rick Astley on the bill, we had Paul Young and it was fantastic! But it's good because that means that actually were living in the moment, and I actually like those moments because we're not just regurgitating stuff and what I notice is a lot of people in this industry it’s given them permission. It's okay not to be on all the time. It's OK to have a terrible day. The more we can encourage people to that in this fake media age the better, isn’t it? TOYAH: Yeah, and I think men in particular. I've done a lot of work in the last six months with the charity Calm which is to actively discourage men from thoughts. Suicide and the  act of suicide and then lockdown ... it's the one thing that has really struck me. I'm a woman. I'm used to being disempowered. It doesn't make it right, but I'm used to it and I ride the wave of it.

But to see men, who have been in the last two months - used to phenomenal success, running successful companies - going to zero. And that's frightened me that they've been put through that, and I feel very strongly that part of my work is to empower people and to empower people that don't get a look in. And what has really resonated with me very strongly in the last six months is men suffer. And we know women suffer. It's there in history. It's being broadcast a lot, but I think in the modern world, as young women come forward and stuff like that we do tend to forget that men are equally vulnerable. In the last couple of weeks I've just been seeing men lose their fight and that frightens me and I will do anything I can to motivate and give confidence back to people who’ve suffered that. ANDREW: As you know I’m involved with Equity and the Magic Circle and a lot of creative industries. Something called “canned laughter” and the reason it's OK not to be OK, the phrase we coined at the time and the reason we did that was exactly that people think you have to have this persona in the outside world and you're not allowed to show your weaknesses and not allowed to show your failure. 

And the more we get people coming on and talking about their own struggles, the more it empowers people to say it is okay not to be okay. I'm not alone in the darkest moments - when the most valiant characters are often the ones who are tortured inside and you find that a lot with comedy and everything else, don’t you? TOYAH: I know. Comedy and observational comedy is brilliant. Especially on a day like today with America doing what its doing … What can you say when people are are being treated that way by a leader. It’s just crazy, but comedy - it's brilliant but also the active talking. And I'm not great at reaching out to people or I'm quite good on my own. And what I've done in the past few weeks is reached out to people I don't normally reach out to. “Hello, I’m here” and it's been remarkable because firstly, they’re surprised to hear from me and secondly, they needed to talk.  

And I think talking is a great great help. And having friends is a great help and no one should expect to be perfect. Perfection is not possible. Moving forward, growing, strengthening what you know is possible but being perfect? No. What does it mean? No one is perfect. No one should be. There's a very simple set of exercises I started a month ago that did me the world of good. And it's based on the theory of the secret, and there's a book out there called “The Magic”. Best seller. There's nothing revelatory about this, but it works. And every morning you wake up and you write down 10 blessings in your life like “I am blessed for these glasses (shows her glasses) because someone made them. Someone invented the lenses. Someone got the plastic, someone delivered them” and in these blessings you just remember the chain, but follow each blessing.

“I am blessed from this lipstick (shows a lipstick) “Some bees made the wax, someone made the dye. Someone designed the packaging. Someone put it in the shop, someone delivered it and someone paid me the money to buy it” and you start joining up the pieces and I did this every morning for a whole  month and boy! It did me did me the world of good. Because it stopped it being about me. And I just think if you look around you and see the good things before you see the bad things you get a different perspective. So even when I'm really ratty and miffed with how I'm treated I always try and see the good outcome of it and go from that perspective and it makes it a much more palatable thing to deal with. Does that make sense? ANDREW: That's how I should live by. There's so much to be grateful for. We are incredibly privileged in what we're doing, and even in those darkest moments there's some great things to look at, and it's a question how to put the world in perspective, isn't it? Because I think you're right in that a lot of people have trouble because they have to live a lie. They get packaged and there are so many expectations on you. Turn around and say okay, hang about, there is good in all of this.

Can I change the perspective of how I look on the world and the more we can get people talking about it and you often find this, again with celebrities, the biggest A stars in the world. One person will say I met them on such and such a day. Wonderful, best person ever!” And some other will say “oh no, I met them, they were a real grump!”     Probably - the answer is both. Because different times of the day I’ll be grumpy one moment, I’ll be happy the other. If you went up to them in a restaurant when they’re trying to a have a private dinner ...That's probably not the moment! So you try to work out the people in the public eye are people and they’ve got feelings as well, haven’t they?

TOYAH:  Also the way I look at it is, there's different levels of craft within different levels of successful people. So let’s take Charlize Theron. I think she's about 6 foot three, so that gives her presence in the room. She produces films. She's phenomenally successful, she chooses the right script. She develops the right scripts. So there's a power player.     Then on screen her technique is so phenomenal that she could blow any other actress away. “Bombshell” (NB She means "Atomic Blonde") is an absolute example of this. She's working with English and American actors on that film. I think American actors have such phenomenal technique and even the A-listers still go to acting class. What you see on the big screen is the perfection of technique. You're not seeing the person. Not seeing the reality of the actor, you're seeing their phenomenal technique, which is an art form. So if you go up to them in a restaurant when they're being them, you're not meeting the same person. I just tell myself that absolutely no one in this world knows who I am. So don't approach them as if they should. And that for me puts everything in perspective.     Firstly I never approach famous people. I'm too enamoured to do that, but also I know the pressure they are under to do exactly what you're saying and be up to 10 all the time rather than allowing themselves to be running on 4. It's a really difficult one.

I live on the High Street in a very small market town just on the edge of the Cotswolds, and I know if people come up to me, they've come up to me because they trust me and know me so I'm always really kind and I stop whatever I'm doing and I say “how are you? How's your family? How’s everyone coping?” Because that's the environment I live in. That would never happen in Hollywood. Can't happen in Hollywood because people chase with cameras and then people trying to fall over in front of them and sue them. In this country that doesn't happen. So I think you have to look at the reality of the situation you're in and think about why is this celebrity in that surrounding at this present time. ANDREW: I think you’re I actually right on that, and I think again it's such a strange industry where people are manufactured. You, obviously a massive star in the 80’s … The pressures on you to be a certain person, to be a product, if you like. Some people in that era start to believe their own publicity, which is the worst thing you should ever do, but also the people surrounding them on the way up disappear on the way down and a lot of those people then get terribly worried and have a lot of issues

TOYAH: There’s a lot of questions here to be answered. Firstly, I am fascinated by people who are completely lost in their own world and they have no idea of the vulnerability of the house of cards. I just love watching those people, mainly the reality stars who believe they’re megastars. It's absolutely astounding. And they’re the ones that treat (people) the worst and obviously I've done a few reality programmes - ANDREW: “I’m A Celebrity (Get Me Out Of Here)”, you’ve done this, you’ve done that – phenomenal

TOYAH: The ones who believe they are megastars have absolutely no natural talent (they both laugh) They are the worst and they are the most fascinating to work with. You’re not allowed to talk to them, you can only listen to them. Everyone around them, they've obviously developed contracts that are so rock solid that they have to be treated like A-listers and you think wow! What are you going to do when that house of cards falls? And then I have to add, the greatest human beings I've met are the A-listers. I have not met an idiot A-lister. The bigger the name, the greater the soul. Paul McCartney, Katharine Hepburn, Kate Bush. They are really stunning human beings. Sting. Wonderful human beings. Peter Gabriel. They’re not idiots, and they don't treat people badly so that whole thing is - I actually think there is something out there as an A-list superstar and they’re great human beings. So for those who fall from grace or had super stardom and don't have it so much now, you're right. That is really hard and I think some protect themselves by living in an imaginary bubble.  

But I think others just get on with it and develop their craft. And if I'm to name names, I'm going to insinuate that they kind of had a fall and I don't believe in the fall because you never lose your talent. But let's look at the trajectory of Jason Donovan, who was hounded by the press. Hounded by the “News Of The World”. What you very rarely hear about Jason is that he is a fabulous father in a fabulous marriage. He's a wonderful family man. ANDREW: Lovely guy! TOYAH: Super successful touring artist and a West End artist and a great actor. People don't want to know the good news about people like us in the newspapers. They want tragedy, they want jeopardy so there are a few that fall from grace and go to alcohol, possibly go to drugs, but there are also a hell of a lot of survivors who mature into very brilliant stars and they face their demons. ANDREW: The real secret and you're right about the A-listers, the more successful people are, the more comfortable they are being themselves. And talking about why people like Laurence Olivier and Katharine Hepburn take an instant shine to you … because you’re you! People like Derek Jarman … talk to us about “Jubilee”. He became almost like your surrogate father, didn’t he?  

TOYAH: Yeah, he was a wonderful human being. It is very interesting because I’ve got to go back historically to that period in time. I met him  in 77’. An actor called Ian Charleson, who was starring in - ANDREW: “Chariots Of Fire”! I remember that one! TOYAH: Yeah. We were at the National Theatre together. I was doing “Tales From The Vienna Woods” and he said “you've got to meet Derek Jarman, you’re just going to hit it off “ and he took me round to (Derek’s house) in South Kensington and the idea was going to have tea with Derek and just get to know him. To put it into perspective then I knew nothing about a sex life. I knew about the birds and the bees, but I just knew nothing about the depth and the culture of people’s sex lives. And I walked into the apartment and everyone was naked except Derek (they both laugh) And I just didn't understand and there were no women. I was the only woman there. So anyway, we sit down and have tea and at that time Derek's partner was a very very beautiful French boy called Yves. And Yves was just languid like a cat and was just wandering in and out completely starkers, making tea for us and delivering biscuits and Derek handed me a script and I think it was called “Down With The Queen�� and he said "pick a role”.    

So I flipped through the script and I just picked the role with the most words. And he said “you can't have Amyl (Nitrite), that's being played by an actress called Jordan (above with Toyah in "Jubilee") who's a muse of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood ANDREW: I’m still in touch with Jordan, who’s now a veterinary nurse TOYAH: OK. Derek was totally, totally in love with Jordan. I think the whole of the punk world and the whole of punk industry was in love with Jordan. She was iconic. And another really interesting character because she had such great normality about her, but she wore very extreme sex clothes and she would travel on the commuter train between Brighton and London with exposed breasts.   She was strong. She was really strong. She took nothing from the middle class behaviour that happened on those trains. So anyway, Jordan was starring in this film that was to be named “Jubilee”, and Derek gave me the role of Mad which was the pyromaniac and I thought, well, you know, this is my first movie. I feel like I can be myself in this.

A month later, Derek tracked me down and he said "I had to get rid of your character in the movie because we don't have the money to have as many characters" and Derek was an empath and even though I just said “OK, thanks for letting me know” ... I put the phone down … Derek realised he'd broken me in that moment because this was my life saver doing this film and he spent another three weeks trying to track me down because I had no phone. I was in a bedsit and I used to phone him on a payphone on the street and he tracked me down and he said “’I’ve put you back in the film. I won't take a fee. My fee is going to pay for you to go back in this script."   And it was a phenomenal experience of this very, very talented man who is honed in his craft in so many ways. As an artist, painter, a visual artist, the script writer, a film maker, Super 8 film maker. He had so much to do and so much to say. And then on his private life there were things going on that I couldn't even comprehend. And I occasionally would ask “Derek, what does this mean? Why is that person doing that to that person?” He was just magical. Absolutely magical.   

ANDREW: What sort of things were going on in his private life?

TOYAH: Just complete freedom. Complete freedom. You talk about people wearing masks. No one in Derek's life wore a mask. Everyone was completely free to be instinctively what they felt they were and coming from a very strict religious background and also a very strict upbringing anyway, where caning once a week was dished out so you knew who was boss and a school that wouldn't identify with anyone that didn't fit into the norm … Derek was a breath of fresh air, but also I realised that I was a country girl coming into the town and I ended up just keeping quiet because I was just showing my ignorance. ANDREW: But it was quite shocking. I think you’ve said publicly, it’s the first time you’d seen other people naked. The shock of that and then go into a movie like “Jubilee”. That must’ve been a bit challenging, wasn’t it?

TOYAH: Well, it was because one of my first scenes where I had to read one of Jordan’s diaries and Jordan was rewriting history in the movie. And it was a 10 page scene on one shot. So we did the master shot first before we did the cutaways to Carl Johnson and Ian Charleson, who were playing incestuous brothers. And it required me to kind of walk round this warehouse and then jump into bed with the brothers in-between them. And I was in these huge rubber waders, a leotard and a life jacket. Three stone heavier with a shaved head. So not everyone's ideal of sexual attraction, and so we literally didn't do a run through.   Derek said “just do what you want, but use the whole room” and when it got to going into the bed, I pulled back the sheet and jumped into bed and I just completely froze and Derek said “are you OK? Do you want a cue?” and I said “Derek, I’ve not been with a naked man this close before” (laughs) They were both naked next to me and the whole floor just burst out laughing and I said “can I just get used to it?” (they both laugh) ANDREW: It is close and even when you did it a few years ago at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith (below), in Manchester as well TOYAH: Ah! Wonderful!

ANDREW: It was fantastic! And seeing your Queen Elizabeth (below) in that when they did it as the stage play. And there’s still that shock element. I was with a few celebrity friends and the first time they came to see that it was quite tough on them. There is still that shock, isn’t there? And nowadays, having come from the punk era where you could shock people still … Nowadays it’s quite difficult to shock people, isn’t it? TOYAH: This was an adaptation by the director-writer Chris Goode, who is renowned for shocking and his writing I think was magnificent. And he wasn't held back by the restrictions and laws that Derek was held back by all of his life. So Chris Goode was able to write with the creative and sexual freedom we luckily have today. And he decided to choose a gender fluid cast, very brilliant cast. Oh! They were magnificent! ANDREW: Superb cast! They all got on well together TOYAH: We love each other. We still love each other. And they were talented! So amazingly talented. Breathtaking! And I had to kind of relearn things I thought I was cool about. We weren't allowed to use he or she or gender specification, so everything became fluid. So when I said “come on guys, let's go for lunch!” it was like ooohh ...  

You just have to learn “they”, “it”. I don't like calling people “it” because you know that there are famous books about child abuse called “It” so I had to learn the use of the English language that didn't offend this new generation, but the performance itself ... it was shocking. And it was meant to be shocking.   There was female nudity and continual male nudity and sex scenes between men/women, girl/girl, boy/boy and they were going on with the audience intermingled onstage. So I think the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith, it found its audience. What was interesting when we we opened in Manchester at the Royal Exchange and we lost 80% of the audience in the interval. It was just too much for them, but well done Royal Exchange for doing it. The Lyric, it was really, really special, super special event. ANDREW: I came to see it twice twice, with, as you know, some chums in the celebrity world. I came back on the final night and you were superb in it because you are Queen Elizabeth in this one. What a great role!

TOYAH:  It is stunning. Jenny Runacre was the original Queen Elizabeth in “Jubilee” the movie but Chris Goode wanted to work with me and he initially brought me on board as an adviser to teach the much younger cast, because most of them were below 30, about punk. And then he said “would you play Queen Elizabeth the First?” and I went “yeah!” It was a wonderful role to play because she was an anachronism. We were able to kind of place her anywhere in time, even though I was wearing the crinoline and all of that, the makeup was modern and the attitude was modern. And when you look at Queen Elizabeth the First, she really was a punk. When she came to the throne, England only had £336 000 in the coffers. It was broke. It was broke through war, broke through many other things. So this woman was very, very clever. She ... have to be careful here because of international relationships, but she robbed the Spanish to make English very wealthy, and she plundered.     She used others to do her murders for her. She  was, I think a coward in many ways, because when she wanted people done away she employed others to do the deed and then faked tears over it. She was a remarkably interesting character but you got to remember her father was Henry the 8th. ANDREW: Quite. I think that would make anybody interesting …

TOYAH: Yes, and then you get alchemy. You’ve got to tell me to shut up because this is my favourite period - ANDREW: I’d never tell you to shut up! I love it! TOYAH: John Dee, I believe, like many of the creatives in the history of mankind, who've evolved, who've made us kind of become a step further and evolution -  John Dee was one of those people who was in her life and John Dee I think outlived Queen Elizabeth. He got banished to Manchester but was an alchemist but he was also a man that I feel could see into the future like Nostradamus, like Leonardo da Vinci. He had a finger plugged into morphic resonance. He could see beyond the present time and it makes him very, very special. Shakespeare could see beyond the present time. And of course, Shakespeare was around when Queen Elizabeth the First was around. ANDREW: Beautiful segway. We should always write the script for this … your Jarman thing, he then took you through to your first Shakespearean role, didn’t he?

TOYAH: Yes. I was already ascending very fast as a film actress and as a singer, so I think by the time I was asked to do Miranda in “The Tempest” (below) I'd already done “Quadrophenia” and I was breaking as a huge star, as a singer. In the first ever indie chart I was continuously number one for two years with whatever I released and in the albums chart, the nationwide album chart I was continuously number two with whatever I released, but albums didn't draw a lot of publicity back then. So anyway, Derek asked me to play Miranda in “The Tempest” and I was a bit nervous about it because I didn't like Shakespeare at school, I didn't get it. And he said he would personally get me through the role and he said he wanted me hands on with the design of how Miranda should behave, how she should look and I met with your  Yolanda Sonnabend, who was the designer for the Royal Ballet I think at the time. And we came to this conclusion that this was a girl who was shipwrecked at the age of three. Never seen a man other than her father, had only had the company of Sycorax, who was a monster in human form and only knew nature. So we created this creature with kind of little plaited pigtails and sun bleached hair and kind of skeletal crinoline with shells hanging off it, and a broken down corset. And she was a wild child. I loved it.

ANDREW: Type casting, almost, that sort of wild child ... but you mentioned - going back - the Derek Jarman of today. He knew sexual freedoms, that sort of stuff ... What would he have become? TOYAH: I think, and I often wish he was still here because I think he would’ve become an international director. The interest in his work now is huge and what was evident when we did “Jubilee” on stage was that a lot of young film makers were more interested in Derek Jarman's history as a Super 8 film maker than they were in the big blockbuster style of movies.   Because Derek Jarman was a collage builder, he worked with colour and texture, which on film is a very exciting thing to do and I think young film makers would get a lot from him today. So I wish he was still alive because he, like Hockney, is someone I believe would have continued to thrill his audience. ANDREW: That's actually the tragedy of it, isn't it? To see how they paved the way. But what I love about it he took you under his wing and he was, as you say, your surrogate father

TOYAH: Great friend. I was in poverty until I was about 23. With the band I only ever got paid £30 a week and we had to tour on that, go to make movies and all of that. I was always in poverty. I never had money for food. I can remember going into fish and chip shops at 11:00 o'clock and just being given the scraps to eat. So it was kind of a tough beginning, but I don't think it's any different to the majority and Derek used to feed me and make sure I was OK.   He was very in tune with mental health as well and would always kind of gee me up if I was not working at a particular time and he would invite me along to meet some journalists, or other directors. He would plug me in so that I got some work like modelling for Vivienne Westwood for the day which gave me £100. So he was a good man, good man. ANDREW: And about that sort of time, beautiful segue into the Sex Pistols and Malcolm McLaren and “Quadrophenia” because  Johnny Rotten I think was originally going to be in “Quadrophenia”, wasn't he? The story goes the insurance wouldn't allow it. Is that right?

TOYAH: Yeah. I was asked to get John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten through the screen test for “Quadrophenia”. (The director) Franc Roddam asked me if I would do it and I didn't really know Johnny Rotten at the time, but I went along to his apartment off the King's Road and it was interesting because there was a band called The Slits unconscious on the floor along with many others. The living room  was just like a lot of people unconscious. ANDREW: But you’re used to this! You’ve been in Derek Jarman’s house with all the naked men! This is the next stage up isn’t it? TOYAH: Interesting thing about Derek Jarman was that everyone was active. You had John Maybury building sets and you have people building pictures and painting and doing animation and making movies. With Johnny everyone was comatose. So Johnny and I went into his kitchen. We ran two scenes, obviously Johnny was testing to play Jimmy and I was testing for Steph, the female lead.   

Neither of us got the job and what was interesting is Johnny was phenomenal. He was a very excellent actor. I think Pete Townshend phoned Johnny to say “look, we love your acting but you can't do the film, we can’t get the money or the insurance if you're in it” and I think Johnny Rotten said (does a nasal voice) “well I don’t want play you anyway!” (both laugh) ANDREW: That sounds like Johnny! Absolutely!

TOYAH: I hope he goes into acting. He’s like Ray Winston, he's got that quality. ANDREW: He’s a great character and The Sex Pistols were a great band. You saw them early on didn’t you, when you came to London for the first time? TOYAH: No, I saw them Birmingham. I felt very isolated with my green and yellow hair and my home made clothes. I was at drama school and I was thinking why am I like this when everyone else is pretty and petite. A friend said “why don't you go along to a nightclub called Bogarts? There's a band on called The Sex Pistols. See what you think of them”. And I went along and suddenly I wasn't the only punk in the village. There was 350 punks there and I found my place and my community and that very much gave me confidence to be different and unusual. ANDREW: “Quadrophenia”,  Johnny didn’t get the role for insurance or other reasons. Talk to me about the role. You met some extraordinary people in that as well, didn’t you? 

TOYAH: “Quadrophenia” is a stunning movie directed by Franc Roddam, who up to that point was known for making very gritty brilliant documentaries, and that's how he wanted to shoot “Quadrophenia”. So the cast are an iconic cast. Phil Daniels, who quite rightly got the role of Jimmy and his performance is up there with every other A-lister performance. It’s Oscar winning. It’s stunning. If you don’t know the movie watch it for him. Lesley Ash plays Steph, Sting plays The Ace, Mark Wingate, myself, Gary Shail, Trevor Laird ... Have I mentioned everyone in that row? I think I have … so if you look at the poster, it's an iconic poster of stars to be. And I played Monkey in it. I was making “The Corn Is Green” with Katharine Hepburn when I realised that the production office of “Quadrophenia” was in the same building and I hadn't got a part so I started pestering Franc Roddam. I knew he hadn't cast Moneky because he didn't know how to cast Monkey and he hadn’t found the right person. His office was on ground level at Wembley so I used to go out of the building from filming with Katharine Hepburn, sometimes in costume, and bang on the window  “Franc! Give me a fucking job!” and he called me in and he didn't know that I knew Phil Daniels because I did my first ever acting role with Phil when I was 18

ANDREW: First ever movie (NB It was a TV play called “Glitter” in 1976) TOYAH: And Franc Roddam said to me “if you can act the party scene from “Quadrophenia” where you snog Phil and you convince me - you've got the role”. Well, Phil and I just did the party scene and snogged and it wasn't a problem. So I got the role and thank goodness because it's probably the most famous film I’ve ever been in ANDREW: And being yourself you hit it off. Sting – you hit it off with him, got on very well from the beginning? TOYAH: Sting was lovely. A school teacher. He knows how to deal with people. He knows how to bring people out of themselves. So Sting spent a lot of time trying to teach me and another actress called Tammy how to sing the harmonies to Police songs and at that point my ear wasn't trained enough to do harmony. But he persevered and his star was ascending. Lovely, lovely man.

ANDREW: And I think again he draws from experience, songs like “Don’t Stand So Close To Me”, talking about his time as a teacher and the difficulties which nowadays – people are facing the same sort of issues. TOYAH: Yeah and the thing with Sting, I mean life has changed radically in the last 30 years. “Every Breath You Take”. It could be about a stalker, it could be about an admirer. I've had this in my career. My second single is called “Tribal Look” and the kind of imagery was inspired by the Masai warriors. So culturally its is completely inappropriate now (the line makes crackling noises) ANDREW: And we’re back! Very good! The aliens suddenly invaded! We’ve got about 10 minutes left today, but hopefully we're going be able to bring you back. I know how incredibly busy you are. We’re going to have to do your career in little chunks I think but we were  just talking about Sting and how wonderfully influential he was on your life as well. Tell us a bit more

TOYAH: Well, I mean I worked with him in “Quadrophenia”. We then saw him socially because Robert and I bought Cecil Beaton's house in Wiltshire, Reddish House and Sting was at Lake House, which was not that far away from us. Sting always impresses me that he likes to bring people together. The famous story where he put Madonna and Guy Ritchie together over Sunday lunch and it was an instant success.  So Sting is very good with people. But one of the people we shared as a friend, and this is going sound very bizarre, is Edward Heath (the British Prime Minister 1970-74). Edward took a huge shining to me. He agreed to let me interview him for a TV series I was doing in the Wiltshire area about people who lived in Salisbury. Apparently he never allowed women to interview him and we hit it off and I ended up hosting his Sunday lunches with him at Arundells which Sting used to come to with Trudy (Sting’s wife) as well. This one time Sting, Trudy, Andrew Lloyd Webber, myself and a huge billionaire banker, were all around the table and I think Edward had to pop up and talk to Gaddafi for three hours on the phone. There were other occasions where Princess Margaret was invited down and we’re all kind of pushing away the responsibility looking after Princess Margaret. So everyone is going “you’re looking after her!” “You’re looking after her! Go into the garden and look after her!” So I go out to the garden and “hello ma’am” and run back and “Robert! Robert! You’re looking after her!” Kind of stars hiding in the bushes (they both laugh)

ANDREW: Another one, Princess Anne, very down to earth TOYAH: Oh, wonderful woman ANDREW: Fantastic woman and Edward Heath ... Did you ever see the movie "Lost In Translation"? TOYAH: Yes! ANDREW: It is all based on the advertising industry. So my role – I used to go and negotiate with major public figures and get them to do advertising campaigns. I did an Edward Heath campaign for Aquascutum. I got Stephen Hawking, God rest his soul … I got him to do Uniqlo and we had Maggie Thatcher to come along to different things. All these public figures, the A-list celebrities would come along to Japan. A lot of money. Nobody can see it outside of Japan so it’s OK. Edward Heath was a wonderful character so I can see how you hit it off on that sort of thing as well

TOYAH: One of the most human sides of Edward Heath I ever saw was his love for his family. Nieces and all of that. There was this moment in the cathedral where he was conducting a huge symphony orchestra and a guest pianist, coming from Europe, and I wish I could remember the name but this man had just lost his wife. He sat down at the grand piano and he collapsed in tears and he left the cathedral. Edward, who you don't think of as an empath, just left the cathedral, went and embraced the man and talked to him and got him back.   And it was the most electric performance. This man came back and just everything he's been through travelled through his fingers into that grand piano. It was very interesting seeing Edward deal with such a human situation because we don't often see leaders and MP’s as that human and he was very, very capable of being tender

ANDREW: That for today is the secret, first for your success because you are so real. You’re always very busy but it’s always Toyah. And the great thing is it encourages others to be themselves. Great phrase “Be yourself. Everybody else is taken” TOYAH: Yes! That’s good! ANDREW: If there is one message – we will get you back, hopefully when you’ve got a minute in your busy schedule, I can get you back and we can chat more but I should let you go for today. It’s been a real pleasure catching up with you. Love to Robert and everything and I look forward to chatting again soon when you get a moment TOYAH: Well, it's good to see you Andrew and big love to you and your family and hello to all your listeners! So I will see you soon. ANDREW: I look forward to it. Thanks a lot. Take care, thank you Toyah

#toyah #toyahwillcox #toyah willcox #toyah interview #toyahinterview #toyah 2020 #toyah2020 #thetoyahwillcoxinterviewarchive #the toyah willcox interview archive

[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH ON CATtales 21.5.2020

CAT: Hi, you're listening to CATtales and my guest today really needs no introduction. She appeared in the 1978 film “Jubilee” and “Quadrophenia” the following year. Her early hit singles included “It's A Mystery” and “I Want To Be Free”, and by 1982 she had made two platinum selling albums.      After more than 40 years in the music business, she is as creatively hungry as she was in her teens. She's a singer and actress, a writer, a punk rebel and an icon. But most importantly, she is an independent, strong woman who doesn't take any prisoners. This is the one with Toyah Willcox. What a ridiculous time we’re in! TOYAH: Well, I certainly won’t be promoting concerts! (they both laugh) CAT: I know, I know, it's terrible, isn't it? Everybody’s saying the same thing ... it's like they have tours and had to cancel it all. It's heart breaking, isn't it? TOYAH: The thing is like a lot of us have been building up to this year and it's been a phenomenal journey from about 2001, the wave of 80's being so popular has been  incredible. But a lot of artists had just been building to this year with their kind of independence.  

So yes, we do all these fantastic festivals and we do these multi-star line-ups but quite a few of us to work really hard to go out and be solo on tour and and this year we’re supposed to going out with Hazel O'Connor on a completely sold out tour, but also my own tours at the same time. So it's very, very frustrating. CAT: Oh, it must be. As I saw about the tour that you were doing with Hazel and I thought that's going to be a must see, so I'm not surprised to hear it's been sold out. TOYAH: It is still going to happen. And I think what will happen once we find a way of being out in the open safely. And I suppose the most obvious way that's going to happen is a vaccine. I think we're going to have a decadent 20s. We're going to go back 100 years to a lifestyle of complete decadence. I think we're all like pressure cookers waiting to go off. And we're gonna party party party.  

And I know from talking to venues and promoters from my side, the venues need as much help as they can get. So even though this year was going to be one of the busiest years of my life, I think next year is going to be beyond the busiest years of all our lives because we're going be opening the venues, helping the venues, keeping those venues running almost 24 hours a day so that the rock economy can get back on its feet. I think next year, technically, and kind of wishful thinking is going to be an incredible year. 

CAT: I think that's a really good observation. You could be right, as long as we can also hold on that long, which with the human spirit we will do. It will be like the end of the war years, won't it?

TOYAH: Yeah, we are in recession and I mean I've not earned a penny for 14 months. But you know I can survive. The passion to work and the passion to be in front of my audience is not diminishing - its growing and I think it's the same for everyone and come the point where we could all go out there and work I just think we are going to just run our socks off and make everything come back the way we knew it, but much better. CAT: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right and you do sound so passionate about stuff which is so refreshing with 40 years in the industry, you sound actually more alive now that you probably ever have done. TOYAH: Well, I think like many artists my age, I turn 62 on Monday, we're in control of our lives now and what we do we do because we really love it and I don't feel the pressure I was under in my 20’s. When you’re a new upcoming artist and you've got to just keep coming up when new looks, new music and it was relentless and I found it very very … it wasn't conducive to being creative, whereas these days where we can go about our lives as kind of sixty somethings, we’re driving the engine, we can put out there when we're ready to put out there and it makes life a lot more rewarding. CAT: Absolutely. I think the 60 is the new 40, isn't it?

TOYAH: I think it's the new 30’s personally ... CAT: Yes! (laughs) TOYAH: I didn't enjoy my 30’s so I'm determined that 60 is going to make up for that. CAT: The autumn years are the best years. So you’ve got lots and lots of strings to your bow. You started out in acting. You’re better known as a musician probably, but you do presenting, producing, voiceover, writing. That's a lot of balls to have in the air, Toyah. What’s your preference or are you just a good juggler?

TOYAH: I like to be busy and if I can do it and do it well, I'm gonna do it. Obviously I love music, but I can't relentlessly stay tuned in that way. It drains you. So I find going away doing a film, doing a stage play or voiceovering or making a documentary ... they refuel me. They kind of give me new ideas, they connect me to new people.     So I find it's all complimentary. It all helps the other, I find it very healthy and I think a lot of people are working that way. I know when I started in the business, I think 42 years ago, you couldn't do that. People wouldn't allow you to do that. There was so much snobbery in every area. But now I think you're able to do it and people still respect you and see you for what you are. CAT: I totally agree. Actually, it's more like the entertainment business now, isn't it? Rather than having those specific genres, that you couldn't crossover those boundaries, which I suppose I should say it helps your creativity in different areas? TOYAH: Yes, totally it does. I agree. But also, I think with the internet everything has become slightly diluted. I remember when I started my career I was at the National Theatre, I was 18 years old and this is in London and actors just wouldn't do voiceovers. Actors wouldn't do adverts. Stage actors wouldn't do TV and they had no money (both laugh)    

Learning from an actor who didn't act much but made over 75 K a year, 42 years ago, doing voiceovers, everyone was just dribbling at the thought of it so I think we live in a much more balanced world. I don't think people beat themselves up so much over those kind of snobberies anymore. CAT: That's true, that's possibly down to the internet, as you say, isn’t it and social media being a big influence really? TOYAH: For me this learning curve on this particular lockdown has been social media because I'm slightly technophobic and I've had to learn how to do it and I've had to turn it around to give myself presence and it's been a fabulous journey in that alone. I got my first 1.2 million hits on something I posted and all of that is such an important thing in this time - that you can stay connected to your audience via social media. So it's all a learning curve.  

I'm quite an insular person when I'm being creative, which is virtually everyday - it's a silent process. It's not a process where I want a phone in my hand, so I had to learn a way that I can connect to my fans through social media. And what I'm doing I absolutely love, and it's just posting slightly Dadaistic films to make them laugh. It's done me the world of good, my agent is calling me everyday and saying, "do you know so and so has just seen this" "do you know know they’ll book you because of this film" and it's worked and I'm very very grateful. 

CAT: It’s wonderful. I've been watching some of them, I've been having a right laugh at you with a tutu and Robert there doing it. Doing the Swan Lake impression which is wonderful! TOYAH: That’s the controversial one. It made the headlines in Italian newspapers that one because Italians pride themselves on being almost exclusively intellectual and for Robert (below with Toyah in 1997) to do that, my husband's Robert Fripp of the band King Crimson - for him to do that was blasphemous, and you had super über authors in Italy debating this and my husband is not kind man if you criticise him and he attacked these people online and again that was making headlines.     It’s well known in the industry if you diss my husband he’ll diss you a 100 time more (they both laugh) and this was making headlines and my husband found it very entertaining and last week having journalists say in an Italian newspaper, top newspaper, “Oh yes, I was reading an interview with Fripp” ... I mean not even having met him or interviewed him - “I read an interview with with Fripp and I came to the conclusion he’s a jerk” Boy, was that the red rag to the bull!

CAT: Oh dear! First of all it’s terrible for him to say that full stop, but not even sitting and meeting him ... 

TOYAH: Well, thats’s the power of … we all have a voice now, so it's just been very, very enlightening and at sometimes entertaining.   CAT: Absolutely and what's lovely about that. Is it still that rebellious side of your nature and Robert joining in there creating it for you, how wonderful is that? You're known for your rebellion, aren't you? TOYAH: Yeah, I think my rebellion is slightly kinder (they both laugh) But yes, I just never conformed to this thing about age. I think age is a privilege. I think the fact we live so long is a privilege, but it doesn't mean that I diminish and I’m just totally against this attitude, especially within the music industry.       I think it's improving in TV and film now but because a woman hits a certain age, she's no longer a sexually driven or desirable creature, and no longer has thoughts. That's changing but in the music business it's going to take a bit longer to do that. But thank goodness my audience and my generation still love what I do, and I always say to my audience the reason I'm standing on this stage is because of you. And it is you only so I'm really appreciative of that.

CAT: Yeah, I think that's a really great thing to say actually. We're still the same people even though we're ageing. Everybody's ageing. But there is this attitude against women, isn't there? And it's such a ridiculous concept that you're only desirable or you're only talented or whatever when you're young. It’s just bizarre ... TOYAH: Well, I mean obviously when we're young the energy is 10 times stronger. But I think the whole thing about growing old is we become better, we become enriched, we become deeper and that needs to be recognised and appreciated because we have so much to offer. We've been there, we've seen it. We've got the t-shirt. We know the warning signs. So we have just so much to give. I also think with the lockdown and everything with the internet being what it is, we've been able to explain ourselves a bit better because that's given us a platform.       But musically I find that OK, I'm still Toyah. I still have my voice. I still sound like Toyah. Technically I'm a better singer than I have ever been because when I started out I was singing through pure will and ambition and determination. Now I'm technically a singer. I'm really, really good at what I do and I just don't want to not use that, it's a gift. When it comes to writing, my writing is clearer. And I don't feel under pressure to do 4 albums a year, which people would have had me do 42 years ago.      

But the creativity and that flow, and the connection with my audience is very, very alive and I just don't want to be told that I should slow down. It's it's such a bizarre thing to be told when you can see your finite amount of time. I find myself speeding up and I'm trying to fill that time positively with the best work I can possibly do, because I know that is the memory I leave behind and memories have value. 

CAT: Absolutely. It’s your legacy isn't it and that's really your purpose on this world  is finite as you say, and to have something that you can in fact leave (which) is tangible and has touched so many people, it is absolutely wonderful. TOYAH: I know and I think prime examples of that is George Michael, Prince, Michael Jackson, Hendrix, Bowie. I mean, it's just such an example of the power of our lives. The power of our lives continue. So I really value the time I have. CAT: Yeah, I totally agree and it's great that you can actually tap into all that experience that you've had over the years and so your writing, for example, is possibly, as you say, more enriched because of it. TOYAH: Because experience, I just want my next album to be a danceable album. I  wanna go out next year and perform music where you see tens of thousands of people dancing and dancing because I think we all need to just celebrate this together.

CAT: Yeah, you're right. And it's nice to hear that you are saying that you want to do something a little bit different with that. That's your sort of your trademark really. Progressing through the years, doing something different through the years. I mean, just even going back to the early days, having such amazing hairstyles and the make-up and everything was very of the moment grabbing it while you could, but you changed and moved with the times and I think that's really good.

TOYAH: Yeah. There's two reasons for this. I'm auditioning for movies virtually every day. An I can't send a film in because at the moment because we’re all self- taping. I can't do that if I've got pink hair. You can't send a film to a world class director if you look like a punk rocker and you're reading for woman from the 18th century.   So I've I've had to kind of control my look and also I just didn't want to look or even attempt look how I did 42 years ago. It's not right. The only woman I know who can getaway with that is Sandra Rhodes because she is a designer. She's absolutely stunning. She's brilliant and that is her trademark. For me my trademark is energy and my voice so I just want to look good at 62. That's what I want. CAT: Yeah, absolutely. And don't you just, I have to say. I'm admiring your your your energy, your look and everything. You look wonderful to have to say. So I tell you what we're going to do. We're going to play “Sensational” just for you off your album “In The Court of The Crimson Queen” because you are. We will be right back in a moment.

CAT: (after the song) What I was going to talk about was about this idea of conformism and rebellion. Have you found that actually that has left you that feeling of wanting to rebel and you just held onto the energy and tapping into your experience? Or is there still something that you feel that you can rebel against?     TOYAH: I feel as though I rebel every day and it's purely that kind of theme of agesism and again I also feel I rebel every day because since I got married 34 years ago I've always been the little woman at home in the eyes of men. I rebel against that all the time, so my rebellion is ongoing. It's slightly more sophisticated.   I'm not a political person and I think where rebellion is very, very valuable is in the political field, but I just don't think that way. So my rebellion is is a lot more gentle, but it's definitely there and it's definitely a way of life.   And part of that is I just will not conform to someone else's view of what a woman should be and that will always be with me. Apart from that I think within my work my rebellion is still there because again, I just don't think I can conform. I don't fit in and this started when I moved into the outside world at the age of four and a half and went to school, I just realised I was never going to quite fit in.  

And if you're always a square peg trying to fit into a round hole, you're not in the right place. You find your place and for me it's by being observationally different. So I am just me and I won't kind of hone those edges ...

CAT: Yeah, I read some of the interviews you’ve obviously done before, saying you had like a violent childhood and you were sort of kicking back against everything. Do you look back at that now and think that you overreacted to things? Or was that just part and parcel of growing up and trying to hone this energy? TOYAH: OK, my background I wouldn't say was violent. It was mentally aggressive. It was psychologically cruel. So I didn't understand this until I was an adult. So my rebellion was I had to get out of that situation and I had to have my independence and that still remains. Whenever I feel trapped, that just still remains, I need my independence.   It made me very solitary and distrusting. I'm a bit better on the trust front. My background was an all girls school where the clever, clever girls attacked the non-clever girls. Slight physical disability that amused many people a lot of the time.

My nickname was Hopalong and an exceptionally unkind mother who thought she was being kind. So my reaction was over the top, but it was my way of surviving so I think that's definitely made me what I am today. My mother and I reconciled in the last two years of her life, but even two weeks before she died we were having ferocious shouting matches. We were just not made for each other and that happened but we still loved each other. I held her as she died. So you can still experience love for someone that you just will never ever agree with. CAT: Personalities, isn't it? Everybody is an individual and you've got have your own life that you need to lead. And people need to recognise that and give freedom, don't they?

TOYAH: Yeah, but I would also say for anyone out there that nurture above everything is all that counts. If you have a child and your child pisses you off - nurture is the only thing that works. The only time I feel I've ever really had nurture is when I met my husband, who is phenomenal at nurture. And he's taught me so much about giving nurture back. It's a very, very powerful creative thing to do. And mean, I remember I phoned my mother in 1982 when I won Best Female Vocalist in what is now the Brit Awards (above). And she said, "well don't boast about, it will never happen again". And I ignored it ... and I explained what the award looks like. She says "don't fall on it - it will kill you. I mean, she did not have one good thing to say to me in 55 years.     CAT: Sounds a bit like jealousy though, to be honest ... TOYAH: She had a similar background, I think something terrible happened to her when she was young. If she'd had therapy and could talk about it we would have got over it. But I am who I am because I have been in self-defence for so long.  

I think that's made me feel a lot of empathy towards those I work with and towards my audience because I just realise how damaging negativity is and it's why I kind of don't engage personally on a daily level on social media as I've had so many years of just being pushed back all the time that my tolerance is non existent so I lose myself in my work and by bringing other people joy and that's my way of nurturing and it's hugely important to me. Hugely import. CAT: Yeah, sounds lovely. Part of that nurturing of course is releasing material, isn't it that you know that is going to partly be your legacy, but it sounds to me like it's important that it moves somebody emotionally as well? 

TOYAH: Yeah, I think I definitely agree. I think it's very important when you're writing to be truthful to yourself, but also to remember someone is going to be listening to it and I feel very responsible about that. When I've written my most intensely emotional stuff – a song on my album last year “In The Court Of The Crimson Queen” is called “Dance In The Hurricane”, which is about the loss of my parents.   And when that came out, the response was huge and I think it was just holding a mirror up and people seeing themselves. And there was recognition. So I think it's really important to write about things that help people recognise in themselves and it's taken me a long time to get there. A long time, which is why I'm pretty determined to keep writing. CAT: And in your tour with Hazel are you going to be touching upon some of this kind of material? What's that going to look like when people actually come to see you? TOYAH: I think my tour with Hazel is going be a non-stop party (they both laugh) Because of circumstance and everything. Hazel and I have a lot of hits and we both agree we’re doing the hits! But luckily my album last year was a hit so we will be doing “Dance In The Hurricane” and “Sensational” which was a single off it and other tracks. But I've had well over 14 Top 40 hits. They're gonna be in there and the same with Hazel.  

So we've already rehearsed (below). I mean, obviously we're going to have to rehearse again. We didn't expect a 2 year break or whatever, so it will be our hits. Hazel wants to open because she works in a trio. And then my band will come on and work with her. There will be an interval, then I come on and that's nothing to do with star billing. It's just the way that the sonics work at the evening. And then Hazel and I do  a set together and it's going to be absolutely wonderful. It it is going to be riotous. 

CAT: It sounds amazing. I can't wait to see it actually, I have to say, you're sold out but you must put more dates on because people are going to be listening to this thinking I've got to go to that! TOYAH: There will be tickets available because obviously we're rescheduling so everyone that's got tickets those tickets are valid, but if you can't make the date we're rescheduled to those tickets become available so it's all on my website toyahwilcox.com, two L's in Willcox. All the information and the updates are there. So if you want to come, look at the venue and see if they have availability. Because this is a very fluid experience. Everything is changing weekly so just keep informed. CAT: Yeah, keep an eye there and in the meantime they can of course buy your DVD anthology for Toyah and The Humans, can't they?

TOYAH: On the 3rd of July Toyah and The Humans is a 3 CD box set that's also going to have accompanying vinyl coming out as well. This is my very experimental art rock band with Bill Rieflin, who was the drummer in REM. It's three albums that we made together. The first album is very stripped down. I wanted to do music that was completely stripped bare and then the second album “Sugar Rush” is really rocky and it’s phenomenal. And then the third album “Strange Tales” is melodic and beautiful. And so the whole 3 albums is a kind of harmonic journey.   Also out at the moment is Toyah "Solo” and that is albums that I have released since about 1985 and that is a beautiful package. So that is “Minx”, “Desire”, “Ophelia’s Shadow”, Take The Leap!, Velvet Lined Shell”. That's a real  fan collector’s piece and also we've got “In The Court of The Crismon Queen”, so there's a lot going on. All those are on Demon, which is part of the BBC and then next year all my early albums come out. So it's kind of a huge year for me. We've got “Blue Meaning”, “Anthem”, “Sheep Farming In Barnet”, “Toyah! Toyah! Toyah!”, “The Changeling”. They’re all being re-released.

CAT: Wow, that's brilliant. And what a treat for everybody to actually be able to get their hands on those and they look amazing from what I’ve seen and also you're doing some vinyl as well, aren't you?

TOYAH: The vinyl is beautiful. Everything that I'm rereleasing is multi coloured and the vinyls are just gorgeous! Every colour in the spectrum. There's quite a lot of vinyl out there. “In The Court Of The Crimson Queen” has crimson vinyl. Toyah “Solo” each CD has a different colour of the CD. With The Humans you've got a beautiful deep egg yolk yellow. You've got a wonderful kind of chaki bright olive green and then you've got a wonderful purple colour for “Strange Tales”. It is just the most beautiful packaging. CAT: I wouldn't expect anything less from you, Toyah. Let's be honest, you’re colourful in every single way. It's absolutely wonderful. So I think people need to go on your website and have a look at all that, because there's plenty to see. Plenty to watch and obviously with you on social media is very entertaining as well. TOYAH: And there's also a lovely website which is a fan site. It’s an archive site called   toyah.net and that's phenomenal. Davie, who runs that knows more about me than I do. He knows when I'm about to do TV before I know it ... He really is ahead of the game and I love that website. So you’ve got  toyahwillcox.com and toyah.net if you really want to stay informed that's all you need see

CAT: It's all there for the taking, isn’t it? It's been a pleasure speaking to you, you’re an absolute sensation, let’s say it that way and I'm sure this is going to be a very very popular interview. So can't wait to see you when you're on tour again. I'll be there. TOYAH: Thank you! CAT: Have a lovely day and stay safe! TOYAH: OK, bye for now! CAT: Take care, bye bye! You can listen to the interview here

#toyah #toyah willcox #toyahwillcox #toyah2020 #toyah 2020 #toyah interview #toyahinterview #podcast #the toyah willcox interview archive #thetoyahwillcoxinterviewarchive

[toyahinterviews]

This was released on the Sheep Farming In Barnet box set in 2020 TOYAH: I was spotted on the streets of Birmingham because I had green and yellow hair in 1975, and I hadn't heard of the Sex Pistols, but by 1975 I was already making my own clothes and I was a hair model and I was highly, highly unusual.   And I was going to drama school in Birmingham and to try and make this short two directors, the Bicat brothers were looking for a young girl for a BBC2 play, who could play a girl who breaks into the Top Of The Pop studios to sing a song and she gets caught and arrested and they could not find this girl because everyone they were auditioning had been to drama school and they were just too polished. And someone at BBC Pebble Mill said, you've really got to go and see this girl with green and yellow hair. She dresses at the local theaters. She goes to the local theater school and she does extra work on dramas at Pebble Mill. So they came to see me and basically I ended up doing their play. I wrote the songs with Bilbo Baggins, those two songs in it. Phil Daniels was playing my boyfriend and Noel Edmunds was playing himself.  

When that showed on TV, three months later the world superstar Maximilian Schell, who's a big German actor, absolute superstar, was watching this with Kate Nelligan and they were casting for a National Theatre play. And they both said, "wow, that's Emma in "Tales From the Vienna Woods" ". And the next day I was at the National Theatre and never went home. 

I always intended to sing. I always intended to do both. Why? Because I can do both. And I wasn't brought up with any form of snobbery that said you couldn't do anything. Now, when I got to London at that time, and I'm talking about 1976, an actor couldn't do voiceovers and do stage. An actor couldn't do TV and do stage. An actor couldn't do film and do stage. Stage was just sacred.     So I found myself in this really lucky place being directed by Maximilian Schell, starring alongside Warren Clarke, Kate Nelligan, Elizabeth Spriggs, Brenda Blethyn. I was just with Oscar winners of the future and they all took me under their wing and they introduced me to musicians because the beauty about the National Theatre is all culture is under that roof. And I met a very charismatic boy from Golders Green called Glen Marks, and we had a band together. It was very brief, very quick, totally inspired by Velvet Underground and Lou Reed. And we were so heavily into cross dressing and gender fluidity and all of that.     And our first gig was Ford factory in Dagenham and it was just hysterical. It was in the cafe and we were really bad but Glen Marks introduced me to Joel Bogen because he realized that I needed to just take this further. And I was a lyricist and I had this phenomenal background, behind me with the National Theatre. So Glenn introduced me to his friend from Golders Green, and I think they went to school together.  

And Joel instantly trusted that I was going to be a band member and could produce the lyrics and produce songs along with him. And we just started this incredibly elongated rehearsal process, just getting gigs wherever we could. The beginning of making “Sheep Farming In Barnet” it was really quite eclectic. I had already been working at the National Theatre. I came to London when I was 18 years old and I met Joel Bogen when I was 18. And we very quickly realized that we are quite a creative bond together, but the journey from let's say 1977 through to when this album came out in 1978 was very, very disjointed. So Joel and I agreed that we needed to play as much as possible. And we played parties in Golders Green. We even played a synagogue. We played his school, his high school in Golden Green. And I was very much the odd girl out. It was really quite strange because I was a full on punk rocker who'd made the film "Jubilee" by this point. And Joel I think was a very overqualified musician for the kind of music that we were doing.     So at these parties we were covering Lou Reed, we were doing "Louie Louie", we were doing "Free Bird", we were doing Buddy Holly. We were literally doing anything we could play to keep us playing at these really riotous parties that went through the night. So there were many lineups before we actually hit on making the album. So the first line (below) up was Jonathan Miller on bass and Dave Robbins on drums, Pete Bush on keyboards, Joel on guitar and myself.  

We were all great friends and we'd meet up every Sunday at Pete Bush’s house in … I think it was Whealdstone and we would just improvise all day. So songs like "Gaoler", "Problem Child", they all were the beginning of Toyah. The band when we were playing at parties was very much Joel's creation and I think we were called Ninth Illusion.     And then because I was taking off as an actress and as a singer, ironically, because I went from the National Theatre into the movie “Jubilee”, which just launched me into the punk scene, along with Adam Ant, it associated me with Siouxsie Sioux, even though she walked away from the movie and it associated me with The Clash, Gene October, Jayne County, it was just the most phenomenal ascension into punk rock royalty. And at that point, Joel and the boys felt that the band should just be called Toyah. And I was getting a lot of attension for being a very charismatic actress and a very charismatic vocalist because I went on to the ICA to do a play with Stephen Poliakoff, Mel Smith, Antony Sher, Phil Daniels and I was singing in that. And then I got “Quadrophenia”.     So the band itself was just trying to hold itself together and almost being polarized by everything else that was going on around me, because there were big distractions because after “Jubilee” I ended up in a movie with Katherine Hepburn being directed by George Cukor, the biggest director in Hollywood in the golden age of film. And I can remember I missed the gig because I was stuck in Wales filming. So the band were very, very patient with me.     

But going back to my relationship with Joel and Pete Bush, that was the creative relationship. The writing process was really focused on Joel Bogen and myself and Pete Bush because we had endless endless days in rehearsal studios and Sundays we would go to Pete’s house and just jam and piece things together.     So I'd have a microphone. Pete would be in one corner on his keyboards, Joel, with his guitar amp. And we would just go through riffs, rhythms. I would sing on the spot, improvise on the spot and we'd start piecing things together that way. Joel, very fiery person, very overqualified to be in a punk band.     But I think what was quite unique about all three of us was we were heavily influenced by seventies music. And by that I mean, I'm from Birmingham. So by the time I was 11, I'd seen Hawkwind, Black Sabbath, Led Zepplin, Uriah Heep. I mean, I'd seen them all. And I broke into these venues to see these bands. I love Moody Blues.    

And when we started touring, which was pretty quick, the circuit to work on in '77, '78, '79 was just a river of gold because you could go into any pub and draw 2000 people and make headlines in the music papers. And that's what we were doing. And we weren't signed for a good year, but we were drawing 2000 people into ridiculously small venues and people were talking about us and didn't quite know how to make us out. They didn't know if we were punk, they didn't know we were new wave. They thought that we were pretentious in the way that we wrote our songs, but we were all learning on our feet.    

And I think the innocence of that is what brought the success to us because I don't think I was singer back then, but it was a great show woman. And I had phenomenal charisma and power, but I wasn't a good singer and Joel had great musical knowledge, but he was still to some extent learning to play. So we were all like kind of holding onto the back of the bus and getting a free ride to some extent. Pete Bush, very accomplished keeper keyboard player. But of course this was the advent of the synthesizer. So nothing was standing still. We were having to learn, learn, learn and we're having to fight this tide of everyone running to sign unsigned bands. Yet we were at the back of the queue.     We then I found a manager called Howard Abrahams, who was a lovely, lovely man. I remember he worked in Cornhill in the City, so he was obviously an accountant, but he started to get us agents and we ended up touring up and down the UK and everything just took off from there probably on the back of “Jubilee”, because that gave me a hell of lot of coverage. And I went round the whole of the country promoting that movie when it opened and getting gigs for the band.

So I think Joel, Pete Bush and I just managed and fought hard enough to win our audience in every kind of backstreet town there was. I mean we didn't play main cities for a good year. We were going up to little places outside Nottingham, little places outside Glasgow. We were just in the bus the whole time getting any gig that we could. But back then the word of mouth was through fanzines and fanzines sold really well. 

And we won such a following and we were very, very dedicated to our following and they ended up travelling with us. I can remember we had to get bigger and bigger buses so the fans could get on the bus with us. And the fans were really intelligent people. I remember they were becoming computer programmers.         So computers came out of my experience with fans and my boyfriend at the time who knew these phenomenally advanced computer programmers who told us all about the fact that one day computers will be able to record everyone's lives. We'll be able to hold messages forever. And there might be something like 24 hour TV on a computer.   So I learned all this from my fans who were hugely educated, who travelled with us or followed us in cars. We were like this incredibly romantic caravan called the Barmy Toyah Army and great, great friends, great friends. And what we used to do is we'd get to a venue, say, Oxbridge University and we knew because these people were following us all the time, they had no money.  

We would do the soundcheck, the venue would then close and go dark. And we would eat in the dressing room – well, we would go and open all the exits so all the fans could get in. And I can remember people with clickers back then who'd click everyone in the room so they knew how much they owed the band and they couldn't work out how they’d sold 200 tickets yet there were 1200 people in the venue. We just opened all the doors. I've had very few bleak moments in my life. And the bleakest was when “Jubilee” ended for a couple of months. This was 1977, where all we were doing was just meeting for rehearsals and there seemed to be nothing going on. And it was just tough because everyone was getting signed. Everyone. The Slits, X-ray Specs, Penetration and Gloria Mundi, I mean brilliant bands, but we felt that we were just being ignored and it was hard. It was really hard. But then suddenly something just kicked in and I think it was possibly “Quadrophenia” happening. It was possibly that I out of 2000 girls ended up starring in a movie opposite Katharine Hepburn, something just turned the corner. But there were bleak times where we just … we never thought what was the point because we all liked each other. And we liked what we were doing.

There was an incredible power in it and the audiences were there, but we weren't being noticed by the record companies and people like Rough Trade just didn't like us. So we did have our haters. And I think for a couple of months, the haters were winning, but then you can't ignore the amount of people that were coming to see us. 

And the turning point might've been that we actually got gigs at the Nashville Room (in Kensington, London, above). Everyone went to the Nashville, Bowie we saw The Human League at the Nashville. Just everyone played the Nashville. And I think that was a turning point. And we ended up on the bill at the Lyceum without Adam Ant and Psychedelic Furs. And at that point I think I was winning over a very critical audience and we just started to be accepted.     I just remember, even when I was hugely successful, when "Sheep Farming" came out, "Blue Meaning" came out, "Toyah! Toyah! Toyah!" and I had an hour long documentary at 9:00 PM on ITV. This is long before the hit singles. People took great joy in saying they hated Toyah but we were filling 5,000 people venues. So at that point, you think, well, go fuck yourselves! We’re doing something we're doing something right!     So the distractors or detractors, you just think, no, you've lost your power. You've lost your power, mate. And I still think that now, time is the great proof. And we're still filling quite amazing venues. So it was tough. But I think once I realized to not center to my reality and see myself through other people's kind of critical bitching, that I should just carry on being me and we should carry on writing in the style that we wrote in, which was natural to us. It wasn't contrived.

And I remember what really didn't help with John Peel just loathed us. John Peel said that we were a contrived manufactured band. What we weren't, we were struggling musicians. And I think when John Peel said that it really was an uphill struggle, especially getting America to take notice.    

And what turned the corner for "Sheep Farming In Barnet" was actually it was licensed in Germany as an EP before the UK and Germany contacted, I think a distributor and said, "we are exporting this to the UK. Why is this woman not signed in the UK?" And that was a turning point - the demand. So there were definitely tough times.

When we go our record deal, by this time I was already filming “Quadrophenia” and “Quadrophenia” was the movie to be in. I was on the poster immediately with Sting, with Phil Daniels, with Leslie Ash. And my role in “Quadrophenia” isn't huge, but the kudos was much, much bigger. And I had to be reminded of this because I'd forgotten, but we had done a gig at the ICA (above) and the review was so blinding.     The review said that if this band isn't signed, the music business has failed. If  Toyah Willcox doesn't become a worldwide superstar the music business has failed. If this music doesn't take over everybody's life, the music business has failed. I mean, it was a most blinding review and unbeknownst to us, an independent label called Safari, run by Anthony Edwards and John Craig, read this review and called our then manager Howard Abrahams for a showcase. Well,  I was in Brighton shooting “Quadrophenia” so I came up one lunchtime and we had a kind of music room near Waterloo that we met everyone in. We performed three songs and they signed us on the spot. That's really where the real Toyah band started because it presented certain problems. And the main problems were none of us had really been in a recording studio proper.        

We'd done one session to do demos somewhere in Cambridge. We did three songs and I think “Problem Child”, “Computer” and “Last Goodbye”. And I found those phenomenally difficult to do. I cannot sing with headphones on, I sing in an open space and I was too young and too naive to realize that that was what was causing my tuning problem. So we were all dealing with these things, how do you go from a life space that is so electric, so ionised and alive into the sterilized space of a studio.

So once we were signed, we were put into Chappel Warner Studios to start recording potentially what was going to be an EP produced by Steve James, just the most fantastic producer. By this time I started an association with a band called Blood Donor and Keith Hale, who wrote “It's A Mystery”, even though I wrote the second verse.     So when we started recording “Sheep Farming In Barnet” which started as an EP and moved into an album, we found ourselves using some of the Blood Donor musicians but eventually we had some auditions and we arrived at Steve Bray and Mark Henry, but on the actual album it was a really eclectic journey for Joe Bogen, Pete Bush and myself, but we held it together and we were really so impassioned and so grateful for being signed that nothing was going to break us and we just had to learn on our feet.

When we were working with Keith Hale and Steve James, initially we were only working with Steve James, if my memory serves me well. And Steve felt that you had to bring Keith Hale in. Keith Hale had a band called Blood Donor and really that band, even though it didn't hit big heights influenced the whole of the synthesizer movement that came from that into the 80's. I mean, everything Keith Hale did got copied. Just a phenomenal musician, phenomenal sound person. He could create these sound landscapes and these sound stories.     So he was brought in and it wasn't comfortable. It really wasn't comfortable. And he was deeply deeply sensitive about this because Pete Bush was our keyboard player and and co-writer and here was Keith Hale kind of having almost authority over Pete Bush. It was very, very difficult.

 We had to do a lot to rebuild Pete Bush's confidence. Why has this other person had been brought in but in hindsight Keith Hale's presence took away from, and I mean this positively, he took away from Joel, mine and Pete’s influences that weren't doing our individuality any favour and what I mean by that was we were heavily influenced by what could be called as prog rock bands. And Keith Hale came in and just kind of rubbed all that out. And he just added these sequences and arrangements that kind of put intense originality into this album.     They all tried to contain and keep what Bush, Bogen, Willcox created. To some extent we went beyond that if we needed to do extra tracks, we needed to do improvisations. We’d then create those in the recording studios at Chappel Warner with Keith kind of guiding us through. But Keith was on tender hooks because we were all ferociously guarded our own individual creativity. I very much remained the lyricist because I just wasn't interested in anyone else's lyrics. And my lyrics are very visual. Joel was very guarded about his creativity because his creativity is based in jazz and a lot of that is in the notation and the chords and the keys he was choosing. He had his particular favorite keys and they're very repetitive in these early albums.   

And Keith, Joel, Pete and I, we went on to tour together, we worked together on other albums. He never really left our lives. He was a really, really good man and he was a kind man, but it was hard creatively. It's as if the studios became a pressure cooker. But once all of that was ironed out, we just got on with it. And we had a lot to learn about the technique of making something sound vital and in the moment within a recording studio, but we definitely had teething problems.

I would definitely say it at an end of a recording day there was no job satisfaction because I was going out to the studio thinking, how am I going to learn to sing in this environment? I found it phenomenally hard because as I always, I mean, even today, I sing with one ear available to the room and I get my harmonics from the room.     And I was forced into this environment where everything was pressing into my head. The guitar was too loud. The drums was too loud and I didn't know how to communicate. So at the end of each recording day on “Sheep Farming In Barnet” I was coming out thinking this journey is going to be very, very long. I've got so much to learn.   And I think we all felt like that but we'd go back in the studio the next day and we'd listened through and I'd go "no, I've got to do that vocal again. It's sharp, it's sharp. It's flat. I've got to do it again!" But we had the time to do that. I had the time to go away and for my ears to recover, because everything back then was about volume. There was no subtlety. We played with the same volume in the studio than we did at Lyceum. I mean, it was like hell. So we were learning, we were sensitive to each other but I did not walk away from that album going, wow, yeah, we've cracked it.

Do you know, the first time I realized that this album was utterly unique and utterly special was in 1994 when I visited again, listened to it and I thought fuck me! We were completely ahead of the game! Everything we did was ahead of the eighties and nineties. I just think it's one of the most relevant the albums of all time. I really do. Safari were very creative with their promotion. So they were doing flexi discs in magazines. Free tracks is a pretty glorious thing to be able to do back then. They would have me do special meets and greets with the fans. They wanted material, material, material and they put us into a rehearsal room in Vauxhall virtually every day of the week, which put great pressure on us to write as much as we could, but they made it all possible. They really did invest in us and they were very much like family.     

Tony Edwards was just a glorious person to us. He didn't understand us, but he gave us everything he could. John Craig, I think was slightly bemused because he was very passionate about West End songs, West End musicals. So there was huge polarization going on there, but Safari were very, very good to us. And they got in the pluggers, they got in the PR teams, they got in the distributors, they did everything right and it just started working very well very quickly.

It's really interesting that “Victims Of The Riddle” (above) became the very first single off it, when you look at classics like “Neon Womb”, “Waiting”, “Computer”, “Last Goodbye”, “Indecision”. I mean they're just absolutely fabulous potential singles. I think I was fighting for pure originality. That was really, really important to me that how we presented Toyah the band was it wasn't going to sound like any other band or any other band fronted by a female.     “Victims Of The Riddle” and this is how it is in my memory. I think Joel might remember it differently so I'm going to tell you both stories. I can't remember if we were in Warner Chappel or we were in the Marquee Studios, but it was about one in the morning. Keith Hale created a sequence, di di di di di di di di di and I said I want to do an improvisation over that and I had a poem which was “Victims Of The Riddle” and it was about vivisection.

And I went in and I just did this incredibly off the wall, using every inch of my vocal chords, this improvisation. We went away, Keith edited it into something that he could form a song around and then Joel put the guitar on. Now, I think Joel's memory is that Keith and he created it and then I improvised it. I'm really can't tell you which is the truth or what the actuality was, but it came from an improvised vocal. It was completely off the wall and I was really, really proud of it.     And then you get to try and perform it live and you think, what the hell have you done to yourself, girl?! I mean, this is a voice wrecker! So it was very, very hard to perform live and we still get requests for it now and I have to work out how are we going to do it? Because it's like (makes high noises) It really is ...just goes beyond the pale of vocality.

So I chose the image because of punk rock. The story is about the mummies of Guanajuato and this is a town in Mexico where the gangs would put a kind of borderline around the towns. And if you came into the town, you and your family would be murdered. You be mummified and you'd be hung up on posts.     So that's where the imagery came from. It was real life, cultural gang war in Mexico. Long, long time ago, all these bodies are now in a museum. And I had a book about this. I was very into books about different world culture from Kabuki, right through to the Masai, to the tribes of Papua New Guinea. The visuals were just the best and the most beautiful and the most inspiring. So I knew about these mummies and I'm wildly against vivisection. I'm wildly against any form of animal testing. I loathed the makeup business for having a six billion money pot for testing on animals when really humans were willing to be the guinea pigs. So all of that was about my feeling about how animals were treated.    

So on the back of the artwork for “Sheep Farming In Barnet” there is a picture of someone killing a rat by breaking its neck and there's just the word “why?” and I just felt why and who funds this kind of behaviour, funds this industry when there are so many human beings out there who are willing to be guinea pigs for the future of science. So again, Safari and the band actually agreed to this because I just think it’s a brutal world and sometimes you have to have the most brutal images to make the most vital points.    

And also you've got to remember the whole humanity thing back then. Joe Bogen, a Jewish boy from Golders Green. Well, we'd be playing up and down the country with the National Front recruiting in the audience. At some concerts we were just downing our instruments and going in there with fists flying. So we were trying to kind of conserve respect for everyone.     We'd been through the mill critically. We'd been misrepresented to a certain extent in music papers. And yet we were really passionate about what we believed in. So I think we just hit the ground running with that one. I think Safari backed to us all the way that it was going to be the most original band ever and completely off the wall and that seemed to be very suitable for the punk ethos at that time. Do you know I don't think I expected “Sheep Farming In Barnet” to chart. It would have just been too good to be true. And I think part of that is I knew “Victims Of The Riddle” was so obscure that it wasn't everybody's cup of tea, but when the first indie chart started “Victims Of The Riddle” was number one in the first indie chart for 12 months, it never left the number one spot. That for me made me incredibly proud, incredibly proud.    

And I think it said to the band, we're on the right track, this is okay but I never expected to enter the mainstream charts. I was just not physically beautiful enough and I didn't play the game with men that a lot of women in the industry had to play back then. I was very much, third gender and what I mean by that no gender. And you know, that didn't play well in music back then. And I probably held the band back with that. So I think “Blue Meaning” was the first album went to number two in the album charts. And I think it like what the fuck?! It’s gone in the charts! Are you kidding me!? So I don't think I was surprised at all   

Our album designer, Bill Smith, at the time, wonderful, wonderful album designer, would come to us and say, "well, what do you want? What do you want to do?" And I'd seen a picture of the early warning system, which is up in Yorkshire and it's three balls and if you take the picture at the right angle, there's this beautiful perspective.     And I said, "well, I want a picture of that, but my head is the fourth ball." And in those days you couldn't Photoshop anything or you didn't kind of cut a picture out and stick it on. So we drove up to Yorkshire, Bill Smith, myself, my then boyfriend, Jem Howard and we broke in because it was an RAF site and it was the nuclear early warning systems. So the public weren't allowed on. And I sat in the car, I did my makeup in the car, which actually was blue. I had a blue face but Bill also managed to bring a blue light and as we took the picture, we could see all these trucks, the security trucks coming towards us, and Bill said "keep going, keep going. We've got the picture, we've got the picture". And I said "right, give me the film". The film went down my pants, we got arrested and escorted off the site, but we got the picture.

Joel lived in Golders Green, I lived in Wealdstone, which was just before Barnet. So every day I drove out of Golders Green, towards Barnet past a sheep farm on the A406. I mean bang in the middle of London, in one of the busiest places of London, there was a field full of sheep. So that's where the title came from. My image choices and my choices of artwork were very much to provoke because there was no way I was going to do sexy artwork. There was no way I was going to be reclining looking demure on a sofa. It just wasn't going to happen. So I wanted to put things on the album covers that I was interested in that also reflected in my lyrics. I've always put kind of strange little clues and symbolisms in the lyrics. I've always put hidden meaning in and I wanted the artwork to kind of reflect that as well. I've always been really interested in the fact that I just do not believe this life is the only thing. So I've always kind of studied anyone or anything to do with the paranormal.  

And when I moved to London, I was able to go to Foyle's bookshop and spend every penny I ever earned on the third floor, which was the paranormal floor. I mean, I have paranormal libraries. And I discovered Nostradamus and it was just like oh my God! Oh my God! Because you always get within the evolution of the human race people that see into the future. Leonardo DaVinci saw into the future. Nostradamus saw into the future. In fact, many, many more have and they've all documented it in books. And it's believed that the Vatican were collecting all these books and hiding them because the whole point of religion is you control people through the fear of death. Which I don't believe in.     So anyway, reading Nostradamus and I come across something that related to the book of revelations in the Bible and it's the Twin Towers falling. And I thought that just has to go on the back cover because it's just like a wake up call. So we put it on the cover. No one was interested. I mean, this is what was really interesting. Absolutely no one was interested until the Twin Towers fell and the boy, the amount of letters I started getting. Why did you put that on the back cover in 1978? And I said "read Nostradamus."    

I never meant to court controversy, unless there was any way of changing something that I thought caused so much pain to people - like vivisection. I never wanted to court controversy for the sake of controversy. I wasn't that kind of person. I like a peaceful life. I went to an all girls school. I didn't like one second of it. I was governed by fear the whole of my life. I was always told I was not good enough that nothing would come true for me. And I just don't believe that. If you have a positive mindset, you can make the world yours. So I just wanted to kind of preach that. I was asked to play Toolah in “Shoestring” (below) with Trevor Eve and it was just the luckiest break in the world and I think that came about because of “Quadrophenia” the movie, but also I think Safari was so in tune with promotion that they offered the music. So they used “vivisection” (EDIT: She means “Victims Of The Riddle”) as the kind of background music in the drama of "Shoestring". And then we performed “Danced”, I think “Neon Womb” and there was another song that we performed.   

It was an absolute blessing. This shot us fame wise into everyone's homes. It made Toyah a household name cause “Shoestring” was one of the biggest dramas on BBC at that time. So for the music to be used, I think it's a very obvious choice and it's a wise choice. If you're going to take a relatively well-known singer and have a play a part in your play, but to actually use the singer's music. It was the best thing that could happen. And we won so many fans from that. And a lot of fans who have been following us up that point it kind of gave the tip of the hat towards them, that the artist they believed in was now being recognized enmasse as well 

I see the end of the seventies as a very, very special time. And even though absolutely everything that happened to me was absolute gift from heaven I assumed it was because everyone was experiencing this very special time. So we got the Old Grey Whistle Test, which we recorded I believe in Edinburgh. We were on with Jerry Lee Lewis, which was incredibly exciting. I knew who Jerry Lee Lewis was. And I remember that my management were absolutely adamant I would not be alone in the dressing room with him. Well, he was fine. He was fabulous! He wanted to meet me. I sat down in his dressing room, we talked for an hour. He was just brilliant. And I don't think I was just assuming this happened to every artist. I just felt that I was on the crest of a cultural wave because the end of the seventies was changing like no other time in my life. Punk had changed the goalposts. You had your big superstars, like the Jackson Five were still going,  Elton John was still going. You had Rod Stewart, you had the big bands, you had   The Rolling Stones but something was allowing the smaller people in. And it was a very, very exciting time to be young.

I feel very passionately that the Safari catalogue has not been exploited in the last 30 years in the right way. I feel very passionately about that because I've had to fight against the tide as an artist to keep it alive and keep it going because I believe in it. Obviously I believe in it but I believe in it because it's so utterly groundbreaking. “Sheep Farming In Barnet” is groundbreaking.     The sounds, the arrangements, the songs, the originality, they really deserve a larger audience. And sadly within the world of music, if product isn't out there and if people aren't being told that this is groundbreaking, they don't always discover it for themselves. So I just look back on “Sheep Farming In Barnet” and I think you are a remarkable album. When I’m long gone you are going to remain a remarkable album  

Record Reviews     The album in Official Toyah     Stream the album on Spotify     See alternative versions of the album in Discogs    

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[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH TALKS SOLO

This interview was released with the SOLO box set in 2020 

THIS BOX SET KICKS OFF IN 1985 WHEN YOU HAD OFFICIALLY GONE SOLO. HOW DID THAT FEEL AT THE TIME? TOYAH: It's quite terrifying becoming a solo artist, even though up until 1985 for seven, eight years the band was called Toyah. But we were a band and we all composed together as a band, and eventually as what happens with everything where you've got a very dominant lead singer - happened with Debbie Harry and Blondie, it's the record labels only wanted me. And it was kind of heartbreaking at the time because not only did I have writing bonds with my musicians, they were my friends as well and they were long friendships but I think there was an inevitability about me going solo. I’d done five incredibly successful albums. I was the main top line writer and the lyricist. So I was creating melody lines as well as the lyrics. So it felt natural as well as quietly terrifying to go solo. And the first solo album was "MINX". I was signed to CBS Portrait label. I was working with Christopher Neil, the legendary record producer, and he allowed me to continue writing with people I knew and trusted. My long-term collaborator Simon Darlow was also involved on that album.   

And it was the beginning for me of a very long creative period in my life where I managed to walk away from the predictable, from formulaic writing and go into more experimental areas as well. Christopher Neil was absolutely adamant that I was going to do two covers. He was in love with two songs – “Sympathy”  and the other one was “America For Beginners” and “World In Action” - there were three. I'm not sure if they all made it onto the album, but they were fantastic songs. Absolutely brilliant, ahead of their time songs. 

“Sympathy” allowed me to really express myself as a adult serious vocalist, who started in the punk movement, who started as an expressionist vocalist and it allowed me to be the musician vocalist. And what I mean by that is interpret the song note by note, stave by stave. There was not room for Toyah to be expressionistic in that performance. I had to be how I'd be in the West End, say, if I was starring in “Cabaret”, which I've done, is you are following someone else's notation. "Sympathy" worked beautifully and is a magnificent piece. And we had an orchestra. It was relatively hard to sing emotionally because I get very emotionally effected by music and sometimes I just can't stop crying. It's caused numerous problems in the past, we just had to kind of approach the song daily until I could stop being over emotional and could just get on and do the job and sing it. "Sympathy" was one of those experiences. "America For Beginners" - it was such a gift to do because I literally only was required to virtually whisper it. And it has this huge explosive chorus where we employed backing singers, which was new to me because in most of my solo work and with the Toyah band I did every voice. I did all the backing vocal layering as well as the main vocals but Christopher Neil likes to work with backing singers and on "America For Beginners" all I had to do was control my breath and literally whisper the song. 

It was a really satisfying thing to do, which kind of led to me taking that further with the albums "Prostitute" and the "Ophelia’s Shadow" and “World In Action” which is just a really great middle of the road, very eighties song but I'm glad I did them. They didn't feel like cover of versions to me because I was singing them.

My voice is very unique. It's obviously my voice and I was grateful for the experience. "School's Out" was one of my all time favorite songs. "School’s Out" kept me sane when I was at school. I was such a big Alice Cooper fan. "School's Out", "Billion Dollar Babies", "Second Coming". Those are the first albums I bought. I absolutely have always been in love with Alice Cooper and everything he represented. So "School's Out" was with my choice. THE VISUALS ON THIS ALBUM WERE VERY STRIKING. WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO CREATE THE VIDEOS AND PHOTOS?

TOYAH: I think it was Morris Oberstein who came up with the idea of pairing me with Terrence Donovan and I think Terence Donovan wanted to work with me. Now,  Terence Donovan created the iconic supermodel. He, for me, was the one that created that term later on ... while I'm barely five foot tall and here he was stuck working with me when he was used to working with women over six foot. But my favorite designer was Issey Miyake.   Issey Miyake agreed to let me wear his structures. Now, there's this bamboo structure on the front cover of "MINX", which is basically a jacket, but it's made out of bamboo, there (on the cover) with the fiberglass breast plates which he made for Grace Jones. And the one I was wearing believe was modelled on Grace Jones.  

It was fabulous being able to use his creations and work with Terrence Donovan as with all iconic fashion photographers and I've worked with them all briefly or many times over. They're very irreverent to you. They swear at you, it's an experience - you got to be tough.   And Terrence Donovan liked me enough to want to shoot the video to “Love’s Unkind” (sic) (EDIT: She means “Don’t Fall In Love”) and I discovered the rubber dress (above), which was a relatively new thing back then. I just said "I want to be wearing this" because I'd never been particularly feminine in my work up until then and I felt that this really feminised me for “Don't Fall In Love” and it was just an absolute dream come true to wear it. THE FOLLOW-UP ALBUM "DESIRE" HAD SOME REALLY FRESH SOUNDS SUCH AS A STICK GUITAR ON "REVIVE THE WORLD". HOW DID THIS COME ABOUT? TOYAH: When we made "Desire" I'd been married to Robert (Fripp) (below with Toyah) since May of that particular year. And the first thing I did when I met Robert was start to learn his tuning. Robert works on a guitar, but all the strings are a fifth higher than normal tuning. So I had to re-learn all that tuning to write and play guitar. And that really changes the whole emotional approach of the music. It makes it much tenser and it kind of heightens the emotion of the songs. So most of the songs for "Desire" were written in that tuning and that was the way I wanted to go. If I've done something once, I then move on. So the albums prior to "Desire" they're done, they're done and dusted. They sit there in their moment in their time. I'm not interested in making a formula from the last album. So the writing on "Desire", which was mainly me, with things like "Revive The World", "Sun Up", "Moonlight Dancing", they were all done with this specific kind of tuning that Robert invented. And then I would take the riffs to Robert and his team of Crafty Guitarists, which is a guitar orchestra and I'd say "let's take this somewhere". And we went into Abbey Road and had all these guitarists in a circle and put the backing tracks down.

Originally for "Desire" I wanted to go back to the producer Steve James (who produced "Sheep Farming In Barnet" and "The Blue Meaning") because we had a particular relationship that was very anarchic in the studio. It was very organic. We would just take something and use it in a way I'd never been used before. And he understood how I like to build banks of vocals. But Steve James by this time was working in and living in Australia and was working in the dance movement. So it was just wildly inconvenient for him to get to England.

And Mike Hedges, who has a fabulous pedigree of working with Sioxsie and The Banshees was available and agreed to come and produce the album, which was for me, you know, big pedigree stuff. That was fantastic. And Mike was very sympathetic towards what I wanted to do with "Desire". I wanted to move into a place that I had never worked in before, a complete audio spectrum I'd never placed my voice in thus all the guitars we were using, all the layering we were using.   It was to be not to take Toyah in a new direction, but for Toyah to experience a new direction. And we recorded many songs in this style and Mike Hedges and Haydn Bendall completely supported this and it may not have been super commercial, but it was representative of the artist.

So we were working in Abbey Road and it was a very exciting place to be. I mean, Abbey Road is the centre of the universe when it comes to music. And we were in the Beatles studio, we had the Beatles four track machines, (they) were actually in the studio next to me as I sang. So the history there was just fantastic. But slowly A&R men started to sneak in and also the album and I think the label I was assigned to then got signed to Virgin and Virgin only wanted super commercial hits. And that wasn't the place I was mentally at. I was too interested in taking writing in a new direction, but what we tried to do with the box set is introduce the songs or re-introduce the songs that the record label took off, which I think give continuity back to the album. THERE IS A TRACK IN THIS BOX SET CALLED "MESMERISED" THAT FANS MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT. CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT  THIS TRACK? TOYAH: I wrote "Mesmerized" with Nicky Graham just after he was writing with Bros. And I I've always had a good relationship with Nicky and I love this track. I absolutely love it. And we could only find it on a cassette. The record label we think destroyed the tapes because I was just adamant that this was the single and we managed to find this rough mix and to re-treat it. And when I heard it for the first time, after 20 odd years ... it just broke my heart because it's so right, it is such a great song full of potential, which I was not allowed to complete.

And I think it's a great story for women to know and for young artist’s to know about whether you stand your ground and have a record label refuse to release your album, or you go with the record label. I went with them record label and  … that bitter taste never goes. But that said, there are for me magical things on the album "Desire", like the opening track "Desire" and "Revive The World" and "Mesmerized", which I think are astonishing songs that I will be proud of on my death bed. But I was made to feel like a criminal for not liking "Love’s Unkind". I mean why pair someone like me with a song like "Love’s Unkind". I'm extreme feminist. I don't like gender specification and you've given me a song called "Love’s, Unkind". I mean, we were at war over that, war, but I went with it because I knew if I didn't release this album ... obscurity was waiting. It was tricky. It was very, very tricky.

Ironically, when I was making "Desire", I got cast by Gillian Lynne, the world famous choreographer, to star as Sally Bowles in "Cabaret" in the West End (below), which was a completely new departure for me. And I felt … there’s moments in the music world and your career where you need to just step off, off the spinning wheel and say "I need a bit of time somewhere else to re-evaluate everything" and "Love's Unkind" was proving one of those moments. And I agreed to go into the West End and play Sally Bowles. It was a phenomenal experience for me because even though I am a trained dancer, it doesn't mean I am a dancer and here I was starring alongside Wayne Sleep - world famous Wayne Sleep as his leading lady.  

And it was the kind of control and confines that I needed to have a bit of solid ground to stand on after a very bad experience with the record label that had become a bit dictorial. And I think it also helped the industry focus on who I was as well, because I've always been a bit mercurial and a bit off the wall and I think that still remains, but I think by doing Sally Bowles it just helped the entertainment industry see me in one place for a while. It worked on that level. And then I went onto the National Theatre to do “Three Men On A Horse, then went on to make a movie called "Midnight Breaks". And all of this while "Desire" was released to the world with "Echo Beach" as the main single off it. It was not commercially a bad time at all, but inside I was rebelling big time. IS THAT WHAT INSPIRED THE NEXT ALBUM "PROSTITUTE"?

TOYAH: On "Prostitute" I was raging. Absolutely raging and to put "Prostitute" into context it wasn’t just about what happened on "Desire". I mean, we are talking about 33 years ago. Robert and I kind of eloped and got married and we were both managed by the same management and we were both on the same label and both management and label utterly were outraged. So outraged that the only time they'd ever talk to me again was to ask am I going to have babies? And am I going to settle down and be a housewife? Thus "Prostitute" came about. Now, the big irony about "Prostitute" is it's my biggest seller as a solo artist. And it was my biggest critically acclaimed album of my whole career. So let's put that in context first. Biggest earner as well. So I just thought I need to work with a small budget, I had £10 000, I didn't want anyone telling me what to do. I had worked with Steve Sidelnyc on a project. He a drummer programmer who went on to do all Madonna's programming. I talked to him. This was after a meeting with Alex Patterson of The Orb, where Alex was helping me move house. It's a bizarre world when you're not in front of the camera. And we came up with the conclusion of doing this experimental sound. He went on to do "Pink Fluffy Clouds" (sic) (EDIT: She means "Little Fluffy Clouds") and I went on to do "Prostitute". So I'd been working with Steve Sidelnyc. I said "would you come and do this album with me? It's not gonna be like anything you've done before - we are literally going to program sequences and drums for a set amount of bars, I will set the precedent of what those bars are, and then I'm just going to build vocals on top of it."

So we went away to a small studio in Dorset for two weeks, and we just heads down program, program program. I wrote on the spot. I wrote as we recorded and did all the layering and did the additional instruments and came up with "Prostitute". And it was a really angry album about the fact that just because I got married I was supposed to give up this really illustrious and brilliant career. Supposed to put my talent on a shelf along with all the awards, having made people a lot of money and forget who I was. I was raging. "Prostitute" is my is creative machine gun. It's a metaphor for the absolute fucking anger I was experiencing. WHY DIDN’T YOU FEATURE ON THE COVER OR DO ANY VIDEOS? TOYAH: I did the artwork for the album. I drew it myself. I set it up, sent it to the record label. And it was a Victorian representation of a naked woman being dissected in the lab. It was very heavy. So you had the basic kind of outline of the woman. She was opened up, completely dissected and each organ had a different name. And that's what I wanted it to be.   I wanted it to be a woman that had been taken apart metaphorically by men and by the industry. When this album was presented to the sellers and the bookers, there were mass protests. People got up and walked out and they refused to touch it, but ironically as soon as it was presented around the world …  I mean, America went bonkers for it.

I could have had a career in America being an angry woman. But I always feel an album sits alone in its space at its time. And I just didn't want to continue with that amount of anger in me and after "Prostitute" I just moved on. Also the record label did not tell me how well it sold and how well it was received. I mean, Billboard Magazine gave it five stars and they said this is the most innovative album any artist has ever released. They said it was an antidote to Madonna, which for me is a pile of bollocks because I'm a big Madonna fan and it's nothing like Madonna but it sold in its tens and tens of thousands. And I had sack loads of fan mail mainly from professors in universities saying that this is one of the most cohesive and precise things they've ever heard a woman do. I mean, it was just astonishing, but people didn't ever tell me about my successes. "MINX" apparently was hugely successful. No one told me and "Prostitute" was hugely successful and no one ever bothered to pick the phone up and tell me.

"OPHELIA’S SHADOW" MARKED YET ANOTHER SHIFT IN DIRECTION. HOW DID THAT COME ABOUT? TOYAH: Well, "Ophelia’s Shadow" – after "Prostitute" I felt I didn't want to be so angry. I felt I wanted to be more poetic and descriptive. And I was again working with musicians who trained with Robert. So we were again working in … we weren't working in open chord keys. We weren't in standard E tuning and we were using cello tuning, which again, changes the tension of the songwriting. And I was left alone to write this album. I was working with Trey Gunn, who went on to being in King Crimson, Tony Geballe, who went on to run a theater in New York as a musical director, Paul Beavis, who I believe was in The Lemon Trees at one point.    And that was the team. And we again would get together in the studio. We would write in an afternoon, I'd go away and that evening I would construct the song. I would piece it together. I would then do the lyrics and the next day we'd record it. Very organic. I believed in and I still do using that first voice that comes into your head. So rather than sit down and write a piece and go away and just meditate over it for months on end, which is slightly what Simon Darlow and I did with the (In The Court Of The) "Crimson Queen" …  

With these solo albums in particular I would listen to that first instinctive voice as the truth of what that song should be, which why some of them are quite off the wall and go in quite strange directions because that's the internal voice and that's very much how "Ophelia’s Shadow" came about. I really do feel that "Ophelia’s Shadow" truly represents me because I was completely at the helm. The writers I worked with were very respectful of me and my ideas and they broadened the ideas rather than negated them.   So they said, "well, we could take this in that direction". And I would sing the guitar lines or the baselines to them and they would pick that up and go with it. So they were very respectful of what I was trying to do and what I wanted to build. So I do think this is a very true Toyah album. "Kiss Of Reality", they asked me to guest - they all lived in Berlin and I just got a letter saying, would I come and sing on two or three of songs of an album they were making? They didn't have a band name at the time and I was up for an adventure. I felt a bit nomadic at this time. We're talking about around 1991-92. I just finished touring a play called "Amadeus", which was a huge critical success for me.

I'd been working with Peter Shaffer, the playwright and in the daytimes I was performing in prisons around the UK, doing a one woman show about Janis Joplin. And then in the evenings I was starring with an actor called Richard McCabe in "Amadeus" and I was playing Constanze, his wife, and I got this letter saying, would I go to Berlin and just record a few songs? And I said, well, I'm going to pack my suitcase and let's see what happens and I stayed a year. 

We wrote a whole album, and I became one of the shared writers on the album and the very interesting thing about living in Berlin was the night culture, because we slept from seven in the morning till about four in the afternoon. Then we'd drive to a nuclear bunker, go underground and work all night, which I found really oppressive and very hard - I'm not night person - and then record. And we did a few gigs, which were very unusual for me because people listened in a way I wasn't used to. So we played a few gigs on the outskirts of Berlin and then we went to Warsaw where Chick Corea was hosting a jazz festival. And we played in Warsaw where people were absolutely fascinated by me and I was doing lots of TV and explaining about the Janice Joplin show, that I'd been into Northern Ireland and performed in the Maze (a prison) in front of all the political prisoners. And the extraordinary situation I was in there where I was only allowed to be face to face with the male prisoners. Yet the female prisoners in the Maze were kept separate from me and I could only communicate with them by camera. Oh yeah. We're talking about a different time and a different world. And the intellects who were interviewing me in Warsaw on TV picked up on this, they saw this immediately and the inequalities of it and they were fascinated that I was playing Janis Joplin, that I was married to Robert Fripp, but I was in this band from Berlin. 

And when I was introduced on stage that night, having done this wonderful interview where they really saw me, I was introduced as Roberta Fripper and I grabbed the mic and I said "I'm Toyah Willcox". You know, it's just something I have fought for so long - the identity of the person. I just found all my career is … just see the bloody person - I've won enough awards. I mean, this is going to put the interview in the context of this week, but Lily Allen txting, you know, "misogyny is still in the world". It's been there for a long, long time.

"Sunday All Over The World" happened around the same time as "Ophelia’s Shadow". In fact it crossed over and because Robert and I were managed by the same people and we're on the same label at this particular time they were only interested in - how can I put this ... investing and touring anything with them ... Robert, but not me. They were determined I was going to become a housewife and have babies. They just didn't ... I was invisible, completely invisible. And even though "Prostitute" had sold so well and made them hundreds of thousands of pounds … they said, okay, "well, Robert come form a new band called "Sunday All Over The World" - Toyah happens to be in in" … Happens to be the key writer. That's what it was and it's just very interesting having married an internationally renowned musician but I instantly put myself in the corner with the dunce hat on it's as simple as that

"TAKE THE LEAP!" SAW YOU EMBRACE YOUR EARLY PUNK ROOTS AT A TIME WHEN GRUNGE AND NIRVANA WERE BIG. HOW DID THIS COME ABOUT? TOYAH: In the 1990’s I was approached by what was known at the time as an "über agent", a wonderful man called John Roseman who was the director for the video "Bohemian Rhapsody", did all of the Eurythmics videos as well. He approached me and he said "you you've got a future in television. I want to be your agent". And I was living in Berlin doing "Kiss Of Reality". And he said, "come on over, I have to see you" and within a year I was presenting BBC "Holiday". I was going on "Songs Of Praise". I was doing BBC2 documentaries about art, stuff like that. He absolutely lifted me into the A-list stratosphere of TV presenting. And I stayed up there for 10 years. 

And it was just, I mean, you could not second guess that would happen. And that was all thanks to him. So even though I was working every single day, traveling the world, I realized I'm still a singer and a writer. And around 1993 - 94 as well as doing all that presenting, I was actually starting at the Chichester Theatre and getting awards for that. I thought I've got to sing. I have to sing, you know, and in the nineties artists like me were told to re-record the hits. And if we did re-record the hits then we could put new material on that. So I had been making a documentary about a young band called Friday Forever in Salisbuiry, which is where I was living and they were phenomenal. They were so good. And I said to this band "could I borrow you? And could we record an album, a double album of new material and old material". And I love their sound. It was really thrashy, really nineties. Their playing was astonishing considering they were teenagers.

And we hired a farmhouse. The drums went in one room. I did all the vocals in a barn and we put each musician in a different room in the farmhouse, and then we mixed and recorded live. And I think it has a beautiful sound this album, it's just the instrumentation, their arrangements, everything is gorgeous.

And I did some writing with Nick Beggs (of Kajagoogoo fame), Cris Bonacci (from) Girlschool and we did these new songs. We did the hits, I got signed to a label in Japan and that's the story of that and that allowed me to get back on the road. I mainly toured theatres and that kept me going kind of through the nineties. But the big change came for me in 2002 when I got an email off of promoter saying would I consider doing an arena tour?

And at this point I thought, you know, everything was over. I was just being an actress. And I've not looked back since it's just grown and grown and grown since then. And the last 17 years have just been blissful, absolutely blissful because my audience are really young now. Now they're kind of students and 25 year olds. And obviously there's those that are my age group in their sixties who know who I am, but I could not second guess the pathway that my career has taken me on.

IN 2001 YOU MET TIM ELSENBERG. HOW DID THIS HELP YOU REIGNITE YOUR LOVE OF SONGWRITING?

TOYAH: My husband, Robert Fripp and I've always been very close to Brian Eno. And that kind of introduced us to Brian Eno’s circle. And I can remember I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum to see a show with a band headed by Tim Elsenberg who's just a phenomenal songwriter. And I just loved his music and he agreed to meet up with me and do some writing. And I hadn't been writing for myself for quite a while. I've been writing for other people like Trey Gunn and I've been writing with Tony Banks of Genesis and I'd been writing for TV and movies. But Tim Elsenberg said, "well, let’s write for you". 

We worked for a couple of weeks and I just absolutely love working with him. He was young and he was vibrant and his musical vocabulary was just infinite.Real, real star and beautiful kind of adult sensibility about what he did. And I love what we wrote together and I loved his voice. So we took his band. We booked a studio in Moseley in Birmingham and we recorded four tracks and decided to release them. And they came out for my arena tour in 2002, which allowed me to kind of sell them directly to the audience. And when you're playing arenas you're doing lots of very big sales. So it became a fan base EP ("Little Tears Of Love")

THIS BOX SET FEATURES QUITE A FEW OF YOUR OTHER COLLABORATIONS, SUCH AS TONY BANKS. CAN YOU EXPLAIN HOW THAT HAPPENED?

TOYAH: Tony Banks and myself were both working on a movie called "Lorca And The Outlaws", which I believe I had Johnny Hallyday starring in, but I only was shooting for a couple of days at Pinewood (Studios) because I was playing a hologram in it. And Tony Banks contacted me and said would I come over to his studios and write a song with him? And I just jumped at that. That was wow, fabulous! What an opportunity

And I came up with a lyric called "Lion Of Symmetry" and it, I don't know why, because it was Tony Banks, I felt it just really allowed me to tap into my youthful inspirations. And I first saw bands like Hawkwind, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin when I was 11 years old, I used to break into venues in Birmingham and just go and see these bands. You know, people never stopped me. I'd get in through the fire exit. 

So to suddenly be working with Tony Banks and that kind of musical background, I realized that that kind of creativity was in my DNA. And came up with "Lion Of Symmetry" which allowed me to just create layers and layers of vocals over this slightly African themed song. And I had a fabulous time with Tony and in the studios. It ran so smoothly.

We got the vocal on the first take. He even had me singing in keys that were completely against the original key just to see if I could do it. And I could.And he said, "well, we can't use it, but I really loved doing it". It was a very, very good creative experience. I think Tony has said it's one of his favorites.

THE LAST TRACK OF THE WHOLE BOX SET IS CALLED STEP INTO THE NEW WORLD. TELL US ABOUT THAT?

TOYAH: Well, as an actress I'm in about five independent movies a year. I just go from movie to movie. I'm also a bit of a fixer on these movies. I help raise funding for small British movies. And I'm probably what's known as an "angel" because I'm never credited and that's fine. That's never agreed for credits anyway but I always help people out because I have really, really good contacts. With this particular film that "Step Into The New World" is from, it was originally called "The Kaleidoscope Man". It's now called "Invasion Planet Earth" because that title puts it in a genre and it's just gone crazy.

Small, independent movie made for under £50 000 getting huge reviews. It looks absolutely astonishing. The computer generated effects are breathtaking. And I play a doctor in it and as always the directors come to me when they need some advice or they need kind of helper producers, and  they said "we need to broaden this. We need you to sing on it". And I said yeah, that's fine. I don't have time to write anything because I've just done so many movies this year, and I'm still in the middle of a movie now. I said "if you can present me with a song, I'll come and do it."

So Simon Cox and Alan Snelling came up with this wonderful song. That's like Vangelis meets Gloria Gaynor or something like that. It's just sowonderful. And I went into the studio in Chipping Norton and just put it down - first take. And then Alan Snelling added these wonderful Vangelis type keyboards. I think it's really lovely. It's so lovely.And they recorded me as I was singing it. And that's part of the video and stuff like that.

But I think what I love about  "Invasion Planet Earth" it's part of who and what I am, and I'm in no way an underdog, but I'm someone that isn't mainstream. And I just connect with those people that are tenacious, who never let go, who keep true to their voice. And they just remain creative without relying on the bedrock of the super commercial. We just keep going. And this particular film and me were made for each other.

TELL US ABOUT THIS FRAGILE MOMENT?

TOYAH: Oh boy, I loved doing "This Fragile Moment"! I absolutely loved it. I've had a long relationship with Estonia. In 1992 when Estonia became independent I was a leading actress in the first ever movie to be made there in the year of its independence. Everyone involved on that movie was treated like royalty. People were so grateful for us being there. And then I managed to get Robert to work again after his long retirement by going over there and doing soundscapes. I contacted the embassy and I said, look, if you approach Robert this way, I can get him to Estonia.

Then Robert wasn't available to play at the President's birthday. I then contacted the embassy again and said "I’ll put a band together to play at the birthday of the President" and they said yes. So myself, Bill Rieflin, the drummer of REM, and my MD, Chris Wong (bwloe with Toyah, peforming as The Humans in 2011) went over to Estonia. We wrote 50 minutes of music in Estonia, recorded it, and then performed it live to the President. While I was working quite a lot in Estonia Robert Jürjendal got in contact with me and said would I come and do an improvised album with him?

This was such an easy thing for me to do because my source of inspiration internally comes from Estonian literature, which is like no other literature in the world. They have short story writers that have such poetry and such depth of colour in the composition of the stories that I always refer back to Estonian writers for my inspiration.

So I went over to Estonia with my MD Chris Wong and I had a bible of words, which is usually how I start an album. I just listened to that instinctive voice and I write and write and write, and I never stop myself and I come up with a bible and that is always a point of reference to leap frog into the actual song. So I arrived in Estonia with some of the best words I have ever written and we went into the studio and we improvise for a week.

And unbeknownst to me, the headphone mix I was working to only had me and Chris Wong, my guitarist, and they deliberately didn't put the other instruments in. And I thought, you know, this is pretty bare stuff, but I just kept going. And then I realized that they were all kind of tuning and they were all working in a set key. And I was moving keys because I would suddenly get to a natural point to progress into a chorus.

So Chris Wong, who has kind of ESP (extrasensory perception) with me was moving into new chord structures for choruses. And I was too, and the others were remaining in the same key, but what was absolutely wonderful is it worked. It's bizarre, but it works. And that for me was possibly the most natural progression from "Prostitute" in that it's purely instinctive . And we just allowed it to happen in the moment.

AND HOW DOES IT FEEL TO FINALLY RELEASE YOUR FIRST EVER BOX SET?

TOYAH: I am so grateful for this box set and I'm so grateful to Demon Music for seeing me as an artist, because Demon have been for me what the majors (record labels) should have been for me. They've never questioned me. They've always talked to me with such respect as an artist and believe me, that's rare. It's rare. I'm grateful. Eternal gratitude.

And I think what is lovely about these solo albums is they are very much Toyah genre. They don't work ... Can't put "Prostitute" next to an ABC album or a Tony Hadley album. You just can't do it.

This is Toyah Wilcox, the punk rocker, growing into a woman maturing into an adult artist and Demon have allowed it by putting this box set together. And I think the audience for this box set are the true Toyah fans who really liked the fact that I'm off the wall and anarchic in my creative process. And that's who it's for. These are the ones that turn up to my punk gigs and it's purely experimental, but it is who and what I am. 

LISTEN TO THE SONGS & ALBUMS

MINX (1985)

Lion Of Symmetry (1985)

Desire (1987)

Prostitute (1988)

Ophelia's Shadow (1991)

Sunday All Over The World (1991) A selection of songs on Youtube

Kiss Of Reality (1993)

Take The Leap! (1993)

Velvet Lined Shell (2003)

This Fragile Moment (2009)

Step Into The New World (2019)

Solo A Selection Of Songs by Official Toyah (2020)

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[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH ON BBC RADIO LONDON WITH JUMOKE FASHOLA 3.10.2020

JUMOKE: A new drive-in music experience is coming to London on the 7th of October where you'll be able to watch live recordings from all the greats from Madonna to David Bowie from the comfort of your car or chair. Joining us now is 80's star and this year's host Toyah Willcox. Toyah - good morning! So lovely to have you on the programme! TOYAH: Thank you Jumoke. I have not been up this early in a while. I'm a concert singer like you. Mornings are very very strange places (laughs) JUMOKE: I did think that, you know! I said "Toyah! This time of the morning?!" I was like "she must be enthusiastic about this!" TOYAH: Of course I am! Absolutely. But I'm used to going to bed six in the morning. I'm usually driving back from Glasgow or I'm driving back from Penzance. Always on the road so this is fabulous! And I live in a market town and I'm looking out onto the street and it's completely quiet. It's rather beautiful JUMOKE: How lovely! Thank goodness you know how to drive because this is all about a drive-in 

TOYAH: It is for me really important because from about the beginning of April live performers – and I'm very much ... 99% … my living is as a live performer and a live musician – all our incomes stopped. And when you think about the technicians who put up all the stages, who do all the sound, they carry all the equipment  … These technicians have not had any financial support for six months now. So the whole reason that Deezer is doing this 80's drive-in is to raise funds for live musicians, mainly the technical team. The drive-in is going to be beautiful. Everything is going to be priced at 80's prices. The ticket is only £15, but you'll get a burger and a drink for 70p. And we want everyone to dress up, come with an 80's spirit. I call it a big warm 80's hug. This is the decade of showing off, exuberance, of big brash music and there will be wonderful concerts on the screen by David Bowie, Stevie Nicks, Madonna and Prince. I mean could that be any better? And I believe I'm singing too JUMOKE: Oh are you?! What a wonderful treat! It must be lovely actually to be able to go out and do that after all this time? TOYAH: It's phenomenal to be able to sing live. I don't know about you Jumoke … In my house I have a green screen studio that connects me to the world … I have recording facilities so I've been recording in New York, I've been in LA – from my home. So I've had six months of super creativity and super worry about everyone's health but it's all been from the one address. So to actually get out there and see and hear a live audience is such a privilege 

JUMOKE:

And you as an artist – it must've been an extraordinary time the early 80's into the 90's. What was it like for you a performer but also being surrounded by these legends?

TOYAH:

It was magical because back then everything was on a such a quick ascension to do with technology. I had my first hit in '81 although I was really super successful as an album artist from '78. So '81 MTV launches in August and that changed the world because not only were we singers – we had to make videos so we became very visual artists.

And what I remember about the 80's apart from playing in the stadiums and festivals to 200 000 people was that we had to create these really powerful looks that people would remember and for me it was big hair, very dramatic clothes. I always came on as a warrior woman looking far larger than life. And I remember the 80's as being very warm and very inclusive of the audience but of course when we got the 90's everyone remembered the 80's because of Margaret Thatcher and I think now we can forget the associated politics of the time and just hear the music. I have so many young fans under the age of 25 who contact me all the time saying “we've just discovered you! Oh wow!” And it's all new to this generation which is so rewarding

JUMOKE: It's interesting when you talk about the fashion as well because now everybody seems to have a stylist and a stylist and a half and three stylists, whatever - but you must've just been going "I just want to be me and this is what I'm going to do" and that must've been so exciting? TOYAH: It was very important to me as one of the rare females in the industry back then and you didn't have female executives in the industry in the UK back then – you did in the USA and it's a really important factor that women were involved in the industry so here I was, barely five foot tall, I didn't look like a supermodel – I had to make my mark. So I did by working with really wonderful arts students – a phenomenal woman called Melissa Caplan handmade all my clothes as she did for Bananarama and Spandau Ballet as well and Steve Strange of Visage. She hand painted everything so we were very very striking (below). All of our hair was never natural colour, mine was always orange so I had a lot of say in it – it meant a lot to me that I lifted that glass ceiling for women who didn't look like supermodels and said it doesn't matter what shape or size you are … If you've got an idea, that's what counts, it's your voice that counts and that was really really effective. I got about 10 000 letters a week off young girls saying "thank you, I never had confidence in myself and you've given me confidence." So that was really important to me then and it's really important to me today   

JUMOKE: Thank goodness you did do that because even today we are still battling those kind of stereotypes - which surprising given the amount of technology we've got and the opening of the doors and the glass ceiling and all of that kind of stuff that has been shattered but for some reason the music industry in particular seems to be hung up on this idea of what beauty (is) and what is accessible in terms of music and pop? TOYAH: Well, that's a really interesting question because who is driving that? Because when you look at the really big women, the über triple A-list women  - I think to some extent it's their choice and then when you look at the kind of natural level of social media … that's where the problem is because young girls think that is a normality and it isn't a normality. I think a normality comes from the beauty within and when you've got a young girl who has a phenomenal voice, phenomenal talent – that's all that counts. That's all that matters – is that that talent gets to the stage, that that talent gets nurtured, that a career gets nurtured and both you and I know this. We need those people that nurture and move us forward and  support us so we can be artists. So I would say there's a huge division between the A-listers and the young generation coming up because I think it's unrealistic to put the body beautiful before the talent. I just don't think it's right. And you've got such talent in this country and around the world so the more the industry and the executives in the industry can help the talent the better is what I say. If you were to ask me why am I still here is because I've always driven my talent and I've slightly laughed at my physicality. And the way I say that – I'm very quirky, I'm very off-the-wall, this drive-in on Wednesday I'm going to be in full costume. It's a costume (below) you either find amusing or incredibly beautiful

JUMOKE: Oh my gosh! I love the idea of this but also what I love about this idea of looking back to the 80's in this way is that it will remind people about the individualism that really structured and was part of music industry - which we hope can regain some footing TOYAH: You just hit the nail on the head. It's individuality. And that for me – I'm 62 … I remember the 60's very very well. The 70's incredibly well  … it was the incredible individuality of the artists. It seemed to come before the music to a certain extent. I think individuality opens many doors for younger generations – to just step through that door and be brave enough and put their hand up and say “I have a voice”. I think individuality is pretty glorious thing and it's not always to do with body shape or   really selling your agenda. I think it's selling your ideas so I totally totally get that. Individuality. JUMOKE: Alright - so it's this coming Wednesday, the 7th of October, it's part of National Album Day - TOYAH: And I'm a National Album Day ambassador - JUMOKE: Oh, fantastic! TOYAH: And we're celebrating on the 10th of October artists' albums rather than single songs. Complete works. So with the drive-in London – it's all to help the technicians within the music industry who are unable to earn a living JUMOKE: It's been a joy Toyah, thank you so much for joining us this morning. The legend that is Toyah Willcox! I was really inspired by that conversation. Thank you Toyah, for sharing your memories of the 80's   

#toyah #toyahwillcox #toyah willcox #toyah radio #toyahradio #toyah 2020 #toyah2020 #toyahbbc #toyah bbc #the toyah willcox interview archive #thetoyahwillcoxinterviewarchive

[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH ON BBC RADIO   SCOTLAND THE FRIDAY AFTERNOON SHOW WITH WITH RACHEL McCORMACK 24.4.2020

RACHEL: If you were watching BBC One's Children In Need And Comic Relief Big Night In last night you might've spotted pop punk legend Toyah Willcox cutting some moves on the dance floor because she was taking part in the Strictly Keep Dancing Challenge. She mentioned it on twitter. The singer and actress has been re-issuing her back catalogue over the last few months, including a recent album re-working In The Court Of The Crimson Queen. If you follow on her on twitter you have no doubt been thrilled by her various lockdown antics in cahoots with her husband Robert Fripp. They've been getting up to all sorts. Dressing up as bees, doing the tango at lunch time. Robert Fripp of course equally legendary, worked with David Bowie, formed King Crimson. So I caught up with Toyah, this was a few weeks back, just before the lockdown if my memory serves and I started by asking her about the impact of punk on her music and on her acting

TOYAH: It was about everything, it was a lifestyle, it was a lifestyle commitment. You couldn't just become a punk to go to a gig, you had to be punk 24 hours a day. It was a radical change of shaking up attitudes within the industry. It was one of the most exciting times I can ever remember in music so it was quite remarkable and then you had film makers like Derek Jarman, who were very punky in their approach to film making, along with many other brilliant people. I remember it as being vibrant and so continuous in its creativity – there was never a hiatus at all RACHEL: You mentioned Derek Jarman there and of course we can not mention Jubilee and your character Mad. Where did you get involved and how did you first meet Derek Jarman? TOYAH: I was at the National Theatre when Derek Jarman started making Jubilee and a friend of mine, a wonderful actor, who was starring in Chariots Of Fire, Ian Charleson was also at the National and he said "I think you should come and meet my friend Derek Jarman because you've got a lot in common." And that meeting was the beginning of a great friendship and a deep deep love. Derek was very protective towards me and I just loved him so much and he believed in me as a creative and I went on to make The Tempest with him, playing Miranda (below) in Shakespeare's Tempest so we had a wonderful wonderful relationship 

RACHEL: And this of course – we're talking about 78'-79' at this point – and this anarchic celebration Jubilee and then of course The Tempest. It's interesting because Jarman is a revolutionary in terms of culture and film but I was wondering if his take on Shakespeare shed any new light on Shakespeare himself to you (Toyah laughs)? Because I'm thinking - if you fast forward to 91' and you're still singing, you've got Ophealia's Shadow as an LP. Did Shakespeare himself become a bit of an influence? TOYAH: The Tempest became an influence. And what I mean by that – when Derek asked me to do it I said "I've never done Shakespeare, I've been Bottom in Midsummer Night's Dream (Rachel laughs) in school" but that's you know … so Jarman led me into Shakespeare and The Tempest which is dripping with Masonic and Illuminati secrets being revealed to the point where there's talk about Shakespeare being bumped off because of it  -

RACHEL: Yeah! TOYAH: It just drew me in, it was absolutely fascinating. A brilliant brilliant play RACHEL: And I love the fact that again – we should mention Quadrophenia 79' and you're with Phil Daniels, Sting … but also were always in music as well and were those different creative outlets both differently fulfilling for you? TOYAH: I've been doing music and acting in tangent since I was 17. So I was at The National when I was 18 and I formed the band while I was at the National Theatre. I deliberately wanted to do that, I deliberately wanted two independent careers and I was never interested in doing stage musicals. They're incredibly demanding, to sing eight times a week, the way those singers do. I know it's slightly beyond my physical capacity. I wanted two independent careers as a rock star and as a film actress and that's what I strived for

RACHEL: But we should say in terms of being kind of artistic and creative and subverting or questioning ideas and having fun with that perhaps as well, In The Court Of The Crimson Queen is of course a nod to King Crimson's In The Court Of The Crimson King, Robert Fripp being a trailblazer for them. Was that something you spoke about, at what point did that become a title? TOYAH: No (laughs) He has nicked my ideas  - we've been married for 33 years and I absolutely love him pieces and he's nicked all my sayings, he's nicked all my – I've come up with lyrics or song titles (Rachel laughs) and they suddenly appear in his work. I'm an art collector, he's even used my art for his album covers - RACHEL: Really?! TOYAH: So we went with In The Court Of The Crimson Queen, my co-writer Simon Darlow and I then when it was officially In The Court Of The Crimson Queen I just told him and he said "I'll sue you!" and I said "Yeah? Just try!" (Rachel laughs) 

RACHEL: Yeah! "You owe a few as well!" It's lovely to kind of think about that you managed to take something back but also I'm thinking about Robert Fripp and his involvement with Bowie and it takes me to my personal formative memories of you because I think for a lot of people, when they talk about their ultimate Top Of The Pops moment they go back to David Bowie, they go back to Starman, but for me as a kid it was seeing you on Top Of The Pops performing It's A Mystery TOYAH: Wow! RACHEL: I couldn't get over it, sat in my little bungalow in Stirling. It was absolutely mind blowing. I wondered what your recollections were? Was that a moment when you thought wow – in terms of your pop career (Toyah The Band, below) -  this is huge - TOYAH: Yeah RACHEL: Or not

TOYAH: Oh yeah! I can't tell you – I didn't fall asleep the night before. We were told we got Top Of The Pops I think about three days before we actually recorded it and it's everything I'd ever wanted. It was climbing to the top of the mountain and seeing the view and I was terrified. The clothes I wanted to wear weren't ready. My clothes designer Melissa Caplan made everything by hand, painted everything by hand and she just wasn't ready for this day so I wore a dress (above) which was very unlike me by a designer called Willy Brown who dressed Bowie for the Heroes album and I think the dress was as much a turning point for my career as the song because it feminised me in the right way. It was beautiful, it was strange, it was hand painted. Half of it was see through panels and the rest was taffeta. It was absolutely gorgeous. But I was terrified. I was so terrified I could hardly move and I think again that added to the charisma of that performance because every performance after that I'm just jumping around like a Jack-In-A-Box and I've got a lot of energy but that particular performance I was anchored to the ground by fear

RACHEL: Oh my goodness! TOYAH: I was so proud because I knew my family were watching and it proved that all the times since the age of seven that I said I was going to be a singer that I was right RACHEL:  Absolutely. I was an interesting song as well. There's an uncertainty there that maybe isn't in some of your other work. Were you aware of that? Was that something that you wanted to celebrate or to explore?

TOYAH: No, I was terrified of it. It's about vulnerability after I'd spent years being Boadicea, being absolutely undefeatable. When I heard the song I said well, this isn't me. It's about doubt, it's about vulnerability – I don't do either of those. So I went into the studio with the original writer Keith Hale, because as an original song it was a 12 minute vocal and then about a 28 minute instrumental, so we set about arranging it and I wrote the lyrics for the second verse and we made it into the kind of single format which had to have the hit chorus and the middle eight. And I still though "nah, this isn't right, this isn't me!" (Rachel laughs) But we started playing it on a university tour in March 1981 (It was Jan/Feb 81') (below) and I though this will be the proof of the pudding. They're going to hate it! And the audiences loved it! The rest is history

RACHEL: When I was explaining to my kids I was very excited to be interviewing you today and they know your early work and I was playing In The Court Of The Crimson Queen frequently when it came out - TOYAH: Bless you! RACHEL: But they of course know and love you so dearly because of Teletubbies ... TOYAH: Yeah, I know (they both laugh) And Brum for those who are old enough RACHEL: I know! How did that come about? Did you have any idea when you were approached how huge that would become? TOYAH: No … I was doing voices for all of the series of Brum created by Anne Wood and she went on to do the pilot and create Teletubbies. She uses child psychologists to build her ideas. In The Night Garden. She spent decades using child psychologists to create all of that. And when I'd finished doing Brum, she contacted me and said could come in and do the voice for the pilot of something new called Teletubbies and she was terribly terribly frightened about it. She said the BBC don't want to take the project, she'd mortgaged he house for £60 000 to pay for the pilot and she just though she was going to lose her home. Now miraculously the BBC lost a programme which meant they had to take Teletubbies and it meant that as soon as Teletubbies showed it became a worldwide hit and Anne had to spend the next ten years of her life making  hundreds and hundreds of programmes of Teletubbies to go around the world. So do you ask me did I know it was going to be that successful? (Rachel laughs) The answer's no. I said to Anne when I did the opening and closing lines as the narrator, I said if children don't like this … students are going to be loving it! (Rachel laughs) It's like Magic Roundabout. They're going to be on the wacky baccy and they're just going to be watching this day in and day out! RACHEL: There you go, Toyah on the wonder of Teletubbies  

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BBC RADIO NORTHAMPTON WITH BERNIE KEITH 10.3.2020

KEITH: This time last year we were gearing up for her Record Store Day release, a magnificent coloured vinyl edition of "In The Court Of The Crimson Queen". The previous year we had clear vinyl of "Desire". She loves this day!   This year, last Friday we had a box set of 7 CD's of her solo work. Fabulous! And in the spring she's touring with Hazel O'Connor. Busy busy busy for Toyah Willcox! Morning, Toyah! TOYAH: Hello, Bernie! Lovely to be here with you BERNIE: You're very supportive of Record Store Day. Anything this year? TOYAH: There's so much going on (laughs) It's so exciting! "MINX" is coming out on red vinyl (below), "Desire" will be re-released on white vinyl. My two really critically acclaimed solo albums "Prostitute", "Ophelia's Shadow" and "Take The Leap!" All will be coming  out on vinyl. There's a very big announcement in the summer as well, which I'm not allowed to tell you because that's obviously waiting for July BERNIE: You were with a great label, with the Demon group, Edsel and those kind of people. They seem to care about the product. Do records mean a lot to you? Do you have an umbilical connection from your childhood to them? TOYAH: Oh, yes! As a purchaser of singles and albums ... I still have everything I've ever bought. I never got rid of it even when record players no longer existed. I have beautiful first editions of Velvet Underground, the Rolling Stones one with the banana on. I've got all of that. Tyrannosaurus Rex. It means a lot to me. As much as owing a beautiful book BERNIE: If you throw them out you're throwing out your photo album, that's the thing. Because you put on that Tyrannosaurus Rex album and you remember how you were as a girl when you got it, won't you? That's the magic of what you do      

TOYAH: Absolutely. And the shows I went to see. I went to see T. Rex at Birmingham Odeon when I was about 13. I saw "Ziggy Stardust" at Coventry live when I was about 14. I can absolutely map my life through my vinyl collection. I think that's why, when punk happened, it was such a powerful medium of getting to know someone by looking at their collection

They weren't only punks, we all had guilty pleasures and mine was Fleetwood Mac. So we'd find these things deposited away behind The Clash albums. We got to know each other through our collections BERNIE: This box set that's out, the solo work - you wrote the sleeve notes for each album, didn't you? TOYAH: Yeah. I think it was very important to do that because I wanted to be able to put my perspective on the albums. Not only why they were made at the time they were made but what they mean to me now. There ere stories back then that I wasn't allowed to tell. "Desire", "Prostitute" and "Ophelia" had non-disclosure documents - BERNIE: Did they?! TOYAH: Yeah, because I wasn't getting on with my management. But I can now talk about them. On one of the discs I'm being interviewed for 45 minutes. My husband comes in and talks on my behalf to go into what the non-disclosure was about because I'm still not (allowed) to talk about certain areas (Bernie laughs) The beauty of today is we now know if a woman has had a non-disclose document it's usually to cover up a crime against her and that is what is featured on the box set BERNIE: What's it like re-visiting the music? Because I guess you don't listen to your music all the time and now when you're putting these things together you have to go back to them, don't you? TOYAH: "Desire", when I wrote it in 87-88, was a very coherent experimental piece of music that by today's standards would be highly commercial. Two tracks were removed to put cover versions on. "Echo Beach" and "Love's Unkind", which I never agreed to or agreed with.     When I heard the two tracks that were discarded and I thought had been destroyed ... we found them and just I burst into tears. They are the most beautiful pieces of writing. They are so astonishingly ahead of their time. When I listened to "Ophelia's Shadow" again tears just flooded down my face BERNIE: It takes you back to the battle. It takes you back to what you were going through at the time TOYAH: Yeah! They were truly pieces of Toyah, the creative artist, and I'm so proud of them. Even "Prostitute", which became my biggest critically acclaimed album, my biggest seller but never knew about it because I never saw a penny for any of those three albums. I listen to them and think I wasn't going off my head down the wrong alley as a creative artist. I was right and it's hugely emotional      

BERNIE: "Solo", it's a solo box set. A lot of people may think you've always been solo. That's what you've been but prior to '85 Toyah was a group too, wasn't it?

TOYAH: Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up. "Sheep In Farming Barnet", "The Blue Meaning", "Toyah! Toyah! Toyah!", "Anthem", "The Changeling", "Love Is The Law". All huge albums, all went gold or platinum. We were a band called Toyah. The key writer of that music  was my guitarist Joel Bogen (on the far left, above, performing in Germany, 1981) When I signed to CBS to do "MINX" I became a solo artist. The thing about the boxset "Toyah Solo" albums is I now own them and have the copyright on them, which may sound like what does that mean? Well, it means everything to the artist to own their albums BERNIE: The artwork is amazing. Last year's "Crimson Queen" was off the charts. It's beautiful and so is this box set but then the visual is always a part of your work. Where does that come from? Did you go to art college or were you in the mosh pit watching Tyrannosaurus Rex and Velvet Underground thinking that's what I want to do. Where does that come from? TOYAH: I grew up with male artists cross-dressing and found it incredibly powerful and liberating to walk away from the restraints of gender law. Alice Cooper, Roxy Music, David Bowie, Marc Bolan, even Twisted Sister. They all played with gender and I love that so much. I was exactly the same when I became an artist The image took me away from the constraints of gender control. I was very much into make-up, clothes, having things made that were one-offs. I was incredibly proud of wearing clothes that no one else had

BERNIE: And this tour "The Electric Ladies of the 80s" ... It seems so obvious (laughs) ... You and Hazel TOYAH: I know! (laughs) BERNIE: You've known each other for 40 years, haven't you? (Toyah and Hazel in 1982, below) TOYAH: Yes. Hazel, myself and Kate Bush were all in the same room together to audition for (the film) "Breaking Glass". That's the first time I met Hazel, in 1978. I've always said that the right person got the job. Hazel is the only actress and composer who could've starred in "Breaking Glass". Kate Bush is the only singer-songwriter who could've written "Hounds Of Love" I'm the only actress that could've gone onto to do "Quadrophenia". Could've worked with Laurence Olivier, Katharine Hepburn. Who could've written "Anthem", "The Changeling", "Love Is The Law" and move onto the stuff I did. Our places were set in stone the moment we were born. We just honoured and fought for our roles in a creative world. And suddenly - 40 years on - Hazel and I are working together (laughs) Why didn't it happen sooner     BERNIE: Were you rivals? Did you feel you were competing? TOYAH: The press made us rivals, the record companies made us rivals. On that level we were competing. I think it's an awful place to be as an artist, where you're made to be threatened by other artists' work. Especially the artists who you love as artists. I have always loved Kate Bush, always loved Hazel, loved Siouxsie, Pauline Murray, X Ray Specs, The Slits. I've loved them all but we were made to be rivals We were made to compete on Top Of The Pops. I think once we hit the new millennium all that fell by the by and we all stuck together as sisters and loved each other's work and honoured each other's work      

BERNIE: So what form will the shows take on this tour? Are you going to do separate sets? Are you going come together as well? TOYAH: We have to do separate sets. I've had 13 Top 40 singles. Hazel's probably had the same     BERNIE: As Prince used to say on stage "I've got too many hits!" and that's the problem, isn't it?

TOYAH: I don't know how he did it. He'd get off stage and go to a nightclub and do another four hours every night (Bernie laughs) Hazel and I will be working together. Hazel has asked to go on first because she's working with Claire and Sarah, her keyboard player and saxophonist. Hazel wants that to very much stand alone. Then my band will come on and do Hazel's hits electronically Then I come on and I do a set. Hazel joins my set where we're going to do this rather mammoth encore set of shared music. Everyone from Iggy Pop right through to Bob Marley. We want everyone up on their feet, just crying and having a wonderful time BERNIE: It's going to sell out so check for availability. Hazel cut David Bowie's hair once. Have you got any famous hairdressing stories you can share, Toyah? (laughs) TOYAH: I didn't know about that! I'm going to ask her about that (laughs) My hairdresser, a wonderful man called Keith, who owns the legendary hair salon Smile, was Bowie's hair dresser as well. I only found that out recently. If I had known I would've been at their doors going "what was he like!?" (Bernie laughs) Of course I met Bowie because my husband was his guitarist. I never got to know Bowie but I met him quite a few times   BERNIE: I'm going to let you go because you're going down to the gym. You look fantastic, Toyah, but you want muscles, don't you? TOYAH: Yeah, I'm in training (Bernie laughs) I'm always in some kind of training. I'm always doing physio. For this tour I want to be really physically strong. I don't get a day off for three weeks on this tour BERNIE: Very good. "Electric Ladies of The 80s", The Stables, Milton Keynes on April 17th. "Solo" box set is out now. On April 18th an embarrasment of riches on Record Store Day from the fabulous Toyah Willcox! Thank you, Toyah! TOYAH: Thank you, so pleased to talk to you, Bernie! Have a great day!

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BBC RADIO HEREFORD & WORCESTER WITH TAMMY GOODING 3.3.2020

TAMMY: ("I Want To Be Free" plays) It's really weird playing someone's records when they're sat in front of you and they know the words to all the songs … Toyah, welcome! How are you? TOYAH: I'm really well, thank you. Very happy to be here TAMMY: I'm thrilled to have you here. You've only had to come down the road - TOYAH: I know, a beautiful sunny day in Worcestershire. There are clouds in the sky but it's just so lovely. I want to be in Worcestershire and not London … I'm always having to be in London - TAMMY: Home is Worcestershire generally, in Pershore? TOYAH: I always head back here after my concerts. I played Scarborough on Saturday, which was a mind-blowing concert and I drove all the way back, walked through the front door just before 4 in the morning in my stage costume (laughs) TAMMY: Brilliant! TOYAH: I always get home. This tour I'm about to start with Hazel O'Connor – I have a wonderful boy from Worcester, who's going to drive me to and from my house because knowing I can come back I feel more stable. It's just knowing you'll be in your own bed at night TAMMY: So home is your solace, it's your safe space? TOYAH: It's very much my safe space, yeah. Cooking my own food and shopping in the shops I see every day TAMMY: I was chatting to Nigel Clarke of Dodgy last week - TOYAH: Well, I've nicked his driver (laughs) TAMMY: What small world! TOYAH: He's my neighbour! TAMMY: He said to me "I live in Pershore". I said I've got to ask you do you live anywhere near Toyah and he played it down and he said "I know Toyah and Robert, they're a lovely couple" TOYAH: I see Nigel every day! TAMMY: I knew it! Busted! There you go! What's special about Pershore? What's the draw?   

TOYAH: It's a very close community. It's a community that looks after and keeps an eye out on everybody. It's very real and I've been going there since I was three years old. The house I live in - my mother took me to tea when I was three years old. It was the Willow Tea Rooms TAMMY: No! TOYAH: So I have such an infinity with the place. If you see someone but you don't know their name, but you see them every day on the street and they're not looking well, everyone will ask them if they can help TAMMY: That's lovely TOYAH: It's that kind of place. It's very special TAMMY: Good for you. I love that! In spite all the fame and excess and all the hits over the years there's something very grounding with that for you ... You seem … just normal! (laughs)

TOYAH: I know people in LA who are thinking of moving to Pershore. Gary Numan came to Pershore two years ago (above, with his wife Gemma and Toyah's husband Robert) HE fell in love with it. I was with Nick Mason of Pink Floyd two nights ago and he's coming to have a look

People are just so fascinated by this rather eccentric idea of having a normal life and a high profile career, which is something that my husband and I have managed to do. Everyone is just so attracted to Pershore

TAMMY: That must be lovely actually, that you can walk down the street without all the hullabaloo -

TOYAH: It's really unusual for anyone to bat an eyelid

TAMMY: That's nice. We need to talk about this tour

TOYAH: Yes!

TAMMY: We briefly talked about it before Christmas but now you're here in person and we can have a proper yarn about this. It's the "Electric Ladies of The 80s". It's Toyah, it's Hazel O'Connor. The dates are here, there and everywhere but I think the closest one to us is going to be Birmingham Town Hall, April the 25th. Tell us about the tour. You've known one and other for ever, haven't you?     TOYAH: Hazel and I first met each other when Hazel (below with Toyah and Kim Wilde in 1982), myself and Kate Bush were sitting in a room together 1978, waiting to audition for the film "Breaking Glass". Hazel obviously very famously got the film and wrote all the music for it and won all the awards. Kate went on to do "Hounds Of Love"

I went on to do "Quadrophenia", work with Katharine Hepburn, Laurence Olivier and have five platinum albums. It's one of those amazing things that circumstance puts very unusual people together. That's the first time all three of us ever met. And Kate's been to Pershore

TAMMY: Has she?

TOYAH: Yeah, we smuggled Kate into Pershore

TAMMY: No! What does she think about it?    

TOYAH: Kate loves it. When her little boy was very young my father used to take him out on his boat. This is before anyone knew she had a little boy. So we used to sneak her into Pershore   TAMMY: That's incredible! TOYAH: Yeah, that's the kind of place (it is), you can do that kind of thing. So anyway, I digress. Hazel and I, the only time we have ever been on stage together was we were singers for The Stranglers, when Hugh Cornwell went to prison during the big punk era     We haven't really worked together, like sing face to face since. We do the 80s venues, the big arenas and the festivals but someone has finally put us together on tour! TAMMY: How is that coming together? TOYAH: We had our first rehearsal in November and it was absolutely brilliant. It was like “it works! It works!” We were so excited! So we come together to start rehearsing in the beginning of April. Hazel has asked to go on first because she works with only two musicians. There is Sarah, her keyboard player and Claire, her saxophonist. That's how Hazel always opens the show Then my band, which is a full electric band, will go on and play all the big hits with her. Then I come on and do my part of the concert with my band. Then Hazel and I have this rather epic end section where we are covering everyone from Iggy Pop right through to Bob Marley and The Wailers. We want the audience up on their feet, we want them in tears of joy. They can all join in and we send them home with a big smile on their face TAMMY: This opportunity to reminiscence is beautiful, to take a trip down memory lane. We start our program with a thing called "The Top Ten From When?" every day and we invite people to guess the year and share memories. You mentioned Iggy Pop there, Bob Marley and The Wailers - alongside your own hits ... we are going to be transported back to a time, aren't we? Because it makes you feel good, doesn't it?   TOYAH: Absolutely. I've had over 13 Top 40 hits and my last one was last year so there's a lot to cram in. Hazel probably has the same amount of hits, so there is going to be a lot of memory lane, a lot of shared memories. Because obviously we're human beings and we've got memories too. I find when I share my memories of my experiences of when I made songs with the audience, they're absolutely enthralled and transfixed         For example when I wrote "Thunder In The Mountains" it was the day Diana and Prince Charles got married. I had a stalker, who found out where I lived and the stalker's finger was on the doorbell all day. They were ringing the phone all day ... I had to deliver this song "Thunder In The Mountains"         I couldn't get out of the apartment. So I tell this story to the audience and I say the reason this song is so brash and it's about kicking everyone's backsides is because I was stuck in my apartment because of a stalker! You put the whole thing in context and this is what we'll be doing. We'll be giving you context to the songs. There will obviously be one foot in the 80s and one foot in the present TAMMY: The other thing is that you've worked all your lives and you're fortunate to be able to still do it as it were. All these years on you're still making the hits. We talked about your recent album in the last chat (in April 2019) It must feel good to look down the line and think "look what I've done"?    

TOYAH: From where I am now, because I turn 62 on my next birthday, it's feeling good and that's because last year was unbelievable. I made five movies and toured non-stop. This year is exceptional because my entire catalogue is going to be re-released due to demand. "Toyah Solo" (above), the box set came out on Friday. It ent straight into number one of the pre-order charts. That's 7 CD's that I made from 1985 right through to present day In the next two months I've also got 5 vinyl albums coming out. Then I have another box set in the summer and then in the autumn my first four albums are being re-released. So it's an exceptional year. As well as doing Toyah and Hazel I'm doing massive festivals and I've got three movies being released. It didn't expect that at this age ... TAMMY: No wonder you need Pershore to be your safe space, your solace! TOYAH: I need my normality TAMMY: Yeah, I'll say. I'll let you into this as well, dear listener, that Toyah's been here all day because people from all over the place want to talk to her! She's still here, fresh as a daisy. You've got energy, girl! (Toyah laughs) I'm going to play "I Want To Be Free". Can you tell us bit about what was going on when you created this song? TOYAH: This song started its actual existence when I was 14 years old. I was in school, Edgbaston, Birmingham. I was dyslexic. I was in a maths class and I wrote down on the maths paper “I don't want to go to school, I don't want to be nobody's fool, I want to be free” TAMMY: Wow! I love it! I Want To Be Free plays TAMMY: When you're in your car, you're sat at the traffic lights and you're singing along. Then the person sitting next to you catches you singing and you feel embarrassed ... Toyah's sat in front of me and I'm here singing along to her record. I felt like a bit of a banana then ... TOYAH: That's great. That song was written to sing along to TAMMY: Good! I enjoyed it! I remember my my older siblings playing those all the time. It felt to me you were this woman who stood up for women. You were a pioneer, you were in control of your destiny. Did you feel that way? TOYAH: No! (They both laugh) But I mean we can all bluff, can't we? When you're young you believe the world belongs to you. You don't realise there's a price or that you have to use effort to do it. I was just determined to be myself and be an individual and be heard     I came from the background of being the youngest in the family. I was considered the runt of the litter, almost the joke of the day. The joke was on me. So when I left home I felt I had a lot to prove. I steamrolled my way through everything. I probably didn't have to. I probably could've just honed a bit more technique and done a bit more studying and got there like that    

TAMMY: You showed them. After our chat here are you going back home to Pershore or ... ? TOYAH: Yes, I have a husband that needs feeding. Some of his band members are coming up tonight. He has a band called King Crimson so they'll need feeding as well TAMMY: Fantastic! This isn't me paying you lip service or anything but you look great. You mentioned your age earlier and you're quite frank and open about it. “I'm 62”. You don't look it! You look good! TOYAH: Thank you. Obviously because I'm on stage four nights a week and I do movies I'm always having to keep my weight down, which isn't ideal and it's not necessary for most people in their lives. The beginning of January this year  I was not feeling terribly well. I'd just completed three movies and I was basically exhausted   I realised that I'd been on the road between these three movies just eating food out of service stations and eating meat when I never normally eat meat. So I went back to vegetarianism in January and it's done me the world of good. I'm probably going to stick with it. I've eaten fish for the last ten years but I've even that up now. I drink 4 to 5 litres of water a day - TAMMY: Five litres?! TOYAH: It's very difficult because you have to go to the loo every ten minutes TAMMY: I'm trying to be a little healthier and I was reading about drinking two litres - TOYAH: It's very difficult. I'm barely five foot tall and trying to get five litres of water into this body is not easy (Tammy laughs) But if you can drink 3 to 4 litres it makes a huge difference. We're only eating fresh fruit and veg. Very few potatoes. I've managed to wean my husband off potatoes and I'm not aching the way I used to ache I'm also doing posture realignment with a sports physio in Pershore, which is helping enormously. You've got to remember I'm in the car 8 hours a day four days a week. So it's all helping tremendously. I just don't see why I should get into my 60s and slow down or be made to slow down because my body is not performing. I believe we can still perform at a certain level right up until we're 70, late 70s TAMMY: Incredible. All power to you. That fact that with vegetarianism you feel less achy is quite - TOYAH: I feel clearer. My head is clearer. I just feel energised TAMMY: Good for you. You're an inspiration, Toyah TOYAH: And it's quite cheap as well ... TAMMY: Well, it is cheaper to be fair (laughs) TOYAH: My darling husband took me to this gorgeous restaurant the other day and it was one that specialised in meat. I said can I just have bowl of vegetables and you could tell they were like “why are you here?” TAMMY: (laughs) An innovator, both you and Hazel O'Connor. So Hazel doing her stuff, you doing your stuff. The two of you coming together doing all those fantastic covers, telling the tales and stories. You two were meant to be together, I think. You both strike me as similar kindred spirits TOYAH: Yes. It's taken 40 years for this tour to happen and it's never too late. It couldn't be a better time for this to happen and we're both really excited about it   

TAMMY: What are your best memories from that time? TOYAH: Everything. It was wonderful. Doing Top Of The Pops (above), this iconic programme and you're on with other people that you've always admired TAMMY: Who were you on with? TOYAH: My first Top Of The Pops was with The Human League, Adam Ant, Ultravox … that's all I can remember. It might've been X Ray Specs as well. It was a gorgeous experience. Made me so happy. It validated me in my family, that I was someone who was going to achieve. It changed my life for ever doing that show TAMMY: How amazing. I remember seeing you and knowing “she's from Birmingham like me, she's local”. All that kind of thing. Going up to Oasis market, my sister taking me, all that stuff TOYAH: The smell of patchouli oil (Tammy laughs) And then going to the Saturday morning disco at Top Rank - TAMMY: Top Rank! My sister used to go there - TOYAH: I used to drink milk with Coca Cola in it and dance until midday ... TAMMY: Absolutely brilliant! TOYAH: 300 kids in Top Rank every Saturday morning. We would just gang together outside and run through the city centre and no one could stop us. It was hysterical! People seeing this tidal wave of  teenagers coming towards them - TAMMY: Absolutely brilliant. And here you are now. It's nice and calm in Pershore TOYAH: As if ... TAMMY: (laughs) So how many films have you got coming out this year? TOYAH: I've got three coming out this year TAMMY: Give me one in particular that we should look out for? TOYAH: "To Be Someone" is due out in April. This is the majority of the cast of "Quadrophenia". It's not "Quadrophenia 2". It's a gangster movie, it was so much fun to make! I loved every minute of it. The thing about the Quad cast is we are inseparable - TAMMY: It was Phil Daniels and Lesley Ash? TOYAH: Phil isn't in this film. In this film it's myself, Leslie Ash, Trevor Laird, Mark Wingett, Gary Shail and a few of the others. We're all joined at the hip. We love each other immensely. A very happy film to shoot. So that's out this year. I've been filming a wonderful true story called "Give Them Wings" about a paraplegic football fan, who I play the mother of This amazing man Paul  Hodgson would go in his wheelchair and goad the opposition fans and get beaten up. He would do it week after week after week and eventually someone took him … I don't know if I can tell you this – it's the surprise ending but someone put him in a paraglider and he did something. It's the most amazing true story   I play his mother. She had a stroke while she was quite young  and this paraplegic looked after his stroke ridden mother. It's one of those stories about how the system failed them. So that's due out this year as well   TAMMY: It's all go. Gets busier and busier and good for you, I say. Why should folk come along and see you and Hazel in the "Electric Ladies of the 80s" tour? TOYAH: Because we're going to be reminding people of the glorious memories of the 80s but also putting everything back in context of today. There's no reason why the music of the 80s, that meant so much to everyone like you, can not have good memories as well for today     TAMMY: Definitely. I'm going to let you go and have your lunch now because you've been at it all day -     TOYAH: I'm going to go and cook it for my husband! TAMMY: Toyah, it's been a pleasure to see you and to chat to you once again. We'll go out on "It's A Mystery". What's the story? TOYAH: The story is that when I was asked to record this I said this is going to be the end of my career. It's all about vulnerability but I will do it just to prove a point! It was one of the biggest selling singles of the 80s! (laughs) And I'm not complaining! TAMMY: I shouldn't either. Toyah, it's been a pleasure. Thank you TOYAH: Thank you very much!

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[toyahinterviews]

BBC RADIO SOLENT, WALL OF SOUND WITH ALEX DYKE 3.3.2020

ALEX: ("It's A Mystery" plays) BBC Radio Solent and that's the mighty Toyah! Hello, Toyah! Are you feeling mighty this afternoon? TOYAH: (on the phone) I'd like to think I always feel mighty, even though I'm barely 5 ft tall! (Alex snorts) I always have a bit of confidence about me, bit of attitude ALEX: Absolutely. We did a programme on Saturday called "Pop On TV" and we were playing music that had become big through television We found this clip of you (below) on "Multi-Coloured Swap Shop" with Noel Edmonds in 1981 and you were giving him … not grief, not a hard time but you were very upfront and quite cheeky. You and Noel Edmunds were talking about  a film you had made together - TOYAH: Yes, we both made our acting debut together in a BBC2 play called "Glitter" in 1976. Can you believe that? ALEX: Wow! That's what you were talking about, yeah - TOYAH: Yeah, for quite a while he denied he was ever in it (they both laugh) ALEX: Do you ever trawl YouTube and find -

TOYAH: No, I don't have to. I have an house, an archive full of everything I have ever done so I don't have to trawl anywhere. I've got stuff that even YouTube hasn't found. I never look for myself on Youtube     I'm always looking for other people and I'm always trying to find out the meaning of words. That's what I'm using YouTube for. It's like well, what does this phrase mean? What does LOL mean? I'm always leaning via YouTube but never looking for myself ALEX: So why did you keep everything? Did you think this is great, this is me being famous, it's not going to last longer than six months so I'm going to keep every newspaper clipping, every VHS video from when I'm on TV TOYAH: No. None of that. It's lasted for 42 years and I've been very influential as a programme maker, as a producer, a director of films as well as a singer and actress and a writer. So you have to keep an archive Last Friday, "Toyah Solo", a box set of  7 CD's came out, which went to number one in all the pre-order charts, so if I didn't have an archive none of that could've happened. I'm about to have 5 vinyl albums be announced for Record Store Day in April so because I have the archive I'm able to still produce things that people can buy     ALEX: Wow! It's an incredible career and goes from strength to strength. You're going to be playing the Tivoli in Wimborne on April the 18th with your old friend Hazel O'Connor But at the time we thought pop was a throwaway business. We wouldn't keep playing the records when they dropped out of the charts – in most cases. You must be pleasantly surprised that you've kept it going, being at the top of your game for over 40 years?

TOYAH: In the 90s eighties artists could not give themselves away but in 2000 the phenomena of 80s artists coming together in multi-bill format meant we could play arenas. So I played Wembley Arena ffor the first time ever in my career in 2002 and I've not looked back since So I think time, political change and cultural change has allowed us to   come and remain constant. I've not stopped touring solidly since 2002. The irony is Hazel and I have never toured together in 40 years yet the peak of our careers was at the same time and the music that we are well remembered for was at the same period in time We've both re-released material and my last album "In The Court Of The Crimson Queen" went into the Top 30 across the board in April last year and is still selling. My reason for this is that we didn't go into this thinking that this was temporary. We went into this thinking this is our lives       We honour the music and we love the music and we honour the audience. And that's what we do. You don't do it thinking “oh, this is only going to last six weeks”. You do it because this is for ever 

ALEX: Yeah,  I get that. I just want to rewind a little bit, Toyah, because you get your first hit round about February 1981 and that's massive. You're never  off Top Of The Pops, you're never off  the TV in the 1980s      Was there a point in the mid 90s where you were playing to tiny audiences and you were thinking "we can't sell more than 40 or 50 tickets, is this actually not worth it now?" Did you ever get down to playing pubs?

TOYAH: No, in the 90s I was presenting "The Heaven And Earth Show" (above), "Watchdog Healthcheck", BBC "Holiday". I was presenting "Songs Of Praise", I was travelling the world for BBC "Holiday". I was doing some major major presenting, I wasn't performing

I did a few tours in theatres so the big turn around for me was in 2002 going straight into arenas. I also do Toyah "Up Close And Personal" and we deliberately take that to small communities and we play town halls or even village halls but those could sell out for a week. So I've not really had problems selling tickets ever

ALEX: I've seen you live so many times. You're absolutely magnificent, you look wonderful. Tivoli in Wimborne on the 18th of April - you're going to be up there with Hazel O'Connor. Thank you so much for returning to the afternoon "Wall Of Sound"

TOYAH: It's a pleasure. Thank you so much, Alex

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[toyahinterviews]

BBC RADIO WILTSHIRE WITH SUE DAVIES 8.2.2020

SUE DAVIES: She may present TV shows as diverse as "The Good Sex Guide" and "Songs Of Praise" – I wonder if they were scheduled on the name night? But at heart Toyah Willcox is rock God, quite frankly A former Wiltshire resident Toyah will be joining up with Hazel O'Connor to bring "Electric Ladies of the 80s" to the Wyvern Theatre on the 16th of April   It's no mystery she's on the show then. Sorry, couldn't resist. Now, Toyah, it's like buy one get one free. How much fun has it been getting this tour ready then? TOYAH: (on the phone) (laughs) Buy one get one free! It's been great, thank you. We started rehearsals in November (below) because we want to make the show about individuals and our individuality but we also want part of the show to be the first time ever that we, Hazel and I, have sung together So this is taking quite a lot of planning. It's very exciting, works beautifully. What's so unique about this particular show is Hazel and I are very much part of same time in the 80s. We're early 80s and anyone that goes to the big 80s festivals and comes to see us all perform - right from ABC, Tony Hadley to me and Hazel, very much know that the 80s was so diverse. It had many different sounds but Hazel and I are firmly fixed in the early 80s   

SUE: Is that a sort of cross between punk and new wave? TOYAH: It started in '77 and had huge success before the 80s but there was something about the 80s that defined out sound. New technology, very popular use of the synthesizer. When you look right back to the late 70s and the 80s everyone was scared that the introduction of the synthesizer into modern music would stop people using real musicians. That is a forecast that never came true But the electronic synthesizer and something called sequensing, which is when you get very fast notes together, is all part of our sound. Human League started it SUE: Given the roles you've both had in that crossover sounds like this has been 40 years in the making - you two coming together? TOYAH: Yes, it's almost 40 years too late! We've been meaning to do this for so many decades and it's only really become possible this year because both of us are very busy. We're touring constantly and we just feel so lucky that we found this gap in the year when we can make it happen SUE: So how does the evening work? You both do your own hits and then you collaborate as well? TOYAH: Yes, there's a lot of hits to do obviously. Hazel is opening, at the moment - this might change. We might decide to change it every night. Hazel is opening with her two musicians, with her very folk style and then she will work with the band     It's my band she's using and then there's an interval and then I come on and do all the hits. Then we work together as the grand finale. That's what's happening at the moment. It could all change! SUE: And your paths crossed in the past because when the movie "Breaking Glass" was coming out and they were auditioning … Did you go for that role as well that Hazel actually got? TOYAH: When you audition for a film you obviously see everyone and there was a time when Kate Bush, Hazel and I were all in the same room. I remember it was very nerve-racking because Kate Bush was very well established. Hazel was like me, relatively new to the business at that particular time and we all went in individually to see the directors It's just astonishing to think you've got these three performers in the waiting room at the same time. But that happens so much. I go up for movies all the time and you find yourself sitting opposite the most incredible actors and you think "oh my God! I'll never get the job" but there was that moment, yes SUE: Oh, to be a fly on the wall! With Hazel O'Connor, Toyah and Kate Bush all going for the same gig! Amazing!  When you were banging out all the hits in the 80s – did you imagine you'd still be gigging now? TOYAH: I wouldn't because you ask if I would imagine that in the 80s … I wouldn't have imagined it in 2000. What happened around 2001 the big arena shows started to happen for 80s music. By that time I was presenting "The Heaven And Earth Show", "Songs Of Praise", doing lots of art programmes on BBC2 I was also working as an actress. I had a good old fashioned fax from a promoter asking would I consider doing an arena tour? My jaw hit the floor! I said yes, obviously, because I never thought anything like that could happen. And I've not looked back    

SUE: You survived the 80s – your hair survived the 80s as well

TOYAH: Yeah, the hair took a terrible time through the 80s because we used so much hairspray, so much backcombing, so many heated hair tongs. Science hadn't invented what it has invented today so we used everything we could find from hot bricks right through to egg white to keep our hair standing on end

SUE: Did you? I used egg white as well!

TOYAH: In photo shoots, yes

SUE: I just used it normally and after a couple of hours I'm thinking what's that I can smell? You had to be upwind from me back in the 1980s TOYAH: There was a time when I didn't wash my hair for a week and it really was very unpleasant SUE: (laughs) Different times, Toyah! And of course it's a lovely welcome back to Wiltshire because you lived in Broad Chalke for over a decade? TOYAH: 12 years we lived there. I absolutely adored it. It was a wonderful place but we love where we live. We live on the river Avon now. If we took a boat and travelled for three weeks we would probably end up at the Close, the back of Edward Heath's house in Salisbury. But yes, we loved living in the Salisbury area, it's such a vibrant place SUE: We're really looking forward to you joining Hazel. As you say you've you've been friends for a long time (Toyah with Hazel in 1982, below)so we thought we'd put that to the test, Toyah. Are you ready for a challenge? TOYAH: Oh, you're going to ask me questions, aren't you? That's so cruel SUE: Yes, it is. It is true but I'm loving the fact that you say go for it (Toyah laughs) So how well do you know Hazel? We've done a jingle. As you can imagine there's been a lot of time and money spent on this … So here's your jingle, Toyah Plays a really badly made jingle, Toyah is dying with laughter SUE: And that is the correct reaction (Toyah is cackling) So, three questions. Let's see how well you know Hazel. It's not going to be embarrassing with the tour coming up and everything. In 1980 then relatively unknown band Duran Duran supported Hazel on her UK tour. Is that true or is that false? TOYAH: Well, I gave Duran Duran their very first TV showing on a show called "Look! Here!", which I presented at Pebble Mill. I don't think it's true. I tell you why. To have a band that big open for you causes technical problems on stage. So I'm going to say untrue   

SUE: I'm sorry, it's true

TOYAH: (amazed) Is it?!

SUE: It's true! Back in 1980 they opened for Hazel. C'mon you can turn this around! This is not going to be embarrassing Toyah! What star sign is Hazel?

TOYAH: Taurus

SUE: Not even a doubt about that! It's correct, well done. Final question. Who's the tallest? Is it you or is it Hazel?  

TOYAH: Hazel

SUE: It is absolutely right! Well done, two out of three! The tour can go on, which is good news! Toyah Willcox, thank you so much for joining us

TOYAH: It's a pleasure, thank you and we look forward to seeing you at the Wyvern in Swindon

SUE: Oh, she can sell a gig! We love a bit of Toyah Willcox on the show. Tickets selling really fast for her "Electric Ladies of the 80s" gig, she's joined by Hazel O'Connor the 16th of April at the Wyvern Theatre in Swindon

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