VIXEN

VIXEN

Gals With Balls

Anne Leighton

With their self-titled debut album, L.A.’s Vixen—singer Janet Gardner, guitarist Jan Kuehnemund, bassist Share Pederson and drummer Roxy Petrucci—ably remind the male-dominated music world that women are as capable as anyone of producing high-quality hard rock. The quartet’s LP was produced by California hitmaker Richard Marx, who also puts in a guest appearance (with Poison’s Rikki Rockett) in the video for the disc’s first single, “Edge of A Broken Heart.” What’s more, all four members of Vixen are aggressive musicians, and stunners to boot.

You might remember Roxy’s old band, Madam X, a sexually-integrated metal combo from Detroit. Madam X is presently reforming, with original guitarist Maxine Petrucci and bassist Chris “Godzilla’ Doliber. The group’s former singer, Brett Kaiser, has meanwhile formed his own band, Kaiser, and they’re great. Roxy's story is that Vixen had been inviting her to join even before Madam X split up. She didn’t even give their demo a listen. But Vixen was determined, and kept after Roxy. A few months later, examining her and post-Madam X options, Roxy listened to Vixen’s tape and decided she liked it.

“I wasn’t convinced that it was girls playing on the tape,” Roxy admits. “Janet had a great voice and I thought the playing was really good.” After some rehearsals with Vixen, Roxy decided, “Boom! This is happening! These girls have balls!”

Huh?

“It’s hard to find girls with balls, that play like guys. To have balls in rock is to really love what you’re doing. I love music, I put a lot of time into it. And from playing with the guys in Madam X, I learned how to play with balls. On the road, when I played, they’s say, ‘You gotta hit harder! You gotta hit harder! You gotta hit harder!’ I got to the point that I would hit so hard that my hands would bleed. But I kept it up until I built my callouses. Now you can’t stop me. I can’t not play hard anymore.

“Jf you’re gonna do rock ’n’ roll, you can’t do it half-assed. I can’t stand going to see a band and they’re not giving it their all. I wish these people would go home and practice before they start playing in public. If you want to be a rock star, it’s not good enough to just be a girl anymore. You have to be good.”

Bassist Pederson says he got into rock ’n’ roll because “I know how I felt when I saw a really good band. If I saw a really good bass player, he made me feel a certain way inside. And I wanted to make other people feel that way. I know I’ve done my job right when I look at the audience and we’re done playing and they all light up cigarettes!”

Though onetime Helen Reddy sideperson Pederson has finally found the all-girl hard-rock band of her dreams, she's yet to stop looking for new challenges. “Obviously I’m not looking for a new band,’ she says. “Now I’m checking out what gear I can get and how many guys I can flirt with.”