FOXY ROXX

I was in this band from 1987 to about 1991.

This band was my first step into a professional career as a musician...
And as an artist actually, now that I come to think about it.

I began playing in this band before I had done anything "artistically" professional...
And I had never stepped out onto a stage as the soul focus in front of a crowd before.
In school I always performed in ensemble cast presentations, never solo.

I had played in lots of garage bands before, but Foxy Roxx was my first "non-garage band" which is to say
that we actually got out and played at clubs and sometimes even made a little cash...
Not nearly as much as we spent, mind you, but you sometimes have to measure success on a curve! HA HA!

Anyway, we were VERY GLAM-ROCK, and our influences were quite obviously:
KISS, BOWIE, IGGY, ALICE COOPER, NEW YORK DOLLS, MOTLEY CRUE, RATT, POISON, etc.

So, long story/short... This was my first step into a much bigger world, and with it came great accomplishments, as well as
a lot of mistakes along the way, and consequently a lot of learning too.

The original line up was:
Tony Starlin (drums)
T. J. Jovan (guitar)
Lance LeRouge (vocals)
Punky Muck (bass)

"Punky" was actually my High School buddy, James, who was the one responsible for answering the ad to audition for Tony and T. J.
He brought me along without telling them that he was bringing a singer with him.
I, of course, was under the assumption that we were both expected to show up...
James is notorious for these kinds of situations.
In a similar twist of fate, James talked me into joining the group with him, and then he played one show with us
(opening up for a KISS tribute band at our old High School),
and then he ran off to Tennessee to record with some other band, and left us all in the lurch.

Enter my best friend:
Mark Jazzmyn (bass)
Mark (Campbell) and I have known each other since the 3rd grade, and he and I started playing guitar together as kids...
I remember coming to Mark's house and making fake, ply-wood, electric guitars with his dad's jigsaw and then gluing on fake frets and knobs
so that we could put on concerts in his backyard!!! Now THAT is what aspiring ROCK STARS do!

Anyway, Mark could play guitar, so I persuaded him to switch to bass and join the group, and so he did...
Mark came in and saved our butts because the three of us were struggling with paying the studio rent,
(James still owed us all money)
meanwhile, we had a list of shows lined up and we were getting nowhere with our auditions...
We had every goon you could think of come in to try out before Mark joined, and none of them had "it"... Very few people do, come to find out...
But Mark did! And he became a really cool, kick ass bass player!

WHAT'S IN A NAME?
The name FOXY ROXX is strange, but it has a story... I came up with the name by sort of an accident actually.
I had written a couple hundred name ideas down and brought them in for suggestions to the guys and just started going down the list...

I was set on a two word name, like Motley Crue, I liked that!

So I'm reading off the list and the guys were just shaking their heads, "No, no, no, no..."
And I'm going, "Okay...
Feeler Squeal?
"NO!"
Friction Addiction?
"NO!"
Kry Wolf?"
"NO!"
On and on, I mean people were actually getting pissed from the frustration of this process, but I kept going...

Among the list of names were ones like Gypsy, which James and I liked, but James suggested that we try Gypsy Rocks,
because his old band Frenzy had written Frenzy Rocks on their studio wall and he thought it sounded cool...
I was like "Okay..." not quite sure I liked it, but I wrote it down and sort of went with it
(when you are this desperate for an idea, you try ANYTHING!) and so it went on the list...

Another name that I had come up with was Foxy Roxy and it was on the list too...
So, needles to say, I went through the hundreds of names and no one liked any of them.
I was still determined though!!!
So I started mixing and matching the names (you see where this is going) and I went down the list again,
Gypsy Wolf?
"NO!"
Kry Addiction?
"NO!"
Friction Squeal?
"NO!"
Foxy Rocks?
*silence*

Hey, no one said "NO!"???

So I said it again "Foxy Rocks?"

Everyone started looking at each other and went, "That's kinda cool..."
So I said, "Well, what if it is spelled F O X Y - R O X X with 3 x's in the name?"

To which, they were all kind of confused, "I don't know... That might be cool... I guess..."
and I told them that I knew how the logo should look, and that I would do it for them to see.

So everyone remained skeptical until I brought in the logo at the next rehearsal, and then they were sold...
We were FOXY ROXX!

ALL THAT GLITTERS!
The band had all the flash of an arena act, thanks to Tony!
Tony made us a light up sign, flame thrower flash pots, confetti launchers, you name it!
I learned a lot watching Tony...
Where other people would go:
"Naw, it would cost a fortune..."
"That's to difficult!"
or "That's too dangerous!"
Tony would go, "Watch this!" HA HA!

He was amazing at coming up with ways to do stuff and then actually building it all and making it work...
He came up with using non-dairy creamer as the flamable material for our first flash pots *DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME* but it works great!
I would help him put things together, because the greatest bond that he and I had was that we were very driven people,
and like-minded in our belief that anything is possible if you want it bad enough.

I helped to round out the look of the stage with these huge 7' painted murals of the band on walls that went
in front of our amplifiers... Our stage show kicked ass!
On any given night, we had pyro, lights, fog, candy, condoms, silly string, fortune cookies and whipped cream all flying into the air
and off the stage or into the crowd as we played...
And then as an encore, I pulled off the biggest KISS (or Gene $immons) tributes of all, I would breathe fire!
It was a really over-the-top show!

LEAVING THE PARTY EARLY...
In the end, we were pretty novice as musicians and striving to grow as writers,
and ultimately that sort of drove a wedge between the two "heads" of the group, which were myself and Tony.

We had different writing styles and different ideas that were beginning to clash more and more.
In all honesty, it was probably just too much creativity and determination for just one group.

So Mark and I went our own way (and formed DAMNATION ALLEY ) while Tony and T. J. kept going with a new Foxy Roxx lineup
and experienced quite a deal of success over the following years to come...
In fact, Tony stayed with the group and became the lead singer and toured right up until about 2001.