BBC Music Introducing in Hereford & Worcester, had tea with Toyah. The multi-million selling singer/songwriter, author and actress invited them to chew the fat at her place. This aired last Sunday (15th August). Listen to the interview by clicking below.
Toyah guests on BBC Radio Hereford & Worcester’s Tammy Gooding show tomorrow afternoon for “Tammy’s Big Toyah Willcox Interview”. The show airs from 2 – 6pm. Toyah has previously guested on Tammy’s radio show a number of times over the past few years, most recently in March 2020.
Tomorrow’s Toyah interview will most likely centre around the new album, Posh Pop, which is released in just two week’s time (Friday 27th August). Pre-order Posh Pop here.
BBC Hereford & Worcester: Tammy Gooding: Friday 13th August: 2pm
Tammy’s big Toyah Willcox interview. What you need to know where you live on a Fantastic Friday with Tammy.
• Listen live at their BBC website or post-airing at BBC Sounds.
A new interview with Toyah at Wickham Festival 2021. Watch below or at You Tube.
New from the NME! One of the most interesting Toyah interviews/features for a long time…
In Does Rock ‘N’ Roll Kill Braincells?!, we quiz an artist on their own career to see how much they can remember – and find out if the booze, loud music and/or tour sweeties has knocked the knowledge out of them
1 You starred in Derek Jarman’s 1978 punk film Jubilee. Upon its release, who created a protest T-shirt deeming it “the most boring and therefore disgusting film”?
“Vivienne Westwood!”
CORRECT.
“I got one right! I’m so happy! Derek Jarman, the director, was thrilled by that (Laughs). When we started pre-production, people were behind the film, but then the punk world felt it was going to be exploitative. Derek Jarman was special and had no compromise. He saw talent in everyone and everything. Working with him on Jubilee, I quickly became aware that I was being catapulted from nowhere into the glitterati of this new movement and I immediately knew it was special.”
Ever run into Vivienne Westwood?
“I actually did some modelling for Vivienne. She probably wouldn’t have known it was me, but I did some modelling for TV at her shop [Sex] which was great fun. I got John Lydon through the screen test for Quadrophenia. Franc Roddam, its director, asked me to go over to Johnny Rotten’s apartment, learn two scenes with him, and accompany him to the studio to do the screen test for the role of Jimmy. He was an absolute gentleman and a brilliant actor, but nobody would touch Johnny because they felt he was unpredictable.”
You’ve acted with some big names including Katharine Hepburn and Laurence Oliver…
“Laurence Olivier was quite old when I worked with him [on the 1984 TV movie The Ebony Tower] and not terribly well so we could only shoot with him three hours a day, but he burnt brighter than anyone I’d ever met. He was a rebel and wonderfully naughty. I used to have supper with him in the evenings and was told not to let him drink – and we’d get through six bottles of champagne and he could still keep going! My first professional job was at the National Theatre so to be acting with him in a movie was thrilling.”
• Continue reading at the NME.
Toyah on being a woman in punk in the 1980s, her new album, and the Sunday Lunch sensation
This is Unscripted – a podcast brought to you by ITV News Arts Editor Nina Nannar. In each episode, Nina speaks to a leading name from the world of arts and entertainment.
Her guests talk about their life and work, plus Nina asks them where they see themselves in five years.
On Unscripted this week, Nina is joined by eighties icon Toyah.
Toyah talks life in the music industry as a woman in punk in the 1980s – and challenging the business now 40 years later.
She chats to Nina about her new album Posh Pop.
And, of course, the pair chat about Toyah and Robert’s Sunday Lockdown Lunch – the internet sensation that sprung up in lockdown imagined by the singer and her husband, guitarist Robert Fripp.
• Continue reading/Listen to the interview at ITV News.
Toyah chats to Mark Ellen and David Hepworth (of Smash Hits/Q magazines and Whistle Test) for Word In Your Ear. Watch it now at You Tube by clicking below.
Toyah guested on BBC Midlands Today yesterday evening. Discussing Posh Pop and much more.
Interviewer, Ben Sidwell tweeted: I’ve spent the morning at home with the lovely Toyah talking about lockdown videos, gaining millions of new fans & her brand new album ‘Posh Pop’. Great cup of tea too! Hear what Toyah has to say on BBC Midlands Today. (Photo © Ben Sidwell/BBC)
Toyah Willcox shares new single ‘Levitate’ – and talks “magical” new album ‘Posh Pop’
Get the lowdown on her Sunday Lunch session-inspired new record
Toyah Willcox has shared a new single ‘Levitate’, the first taster of her forthcoming solo album, ‘Posh Pop’. Check out the video below along with our exclusive interview with the singer.
Her first album of new material since 2008’s ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’, ‘Posh Pop’ was made with Simon Darlow, following on from his work as co-writer and a producer of her aforementioned previous album, and features guitar lines from her husband, King Crimson’s Robert Fripp – with whom Willcox has become known for Sunday Lunch video series, sharing renditions of songs by Nirvana, David Bowie, Metallica, Billy Idol, The Rolling Stones, Judas Priest, The Prodigy, Guns N’ Roses, Alice Cooper and many more.
• Continue reading at the NME.
Toyah guests today on Barbara Dickson’s Answer Me Ten podcast.
Barbara said of meeting Toyah: “What a delight to chat with her. Bx”
A series of new weekly podcasts, ‘Answer Me Ten’, Join legendary singer Barbara Dickson as she poses ten questions to different women in the world of music. Visit Barbara at www.barbaradickson.net
• Listen to Toyah’s Answer Me Ten podcast chat with Barbara Dickson here or at You Tube.
“I was very reliable” Toyah tells SDE
Toyah Willcox, the new queen of ‘Sunday Lunch’ lockdown videos talks to SDE about the reissue of Toyah’s 1980s album The Blue Meaning. This is the second major release in Cherry Red’s reissue campaign, since the label acquired Safari Records in early 2020.
SDE: You’ve been keeping busy during lockdown – I’ve seen the videos – but you must have missed playing live, since you used to do it so much?
Toyah Willcox: Yes, that’s true, but I managed to build a pretty phenomenal… brand name in lockdown. So we’re going to continue with it. It’s been a phenomenon we never expected, and it’s still growing. In a couple of years we’ll have our own TV channel, doing our own TV broadcasts. What seems to have struck home is the very basic truth and simplicity of what we do. We’re not in hi-tech studios or anything like that, but we’ll actually be broadening the whole of that.
• Continue reading at Super Deluxe Edition. Browse Dreamscape’s SDE news archive.
The Evelyn Glennie Podcast, on which Toyah recently guested, is now available at The Toyah Willcox Interview Archive as a text interview.
A great interview with Toyah, a great podcast, and now a great transcript.
A full transcript of Toyah’s recent interview on BBC Radio Kent’s Dominic King Show can now be read online at The Toyah Willcox Interview Archive.
• Read it here. Listen to the interview at BBC Sounds.
Toyah guests this evening on The Dominic King Show which airs from 6pm on BBC Radio Kent. Toyah is on after 8pm.
The Dominic King Show: Chris Addison + TOYAH
Evenings on BBC Radio Kent. Featuring great music and conversation.
• Listen online at BBC Sounds for the next four weeks.
To a generation of teenagers, the 1980s punk pop star Toyah Willcox was an inspiration with brightly dyed hair and dramatic make up.
The singer and actor joins RTÉ Arena to discuss her new album Posh Pop, out in July and her hit YouTube series Toyah and Robert’s Sunday Lunch.
• Listen to this great interview at the RTE website.
Toyah will be joining Cathy Grant for an interview on her, newly launched, Reignite channel at You Tube – This Tuesday, 25th May, at 11am.
Rockonteurs with Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt
S1E38: Toyah Willcox
This week, Guy and Gary chat to a creative tour de force. Musician, actress, TV presenter and now lockdown YouTube sensation, Toyah Willcox.
What a career! 20 albums, over 40 stage plays, at least 10 films including the iconic mod classic ‘Quadrophenia’.
The interview with Toyah was great fun and we can’t wait to share it with you.
• Listen to the Rockonteurs podcast here.
Episode 21 – Toyah Willcox
Season 4, Ep. 21
I have always been a huge fan of Toyah’s so to have the chance to chat to her about everything that keeps her creative was incredible for me!
Toyah shared some of the secrets of her boundless energy, her musical inspirations and how to survive a lockdown with a husband of 35 years without throwing the kettle at him! So let’s get listening!
In loving memory of Isobel Glennie.
• Listen to The Evelyn Glennie Podcast here.
Robert Fripp and Toyah Willcox on Their Viral Quarantine Videos: ‘We’re in This With You’
King Crimson’s guitarist and his pop-star wife on what inspired them to cover everything from “Enter Sandman” to “Girls, Girls, Girls,” and what everyone got wrong about their ‘Swan Lake’ tutu dance
“My wife is a force of nature and my wife leads the way,” Robert Fripp says of his partner and quarantine-video collaborator Toyah Willcox.
On April 5th, 2020, music fans stuck in their homes and cruising the web for diversions were greeted with one of the most unusual sights in a season filled with them: King Crimson auteur Robert Fripp and his wife, singer and actress Toyah Willcox, both elegantly dressed and dancing to Bill Haley and the Comets’ early rock anthem “Rock Around the Clock.”
Filmed on Willcox’s iPhone in the kitchen of the couple’s home near Birmingham, England, the head-scratching clip launched one of the year’s least likely and most talked-about viral series. Every Sunday since, “Toyah and Robert’s Sunday Lunch” (sometimes called a “Lockdown Lunch”) has presented a new clip of the couple having quick, good-natured fun at home. The ever-upbeat Willcox sings and vamps (while wearing a variety of costumes, from workout suit to cheerleader costume) while a deadpan Fripp accompanies her on electric guitar.
• Continue reading at Rolling Stone. (Photo © Toyah Willcox)
Cherry Red Records, who release Sheep Farming In Barnet as a deluxe CD set next month, recently interviewed Toyah.
The Toyah Willcox story is an in-depth interview which looks at who the real Toyah is, what motivates her and how she became so successful. She also shares many fascinating stories from her incredible career.
A new, Sheep Farming In Barnet/Early Years, interview with Toyah, from Cherry Red’s My Favourite Flavour magazine. A classic SFIB era photo of Toyah is also included on the cover!
According to the sleevenotes of the lavish re-issue of Toyah’s debut album ‘Sheep Farming In Barnet’ her progress to punk icon, then pop star, really began back in 1975…
“Back then I just wanted to get out of school, get out of Birmingham. I definitely wanted to act and sing, but there was no way I was equipped for that. I think I was lucky to have been born at the right time and been around for the punk movement, that allowed every shape, size, sound and form into the fold. If you had something to express or to say back then, punk accepted it. That was the saving grace for me.
“I’d left home and got a job at the National Theatre in London, school hadn’t really prepared me for life, I had to land on my feet and learn to adapt to the outside world and somehow mould myself into what I wanted to be.
“At the National, an actor called Ian Charleson introduced me to Derek Jarman who was about to start work on his film Jubilee and around the same time I got into a punk band and started writing with Joel Bogen. We started playing the pub circuit and I was embraced by that whole community, they were amazing times.”
• Continue reading here. (Thanks to Sharon Dickson for the scans)
A great new interview with Toyah, just published by Punktuation. Also includes a shorter interview with Steve James discussing the recording of Sheep Farming in Barnet.
Punktuation chats to the high priestess of punk, Toyah Willcox, about the reissue of her debut album, Sheep Farming In Barnet and her extraordinary career
Toyah is quite simply a force of nature. She is a musician and songwriter, she’s a very successful actress, and she’s a producer and storyteller. She’s had eight top 40 hit singles, released 23 albums, written two books and appeared in over 40 stage plays and ten feature films including Derek Jarman’s Jubilee and Franc Roddam’s Quadrophenia.
Now 62 years old there’s also no sign that Toyah plans to slow down anytime soon. However, the events of 2020 have forced her, like the rest of us, to readjust to the ‘new reality’.
“Yes, it’s been an extraordinary time, hasn’t it? I don’t think I’ve spent so much time at home as I have this year, ” Toyah says over the phone from her English countryside home that she shares with her husband of over 30 years, guitarist Robert Fripp.
“It’s taken a bit of time to get used to. Here we are at the end of October and Robert and I are just finding our stride. We both believe if we can get through this we can get through anything. The reality for us is that we will have to be in quarantine for a while longer as Robert is now 74 – we have to be careful,” Toyah confides.
• Continue reading at Punktuation.
