Toyah has opened up about the way her life has changed from the height of her fame during the 1980s until now.
The punk icon, who scored her highest-charting solo album with her latest LP ‘Posh Pop’ in 2021, released her first album with her eponymous new wave group, ‘Sheep Farming in Barnet’, back in 1980.
Speaking in the August 2022 issue of Retro Pop, the hitmaker looks back on her life and career, admitting her situation looks very different now to her early success.
“The ‘80s was very bombastic like that – and I loved it! I wanted to be a huge rock star and I wanted the mansion in LA – never had it, but I wanted it…” she explains.
Her life today is drastically different: “I now live on a high street and I look out at shops, I look out for elderly people going to the post office to get their pension.
“My life has evolved into something that is super connected with my audience, and that is the way my career has gone. The way I’ve survived as a live artist rather than a recording artist is I’m still on the ground.
“I don’t get treated how I imagined people like Celine Dion or Beyoncé or Madonna get treated, I don’t get treated like that. That’s not a complaint. It’s just an observation.”
Much of the difference, she says, comes down to her relationship with the music industry: “In the ‘80s, I was treated like that and, you know, I’ve just learned to survive and build what I have, which I’ve always called cottage industry.
“Sometimes, that’s been a blessing; it’s been a huge blessing to have an understanding of what it’s like to live pay packet to pay packet. Understanding that, if you book a gig towards the end of the month, it’s going to sell less than when you book a gig when people get their pay packets.
“That’s my life.”
Read the full interview in the August 2022 edition of Retro Pop, out now. Order yours or subscribe via our Online Store or use our Store Finder to locate your nearest stockist.
