Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

Toyah is interviewed in the latest issue – #579, January 2026 – of Record Collector magazine.

Toyah Ann Willcox was born in Kings Heath, Birmingham and came to prominence as an actor starring in the 1978 film Jubilee. It was while filming 1979’s Quadrophenia that she and her band Toyah auditioned for Safari Records, and after signing her on the spot, they issued their debut single, Victims Of The Riddle, that same year. She’s since put out 16 studio albums – five with Toyah including 1981’s Anthem, which yielded the Top 10 singles It’s A Mystery and I Want To Be Free, and since 1985 as a solo artist, a further 11, the most recent being 2021’s Posh Pop. She has also made records with The Humans, an experimental trio with Bill Rieflin and Chris Wong, and with her husband Robert Fripp. This September sees the issue of Chameleon: The Very Best Of.

Tell me about Chameleon. The cover of you with your shock of orange hair is very striking.
It’s a very visual piece. The double album version is on gold vinyl and is a gatefold. Of course, if you’re covering 45 years of songwriting, and it doesn’t feel like 45 years – in fact the last 25 years feel like a weekend – then you’re looking to show the progression, and you’re looking at development and a career.

You got your first real attention not as a musician but as an actor starring as ‘Mad’ in Derek Jarman’s punk film Jubilee.
I was this girl from Birmingham and here I was in a room with Little Nell from The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Jenny Runacre, the award-winning actress and filmmaker, and Jordan and Adam Ant and Jayne County, and I went straight into the A-list party, as it were. It was unbelievable.

Was punk a good time for female musicians?
I would say there were many women within the punk movement, but we were grouped together as a whole body. Now I think women are treated respectfully as individuals with their individual sound, but it wasn’t really like that back then. It was, “Why isn’t this woman like this woman?” There was always comparison. But it just made us tougher people.

• Continue reading at recordcollectormag.com. (Photo © Toyah)

A preview of the amazing six-page Toyah interview feature from the new issue of Record Collector magazine. This is a must have as it’s such a substantial feature. In this great interview, Toyah talks Posh Pop, her discography, punk, childhood, early career years, meeting Robert, lockdown, Sunday Lunch and much more. RC523/October 2021 is on sale now! (Thanks to Minna of The Toyah Willcox Interview Archive)

Toyah is interviewed in the latest issue (523, October 2021) of Record Collector magazine.

“I thought I was part of the movement, but the movement never accepted me.”

Re-energised by a long overdue reissue campaign of her early music and the release of Posh Pop, her first album for 13 years, Toyah talks to RC523 issue

ISSUE NO: 523
Exclusive features include:

THE TOP 200 RARITIES IN THE WORLD TODAY – You read about the 200 rarest and most valuable collectable records in the UK in these pages last year. Now we’re looking further afield for hard-to-find vinyl,
this time scattered across the globe. Warning: may require second mortgages
TOYAH – As her early albums are finally reissued, Ms Willcox talks punk, punching Adam Ant and lockdown celebrity
THE WHO – A pictorial potted history of the mod pioneers, from beat pop riot boys to still-windmilling Britrock royalty
WANDA JACKSON – The queen of 50s rockabilly and contemporary of Elvis and Johnny Cash is still going strong – but is her new album to be her swansong?
STEPHEN DUFFY – The mercurial folk-pop songwriter retraces his early days in neglected Brum post-punks The Hawks
FAUST – The “Dada Beatles” early output still sounds thrillingly unhinged 50 years on. We hear about its suitably anarchic evolution from four of those who lived to tell the tale

• Record Collector magazine, Issue 523 is on sale now!

A great review of Toyah’s London Changeling Resurrection II gig at Islington Academy by Record Collector.

Next, Toyah pounced into the opener Good Morning Universe, dressed in a black flowered kimono, her bright red wig in flamboyant geisha style. She held court, playing a large chunk of The Changeling, celebrating its 30th anniversary…

• Continue reading at Record Collector.