Interview conducted pre-show at Epic Live Event Center
Janet Gardner is probably a household name to most metalheads that stayed up late watching Headbangers Ball in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Back when the hair was almost bigger than the pyro and the actual women were sometimes a challenge to pick out in the crowd. The MTV era was very good to Gardner and her all-female band Vixen, though in recent years they’ve amicably parted ways with Gardner pursuing a solo career with partner/husband Justin James.
Since her first self-titled solo record they’ve continued blazing a path of new material and retro homage to the days of cassettes and VHS. They still tour internationally and are currently promoting her third solo release Synergy as Gardner & James.
While Vixen is continuing their legacy with former Femme Fatale singer Lorraine Lewis, Gardner and James are giving crowds a setlist sampling the first two Vixen vinyl and selections from her first three records.
In the beginning, there was MTV and in the later ‘80s it begat glam metal videos. Men far outnumbered the women, though the style was to look more feminine than the ladies. Vixen were one of the first all female rock/metal bands to seduce the air and videowaves. The song they’re most known for “Edge of a Broken Heart” was the world’s first glimpse of the all-femme-fatale’s and founder Jan Kuehnemund even did double duty as the literal screen page turner. “That’s Jan’s hand. There are two versions of that. One has the hand and one has the live performance. We wanted to incorporate some kind of behind the scenes activities. I think the director said we’ll just have some kind of page turning.” It wasn’t considered cutting edge at the time. “No, we’d seen things like that, it wasn’t done a lot, but it wasn’t like, ohhh super effect. “When we walked in we were like wow. They had set all that up for us to do a video, it was crazy,” Gardner recalls. “It adds a nice little flair to the video.” James adds, jokingly asking which was bigger the hair or the stage. “I don’t know.”
Speaking of big stages Gardner said the stage in the “Cryin’” video was vertigo inducing. “There were two, the stage where we filmed the closer stuff and way out where they did the further off things. It was a little scary. Falling from there would not have been pretty.”
Though they were road dogs in the early days playing countless bars and ballrooms, sexism was rampant at the time, “Oh yeah, very sexist environment. We were definitely looked at for what we looked like as for our abilities, which was sad but true.”
Now, Vixen were seen as inspirations for women to pursue whatever avenue they want and not necessary in music. “I think that’s really satisfying when they come up and say you guys inspired me back then to become a doctor or whatever. If they can do that, I can do what I wanna do. I love, LOVE hearing that. We inspired women to do what they want.”
The novelty of women in bands, all-female, singing or playing is a history-faded relic of the past. Gardner says she applauds women who growl, scream and/or yell into the mic representing extreme metal and its subgenres. “Yeah, of course, kickin’ butt, doing their thing. I support it 100%. I think that’s amazing. It’s different. It’s not something I do. I certainly couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t be able to speak for a week.” Though Gardner says she did scream on the first solo record and on Your Place in the Sun on “Assassinate.”
In the spirit of screaming and growling Gardner and James both invite people to mosh at shows. Circle pit too. Gardner might even coordinate a wall of death on one of their heavier tunes at future shows.
James says they usually start by throwing their bass player in first watching him roll in the crowd till he gets angry from getting pushed around. “I took my son to see Slayer on their final tour,” Gardner says. “We were up above it and could see everything going on. The place was packed. Probably 10,000, it was crazy.”
On whether Slayer is truly retired, “It’s funny, I usually don’t believe them and bands that say that but I do believe them. I think that’s it, they’re done.”
James says, “I think once you’re in it… Slayer themselves won’t be actively touring, but as musicians, it’s hard to stop and not do anything. You always have it in you. Something will come up.”
Their show is a collective serving of everything early Vixen to the newest record. “We make sure we play the songs they want to hear, “Edge of a Broken Heart,” “Cryin’,” James says. “We named it our twofer set,” Gardner quips. “We do two songs off Vixen, two off Rev It Up, two off our first album, two off the second and two off Synergy.”
Gardner assures most shows she’ll drop the F-Bomb in “Rat Hole.“ Of course, I’d never phase that out.” James still finds the shock value of her cussing on record funny. “We put that song and video out and people were like I can’t believe she said that. It’s like, seriously? I thought it would be like, yeah, everybody does that now.”
The pandemic made them dependent on homemade videos for awhile, including the glowing pole/mic stand in “Wounded.” “We just wrapped some LED lights around it, sort of create something. It was at our house, we were limited. We couldn’t go to a studio or venue, or use the stage. There was nothing we could do so we had to figure something out.”
They ordered lights and a green screen online and went to work. “She did an awesome job editing that. We had just got back from touring Australia,” James remembers. “Someone had filmed one of our shows at the festival and sent it to us. She was able to take footage from that and edit it to look like everyone was playing along to “Wounded.” It was a challenge but they made it work.
Synergy had four pandemic themed videos including the very punk pounding “Talk to Myself.” “That was a unique song, how it came about.” Most of the record was recorded during lockdown. “I was drunk in our studio like 2 in the morning just noodling on the guitar playing around with sounds and effects then she woke up. I said, check out what I did, you’re not gonna like it but… and she liked it. I was like ok, then that turned into that song. It was different for us. It was fun, why not, during that time period you need fun. It was just dark.” It’s a unique creation and sound in that you could easily imagine Glenn Danzig’s vocals in the mix singing Gardner’s parts and Doyle doing James’ work.
They’re written and recorded all three solo records so far and decided to ‘go public’ as a team listing both names on Synergy. “For this album we’ll incorporate both our names and call it Gardner/James. Ironically the guy that did the artwork sent us a pic of the two monkeys, that’s so goofy and funny we have to use it.”
The album cover started as an email joke but received positive reaction so they added some stuff and you have what we see. James is unsure if it was due to lockdown induced cabin fever or being batshit crazy. Though Gardner confirms they were starting to get a bit loopy. It’s still comical to James, “I think it’s unique, you can’t take yourself too seriously. We do it for the fun of it, because we love it. It’s exciting.”
They had to pull out of some shows right before the world stopped last year for risk prevention. “We wanted to play but didn’t want to be responsible if something contagious happened, god-forbid.” Gardner didn’t want to help spread the disease.
James says they waited until things got better. “It feels so good to be out playing again.”
The heaviest song to date according to them is “The Grind.” I think, “You Can Kiss This” on Synergy is the most driving heaviest. “The Grind” is definitely the heaviest.”
One of the least heavy songs “Candle” was filmed in the studio with additional windows and curtains adding to the overall visuals and emotions.
Looking back Gardner has fond memories of Vxen’s tour with Ozzy during No Rest for the Wicked. “Good memories, good times. That was a great tour. To me it was our best tour in the states. We did some Euro stuff with The Scorpions and Deep purple in the states. Ozzy was the best tour we did, in my opinion. That was really, really amazing. It was magical, you can’t go back, wish you could but you can’t, a really incredible time.”
Professionally she still wears a mask, though not on stage but as a dental hygienist part-time. “It’s great. I do it just enough to where I still enjoy it, still love taking care of my patients. Take care of our family.” Every now and then there are moments of patient recognition but it’s hard to tell with all the gear on. Though James jokes he’s trying to get her to wear some of it on stage.
Its well known that Richard Marx wrote some of the songs on the first Vixen record but Gardner says a tour would’ve been an odd mix of fanbases. “I don’t think anyone would think that would fit. His audience would be so much different than ours. I don’t think it was ever a possibility. Somebody may have brought it up but the end result was not the best fit for him or us.”
On the other side of the musical stadium, on festivals and other shows they’ve been booked with extreme metal bands. “The summer of 2018, we played a lot of European festivals and had all kinds of rock. The heaviest of the heavy and the ones where you don’t know what the logo says. It spells something. I think most fans like a little variety. Check out different genres.”
There’s no end in sight for the continuing synergy, in studio or on stage. “I can’t see us doing nothing, that’s for sure. We love recording and creating so we’ll definitely continue making music,” Gardner promises.
They’ll be working on the next record when winter comes before the eventual live show itch comes back. They both say it’s hard to stop but way down the road they may eventually slow down, cutting back. They also agree that all the struggles, challenges, and inconveniences of touring regardless of state, province or country is well worth it. They have members in three different states, plus pandemic concerns but hopefully the worst of the evil C-word is in the rear-view regardless of how many variants and normal touring resumes as a whole in 2022.
At the moment the twofer rule doesn’t apply to the Tangerine record. “Yeah, we don’t play anything from that. There are a few songs I wouldn’t mind doing. We try to stick to the ones that people wanna here. Otherwise, we do our own, and the Vixen ones everyone will know.”
Though, their performance in the 1980’s comedy Hardbodies is a hidden gem in itself. Gardner slaps her head yelling, oh my god! “I was showing our kids that,” James chimes in.
Gardner admits it was fun hanging out in a house in Malibu, goofing off between takes on acoustic guitars. She remembers taking her Mormon mom and a bunch of her friends to see it. “I told her, I warned her, I said, it’s not gonna be your… I’m not sure how proud you’ll be of me. We were Vixen at that point. Some of the songs in that movie were from an EP we made. It was good they got used.” Gardner says one of the pre-Vixen names considered was Lemon Pepper.
Another ’80s MTV experience was Penelope Spheeris The Metal Years documentary featuring several up and coming glam band’s playing and surviving on the Sunset Strip club scene. While some made it and are still going today, several didn’t. Though we’re lucky enough to say in hindsight when Penelope asked, what if you don’t make it, Gardner said they would… did and still are. There’s no way we’re not making it. “That was interesting. We’ve still alive, well and rocking. The ‘80s never left, they just took a nap.”
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