Back in the 80s, girl band Fuzzbox – led by vivacious lead singer Vix (aka Vickie Perks) – proved that you could have fun as well as make good music. You only have to look at pop promo videos such as ‘International Rescue’, ‘Pink Sunshine’ and ‘Love Is The Slug’ to see that these were girls with job satisfaction. This year, the band celebrate their 30th anniversary and reformed in 2015 with a fresh new line-up and a series of gigs.
philmarriott.net caught up with Vix to talk about the recent reunion shows, technical cock-ups on kids’ TV, puppets and THAT gold whip!
Hey Vix, how the devil are you?
Vix: I’m BOSTIN thank you!
We are only just recovering from partying hard at your 100 Club gig on 13th November, which was immense fun. How was it for you?
Ha ha ha! Lightweights! There’d been such a build up to this one gig, from around the time we were on Sara Cox’s Sound of the 80’s show on BBC Radio 2 Slot Gacor Hari Ini back in July, then the auditions, selections, rehearsals, photo shoots and finally – THE GIG! The three new Fuzzchix; Sarit Black, Hannah Lahye and Megan Burke, have fit in perfectly and are great players and performers. I think we all have girl crushes on each other! Needless to say, we all had a fantastic gig. Such great fun! The crowd were so up for it, as were we, so the atmosphere when we got on stage was electric.
We still think ‘International Rescue’ is one of the most feel-good pop videos of all time. Even Adrian Edmonson starred in it. How did that concept come about?
We’ve got a …FUZZBOX… and we’re gonna use it! We were massive fans of the original Thunderbirds. We loved the puppet strings; how they walked; the close-ups of the hands. We decided to mix the Thunderbirds theme with Barbarella, and Ade played the part of Duran Duran in our video as well as directing it. Fancy the new cartoon series of Thunderbirds not using our song as their theme tune. Pfft!
You suggested recently on social media that you are toying with the idea of introducing a whip on stage when you perform ‘Self!’. Saucy.
Ooh, you snoop! It was only in a comment! Ha ha ha! It is tempting though, I must admit. I did have the gold whip from the ‘Self!’ video for many years, but it became too worn out.
Girls do punk better than men. Controversial?
The great thing about punk is that anyone can do it; well https://academipress.com/slot-gacor/ or badly. Fuzzbox were so punk in that we volunteered to do a gig without actually having a band or being able to play the instruments. We threw a few songs together, literally a few hours before the gig. Musically I’d say we were more ‘punk-pop’ though, or more‘alternative’ than hard core (you know the score) punk!
Very rarely do you get a decent cover version. You nailed it with Yoko Ono’s ‘Walking On Thin Ice’, but you didn’t think your record company were wise releasing that as a single.
Aw thanks! I do really like the version we did. We had Yoko Ono’s blessing which was nice, although we felt that ‘Fast Forward Futurama’ would have been a much better fourth single. The record company overruled us and put out ‘Walking On Thin Ice’ regardless. I think it was a step too far stylistically https://www.housingaustria.com/situs-slot-gacor/ from songs like ‘Pink Sunshine’, and so subsequently didn’t do anywhere near as well as previous singles.
There is archive You Tube footage of you lip-syncing to ‘Pink Sunshine’ on Ghost Train – a kids tv show. Midway through your performance, the backing tape stops and rewinds. Was it as hilarious as your reaction to it showed?
Oh yes! It was – and still is – hilarious! In those days you had to mime to backing tracks, especially on Saturday morning TV, so that was a massive technical cock-up that the tape rewound half way through the song live on prime time TV. We were actually glad that it happened to us rather than a band who took themselves more seriously and we had a great relationship with Ghost Train (anyone remember Nobby the Sheep?!).
Which 80s icons were you listening to during that decade?
Hmm… I wasn’t really listening to 80s music. I was listening to Elvis, Phil Spector, Motown, Patsy Cline. I still am now. We shared the stage with bands such as Kylie, Simply Red, Soul II Soul, Madness.
Educate and celebrate. That’s good advice, isn’t it?
Yeah innit bwoy?! I’m Patron for the LGBT+ charity Educate and Celebrate and I composed lots of songs to accompany the books for PRIDE in Education. I also deliver music projects to Primary and Secondary schools. Equality is really important to me and education is an excellent place to start instilling the ethos that we are all different but equal. My dad was a headmaster who received an OBE for Services to Education. As Brummies, we enjoy living amongst a huge diversity of people from all walks of life. As my dear ol’ gran would say, “Wouldn’t it be a boring world if we were all the same?”. Damn right!
What’s the point?
The point is…
Ya gotta keep on keeping on.
Ya gotta keep moving forward, forever onwards.
Ya gotta be the change you want to see in the world.
Ya gotta be yourself only more so.
Ya gotta give more than you get.
Ya gotta smile at strangers.
Ya gotta keep the child inside alive.
ViX & Maggie Fuzzbox are currently writing for a new 2016 single release.
Fuzzbox have just been confirmed to play Let’s Rock! in Bristol.
‘Fame Is Your Driver’ by ViX & her MsChiefs is out now.
Join the Xmas fun at gigs on www.vix.uk.com
