It's oh so quiet....

.....quiet that is unless you've got our début album (or more especially, our early singles) cranked up to 11. Which is one louder. Speaking of which, did you read our review in Q Magazine?! 





THOUGHTFUL WORDS ALERT.

Things have been undeniably quiet on The Foxes front of late - after all the effort and excitement of releasing 'Last of Many' a little break to breathe and relax was much needed. It goes without saying, though I'm going to say it anyway, that financing, recording and releasing music to the kind of standard we want is an incredible amount of (highly rewarding) effort. It's much regrettable that we didn't get anywhere near the kind of industry support we thought we would for the album and I still feel personally that, with the right push and support, it could have been far more successful and have had a greater reach than it has.  
Our stark refusal to follow trends, add keyboards, wear skinny jeans and so forth has undoubtedly contributed to this situation - but then, we've always just done what we wanted and made the music we've wanted to make. Hence, we are extremely proud of what we've done and are happy that we continue to gain new listeners and fans through word of mouth and people simply enjoying the music. 

I'll be honest - I don't know if/when we're going to play or record again as The Foxes. We're still friends and see and play together all the time as our money-making covers playing side project, "The Hound Dogs" - the set up which funded EVERYTHING we did together and every note of music you can hear which includes the words "The Foxes".


One thing I WILL be doing is continuing to make music videos for the tracks from the album, the next one being 'Sweet Little Wonder' - a live version of which you can watch here!

So, what's everyone in the band up to while not doing The Foxes? 

* First off, huge congratulations to our drummer, Steve, who recently got engaged to the very lovely Tania. They really are the most lovely couple.

* Among other things our bassist Alex has been running some amazingly successful pub quizzes which he writes from scratch - and I've even been helping out doing quiz master duties 
so will be at The Cock Tavern in Fulham every Sunday from 7.30pm if you want to pop down!

* Our guitarist Jon has been busy doing advanced computery stuff making phone apps as well as working on getting a degree (he's been coming first in everything so far - clever cloggs!)

* As for me - I'm currently performing in a new West End musical called "Toxic Bankers" - which runs at the Leicester Square Theatre until 14th April when we'll be going on tour, including Manchester. We've had loads of great reviews including The Telegraph, The Stage, and this BBC report! We even got a mention in the New York Times yesterday.

I'll also be recording a lot of exciting new music this summer - and most recently made a music video to "Third Movement" which you can watch by clicking here and download for FREE by clicking here!

I'm going to leave you by posting all our music videos below - simply because I'm biased and think that they're great and deserve to be seen. Have a flick through!! Don't forget they're all on iTunes and other (better) music sites if you like them.




TRAUMA TOWN (first single)



First up we've got "Trauma Town" - filmed at The Borderline just off Charing Cross Road in London and also, without permission, on the London Underground. I wrote the song about the small minority of people who make everyone else's life a nightmare in public, especially on public transport. Including zombies. There's behind the scenes footage here.



 BILL HICKS (second single)


Next up we have "Bill Hicks" - a song dedicated to the great great comedian who died far before his time. I wrote to Bill's family who were 100% supporting of the song and video and whom I've been fortunate enough to meet several times. If you look on the Youtube for this you'll see more hits and more abuse than for anything else we've ever done. People have actually wished death on us for dedicating a song to one of our heroes. It's quite funny really, in a sad sad way.




LOVER, KILLER (third single)  

Our third single was for one of our favourite songs, "Lover, Killer" - which I wrote based on a). the character Nicola Six from the novel 'London Fields' by Martin Amis and b). beautiful and stuck up girls in and around High Street Kensington. It was filmed in my home town of Brighton on the seafront and at The Grand Hotel. Although it's just featuring yours truly, Jon was actually there for the shoot and was one of the people pouring freezing cold water on me.




GET ME (EP/album track)  


Although "Get Me" is on 'Last of Many' it was also the first track from our EP 'Depression, Joy and a Moment of Fame.'  I made this video entirely from footage filmed on my phone at Sawmills Studio in Cornwall where we recorded the album. It was pieced together on Windows Movie Maker. A lot of people have said this is their favourite video as it just shows the band relaxed and having fun making music.




NO REPLY (EP/album track) 

Another track from the EP and album, "No Reply" is stop motion clay modelling made entirely by my brother, Terry Thomas at home in Somerset in his bedroom (when he was 16!). I think it's amazing, I love it. He also did a test run the year before to a b-side, "Headlock".




COUNTRY LOW (EP/album track) 

"Country Low" was made using a game I used to love playing on my Atari ST when I was little called "Space Quest". It was one of those parser games where you'd move the character with the cursor keys and type in what you wanted him to do, i.e. "look around" etc. I thought this was ideal for including lyrics, so set up my little HD camera in front of the screen and filmed it from different parts of the game. It took HOURS and HOURS to get right and probably could be more slick, but then the rough edges give it a home-made charm! 


THE SAD THING (album track) 

Challenged again to make a music video from a budget of exactly zero pounds and zero pence, I decided  for "The Sad Thing" to make use of a huge bag of candles I had at the bottom of my drawer since uni and we filmed this at our rehearsal studio, 'Survival' in North Acton without a fire extinguisher or permission. I really enjoyed making this video to one of my favourite songs from the album. It's amazing how hot it got when sitting in the middle of the candles.  I love the fact you can see the plugs in the video too.


SEND ME NOTHING (album track) 

This album track, "Send Me Nothing"  was also filmed at Survival Studios on the same day as we did "The Sad Thing". It was filmed using Steve's camera which took bursts of photos in quick succession - so I had to piece this together from literally thousands of photographs. I remember I'd read a particularly lazy review of 'Last of Many' the day I filmed the...er....smashing of the album bit with the hammer, so it not only fits the song lyrics rather well but also represents lazy music journalism where you might as well just destroy an album rather than listen to it or try to provide constructive criticism. We'd only JUST got the album delivered that day, so the first many people saw of the new album (including Alex!) was me destroying it.



I love and appreciate your comments and thoughts, as always.


Much love, 


Nigel.


P.S. discount tickets to see me in TOXIC BANKERS here!
P.P.S. I play three acoustic songs (including "Suzy" from our début album) and chat from 24.36 - straight after the Alan McGee interview on Gia's "Independent Session" show.
P.P.P.P.S. Thank you so much for reading my blog.




"But this rough magic
I here abjure; and, when I have requir'd
Some heavenly music — which even now I do, —
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And, deeper than did ever plummet sound,
I'll drown my book."

The Tempest, Act V, Scene 1. 


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