John Foxx is one of the treasures of modern electronic music, and as the 30th anniversary of the beginning of his solo career approaches, his star burns arguably brighter than ever before. Update took the time to talk about the irons he has in the fire at the moment, as well as some off the wall chat about his own influences, the period in history where his work emerged, and the different media he explores.
Last summer he helped curate an exhibition devised in his honour. The DNA exhibition contained not only works by Foxx himself, but donated exhibits from the likes of Gary Numan. When we talk Foxx is happy to remember the week’s events. “I was very moved by it really, the response wasn’t what I expected it to be. I wasn’t much to do with it to be honest, but it was great to come in at the end! I think what was most pleasing was people making good work – they liked things I did in the past, and it’s very pleasing when another generation picks up on your work, for it not to be forgotten.”
The generation of Foxx’s youth is currently being picked over by the media, with an especially entertaining hour and a half in store for those who haven’t seen Synth Britannia. At the time of talking Foxx hadn’t seen it, but was pleased of its existence, offering a theory behind it. “I think that there’s a re-evaluation 20 years on of almost everything – every medium gets revisited about every 20 years. Sometimes it’s surprising to find out about the people who were on the surface. They can be overlooked at the time, and yet when that audience grows up it’s what they feel is important. That time a lot of people remember, and what they remember is surprising and sometimes gratifying. Often the magazines and media reporting it know little until about 20 years later, and then they tell a lot more.”
He elaborates more. “I’ve been reading a book recently about Victorian painters, most of them living in Kensington, being wealthy and famous, and now we don’t know them at all. Some of the minor painters are now major movements in France, and those things that in Edwardian times were considered to be too eccentric are now major art forms of that period.”
We return to the present day, where Foxx is pushing the boundaries as keenly as ever. Recently he has been working with Paul Daley, once of Leftfield. “We’ve just been working on the rougher edge of dance music,” he describes, “but there are some songs in there too. It comes from an electronic, dance and club music background, but you can still listen to it. I think we share that thing of being in London at the time of the transition towards electronic music, and it’s an interesting area that’s not often looked at. You had bands like Neu! around, and there was a retired classical influence as some had been to music school and some hadn’t. I think I noticed a big Iggy & The Stooges influence – he influenced a lot of people, including Kraftwerk. That whole period interests me, and Paul as well, but he also has that Detroit thing. It’s like the American-Manchester thing, that rough belt music. You can recognise that from Iggy through to the dance movement, it has that same sort of connection.”
I wonder if Foxx would have been a natural choice for Warp music, had they existed when he started out. “I would have been there straight away,” he confesses. “I wanted to leave Manchester, as there was nothing there. I used to play in Bolton and Manchester supporting bands, but I wasn’t connected with that kind of music. I enjoyed it, but you got the feeling of an empty city, and when I went to London it was the same feeling. It gradually happened but probably only fifteen or so people were involved. Germany was an alternative scene, with people like Tangerine Dream and the beginnings of Kraftwerk. It had all gone off the street. There was some awful pub rock, but nothing really happened until the New York Dolls came to town. Various New York bands then began to emerge; and I remember Patti Smith at the Roundhouse, Mick from the Clash, and John Lydon – you got the feeling something needed to happen, but it happened in New York first. McLaren did his version of the American movement of course, and it was a very Dickensian thing he did with the Pistols.
As well as Paul Daley, Foxx is working with Harold Budd. “Harold sent me a list of recordings he’s done, with Robin Garcia. I’m going to put some of my work on some recordings he’s done with Robin Garcia,” he says modestly, “and we’ll put them together. I consider it a great privilege to have any connection with him at all. I’m still working with Robin Guthrie as well, and have various projects going on. I always liked Robin’s work with the Cocteau Twins, no-one sounds like them at all. We always meant to work together, and I hope we’ll do some more, it’s been discussed. There’s a long history there as his brother booked us in to Scotland for some of the first gigs we did back in the 1970s, a lot of connections between us.”
Unfortunately Foxx’s reverie has to be broken, but it’s been an intriguing look back at his youth – which is where you suspect a lot of the inspiration for his work with Paul Daley is coming from. Now we look forward to hearing the results.
The John Foxx ‘Best Of’, Metatronic, is out through Demon Records on Monday 3rd May, and he will oversee and perform a special analogue show at ‘Short Circuit’, a night at the Roundhouse on Saturday 5th June. DJ guests will include Gary Numan, Ade Fenton and Jori Hulkonnen.
