Tony Mantor's : Almost Live..... Nashville - Victoria Perks On Fuzzbox Fame And The Book That Sparked A New Era

Episode Date: May 26, 2026

We sit down with Victoria Perks to trace how Fuzzbox went from Birmingham school friends “forming for a laugh” to chart success, touring, and a legacy that still surprises her. We talk honestly about sexism, branding, major-label pressure, and why she’s still building new projects through music and well-being work. • Fuzzbox’s origin story, reunions, and the biography that opens a new chapter • Where the name “Fuzzbox” comes from and why it landed differently in the US • The reality of being an all-girl band in the 80s, including misogynistic interview culture • Pride in being musicians who play instruments and in Birmingham’s creative roots • Indie freedom versus major-label resources, costs, and image fights over styling and promo • Growing up fast, managing “branding,” and how fame changes the day-to-day • Fan stories that show how music can spark real life change • What to listen to first, plus “we made it” moments like the charts and Top Of The Pops • Touring health, protecting your voice, and the grind behind the glamor • What’s next: 40th anniversary plans, festivals, book events, and the BuzzFox solo project If you haven't already, take a quick second to tap the follow button. It really helps the show reach more people who love music and entertainment. INTRO/OUTRO Music: T. WildMantor Music BMI

My career in the entertainment industry has enabled me to work with a diverse range of talent. Through my years of experience, I've recognized two essential aspects. Industry professionals, whether famous stars, or behind-the-scenes staff, have fascinating stories to tell. Secondly, audiences are eager to listen to these stories, which offer a glimpse into their lives and the evolution of their life stories. This podcast aims to share these narratives, providing a series. information on how they evolved into their chosen career. We will delve into their journey to stardom, discuss their struggles and successes, and hear from people who help them achieve their goals. Get ready for intriguing behind-the-scenes stories and insights into the fascinating world of entertainment.

Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Almost Live Nashville. If you haven't already, take a quick second to tap the follow button. It really helps the show reach more people who love music and entertainment. Thanks for being here. Joining us today is Victoria Perks of the band Fuzzbox, an artist whose journey goes far beyond the music. She's built something real, something raw, and something that speaks to people in a way that sticks with you. Today she will take us behind the scenes, sharing her story, the inspiration and heart behind her book, and what's coming next for her and the band as they continue to evolve and push forward. This is one of those conversations that go deeper than the surface.

She has a great story to tell us. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Appreciate you, having we? Oh, it's my pleasure. Let's give the listeners a little background on your journey and what's coming up next for you. Okay, well, my sort of main background that people might know was obviously fuzz books.

We've got a fuzzbox and we're going to use an old girl band from Birmingham, England that we did, you know, really well, sort of formed for a bit of a laugh and ended up having chart hits and thawing a lot of the world, so that was really great. It was just a funny thing. It just keeps sort of popping up every few years, and things happen again. Yeah.

We've had a few reunions, which have all been fantastic. Nice. Latest exciting. I've got my book here. Is the book, the biography, which is very, very bright and colourful. Yeah, that's great.

Yeah, that's kind of kicked off a whole new, maybe an era. A lot of things are falling into play the moment for live shows. We've done a fuzzcast, which is like a podcast, but we've called it a fuzzcast in front of a live audience.

Those are already up on Spotify. Yeah. I'm excited. And then I'm still doing all my own well-being stuff, which is happy life. Oh, nice. Solo music. I'm always curious when a band has a very unique name, which of course yours does. Now, I know the history behind it, but if you would, tell our listening audience exactly how that name came to be. Okay. So it's just a, it was a statement about a fuss box. So we've got a fuss box and we're going to use it.

And a fuzz box is a pedal for a guitar or a bass, and it makes it go fuzzy, obviously. I will say that in America they had particular problems with that and so that's kind of why her name was never officially changed to fuzzbox. Okay. It was cut down a lot and particularly they would not have the fallout. As time where on, maybe like early days, but then no, you cannot be called we've got a fuzzbox. We're going to use it as an all-female band. They thought that was great, but we're only school girls.

We need nothing. It became one of those things that we thought it was quite cool once we realized, but it was just an innocent comment. Because every trap in the early days had a fuzz box on it, the guitar or the bass, everything had a fuss box on. Yeah, take us back there. There weren't many all-female bands at that time, especially in the UK and the US. What was that experience like for you? And you did that journey because you wound up here in the US as well.

Yeah. We haven't intended to be an all-girl band. Okay. And it was never, you know, we weren't manufactured. It wasn't considered. There was no plan. We were just like mates. Three of us were at school together, so we were friends.

And then two of sisters, it was just a really organic thing that we thought would be really fun to pretend we had a band, volunteer to support a friend's band, and then before we knew it, we were assigned up at the second gig by a local label, and off we went, said, you know, that wasn't intentional.

But once we realised we were an old girl band, we felt really, you know, we kind of felt like we were holding this torch or a banner, you know, and ran with it. Sure. We did get treated very differently. I mean, the interview questions, I'm sure, were extremely, I was just really banal.

It was always about, how do you decide who wears which color lipstick? You argue over boyfriends. It's just like, oh my gosh, really? I find a little bit of that. But then it's like, talk the music, how about that, the songs and how we write the songs or who plays what, you know? Sure. And it was quite misogynistic.

I don't know how much it's changed. if I'm honest. When you look back at your journey and the legacy you and the band created, especially breaking through the way you did at that time, what kind of feeling does that give you today? I do feel really, really proud, actually, Tony. It's like not only an all-girl band who played instruments

and we always wanted to distinguish ourselves from vocal groups, not that there's anything wrong with it, but we were not a vocal group. We were a band who played instruments, and that was a real distinguishing thing, but also the fact that we were from Burmese. Because it's a second city in England. It's always sort of demoted.

Even now, it's kind of people laugh about the accent. They put you down. They think you might be a bit thick. They think you're not very cultured. You know, other cities such as Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool, they're always put above Birmingham. Right. But Birmingham for us has such a rich and still has a rich cultural heritage.

An amazing place to grow up in. Sure. Without that support locally and the diversity that, comes from Birmingham, we wouldn't have been who we were. So I think it's the fact that we were not only in all-girl bands, you played instruments. You know, we were from Birmingham. It was a disadvantage that way. Without even meaning to, we did rather well. At a time when music had a pretty clear identity, you were doing something that stood out. Did you run into resistance from labels of the industry trying to shape you into something more commercial? Did that affect you at all? Not so much in the

early days because it was an indie label. Okay. We were an indie band. We were just kind of going with it really. So I don't remember there being any major sort of artistic or creative differences there. They got us, you know, and we got them, so we all got on really well. When it went over to a major, part of it was absolutely fine. I mean, obviously it's wonderful because you've got suddenly all of these designers and clothes

designers and video makers and money, you know, that's sort of there produced us that's there for you to use. But obviously, at the end of the day, they're basically spending your money and you've got to pay it back at some point. Right, exactly. Well, it was so extravagant, terrible, really. There was a lot of that because people's vision of us then. Yeah, mainly have things like costumes and stuff. I always really enjoy dressing up.

I loved just, you know, I loved kind of the fittings. And when we were having shoulder pads in, I was like, can you fit any more? If I'm going to have shoulder pads, I want eight shoulder pads in eight. And I found it really fun. And whilst I think we all found it fun, the others didn't like that as much perhaps. And I love being in the studio. I love the photo sessions.

I really enjoy a lot of it. But some of the clothes that the record company would want us to wear, it was just absolutely horrific. Like this one, it was known as Rancho Deluxe and that we were going to launch this range. And it was like awful kind of like leather secretarial cowgirl. Yeah. It was really stiff and really like, probably about 20 years too old for us at least.

There were issues like that. And also one of the main things is that we really wanted to talk with the second album when we were on a major and we've gone much more poppy. Because we still wanted to go out and prove, actually, we could really play now. When we first started, we literally picked up the instruments and just had a go. Learned on stage mainly. Like a lot of boy bands did, though. Loads of male bands weren't great when they started playing.

That was okay. Right. You know, you get that moniker as an organ. girl band can't sing, can't play. And we wanted to go out and prove that actually we can all really play and sing really well now. And that never happened with the second album because the record company were always wanting us to do more and more promo. We did go to the Faris, which was fantastic.

But that was PA's. I mean, I absolutely insisted on singing live. I thought at least let me sing alive. But the rest of the band had to mind to backing tracks. So that was never what we really wanted to be. You just mentioned how you evolved. Take us through that evolution. how did your creative mindset shift from the early days of the band to when you were reaching a much bigger audience?

Yeah, I mean, three of us were 15 when we start. So the difference, even to when you're like 18, is massive. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it really is. And we were all changing a lot, you know, going in sort of different directions musically and our lives, you know, outside of us, buts were changing a lot. So that was quite getting harder and harder to be a cohesive unit, you know, in terms of songwriting and style and so on. There was a lot to learn from all these, you know,

wonderful people that we work with, like the producers or the photographers. And I suppose you learn that you have to think about it. Sure. It does become something that's, well, I'm sorry, can try. But, I mean, branding is just, I think it's taken for red now, isn't it? At one point, branding seemed to be a really, like, dirty word. Yeah. Only businesses and, you know, products are like top pace that you thought.

about branding. I think it's kind of accepted in a way now that we all have to think about, you know, we all have our own brand, I suppose. You could put it that way. So I think we had to think more about how we looked, how we sounded, you know, what we did. So it would all become, it takes some of the fun out of it. Yeah, the business side certainly can change things for sure. When you went from just enjoying it to realizing you had fans, hit records, and something real building, how do that shift your mindset and how did you approach it moving forward? You had to go through more people. Certainly, it couldn't be spontaneous.

Do that and pulling different, you know, like a friend who could take a few photos in or my mum used to help me with make my clothes in the early days. So it's a lot more to think about and to plan. As I said, I did enjoy a lot of it. I thought it was really interesting and fun and I didn't mind like doing like an eight-hour photo shoot, you know? I just thought, well, this is how it is, and I kind of enjoyed the art of it. I was sitting in a studio endlessly, you know, day after day, just listening to them sort of hit high hats. I thought it was all really quite fascinating, but you did think more about

like when you went out, how you looked, how you behave, and the other three really particularly didn't like that at all, didn't enjoy the same part of it. I mean, I'd never like sort fame, but I'd always love to performing. I think obviously it was more a natural fit for me. Right. And as things got more and more, it kind of sometimes felt more like a job, I suppose. It could be really tiring and poor girls together, you know, hormonal and strong-minded. It could be quite hard work. Music sticks with people in a very personal way. A lot of people tie music to moments in their lives, which we all do. Have you ever had a fan share a story about how your music affected them in a very meaningful way?

A lot of times, actually. I mean, people have about it. actually said, your band, you know, made me go and do this, your band or that song. I remember one time I had another band. I think it was, I had an Americana band for a while called Vix and Hermitius, which is absolutely a lovely band, all-girl band as well. And we were doing a gig. I was looking on this lovely jewelry stand and I was going to buy some of the jewelry. And the general, hold on a minute. You're not singing from BuzzBots. I like, yeah, actually. And he said, God, he said, your band made me want to completely change my life. I was really unhappy. I was really depressed. I was doing a really boring office job that I absolutely hated.

I was in an awful relationship. I had no dreams, anything. And then I saw you girls. And I thought, God, I could get out and do something I really wanted to do. And he learned how to do glass blowing. Yeah, wow. Making jewellery. And it was exquisite.

Honestly, it gave me some, actually. It was really, really kind. Yeah. You know, it's like it's not life-world changing, but it's life-changing. Sometimes if you can just inspire somebody to do something that they really love. I mean, I guess that's why I've. gone on to do a lot of the things I'd do in my little business, happy life. I had a mentor, particularly a lot of teenagers actually, because I remember that so well myself and how you need

guidance. I just want to bring the best out in other people and help support them to try to follow their dreams, you know? Sure. Be as strong and resilient in yourself as you possibly can. If someone was just discovering your band for the first time, what would you want them to listen to first? Oh, do you know, I think that the first album, Boston, Steve, I would go for rules and regulations. Okay. It was our first single, and I wrote it. It's like my little rebellious anthem.

There must be more to life. There must be more than this. Then rules and regulations to command and a vote. And it's got lots of Wilkinson. I'm still a massive fan of a good week. Yeah, it says a lot about exactly what we were doing, what we were thinking, and our attitude at the time. So I didn't go for that.

And it's really fuzzy, and it's nicely produced, although at the time we'd only just, started like picking up instruments and playing, but it still sounds great, I think. Did you ever have that We Made It moment where it went from just playing shows to realizing you were actually living the dream? What was that like for you? Yeah, because the charts used to be a really, really big thing. You'd listen to the chart rundown. I don't know if it was as big over there in like mid-80s. Oh yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Like my whole family, if we were driving back from someone, you'd put the chart show on. And it was just always really interesting and to listen to that. And the only way we would find out what position we were in the chart was by listening. Okay. You might have had a midweek like guesstimate. You never knew where you were going to be. Like if you were going to be, you didn't know that. So in those days, even being top 40 was phenomenal.

I remember listening and we just snuck into 30. We were 39. Even that was really exciting. And for all my family because we're all listening. Oh my gosh, you got into that. We weren't really even expecting to be. We were just listening to the chart rundowns. That was like a little moment of,

oh, where something's happening. I think the biggest, biggest moment probably was Top of the Pops. I don't know how aware, like, people are over there. Top of the Pops is pretty legendary. Yeah, it is. You know, the reruns are on a lot of the time. You know, we're going to be on top of the Pops. Are you kidding?

This is nuts. How do we from here? You know, and you're on the same sort of bill as people like Bobby Brown, simply red. you know, the cults, all sorts of massive people. And so that was cool. That was cool. Yeah, it was.

Now, what's your favourite song to perform? Oh, we're actually putting it together new set lists at the moment and it's quite difficult to decide which shots are we going to do, which, which aren't we? Do you know, Pink Sunshine is really lovely to perform because it really uplifts people's spirits and people, if they don't know it and a lot of people who'll come to our gigs will know it. But if they don't, it's really easy to sing along to. It's just pink, pink sunshine. So that is a really lovely, especially for things like all these retro festivals.

And it's a sunny day and you're outdoors. And it's like, that's pretty lovely. I'll go with that. What's one of your favorite songs that you love to listen to? When you hear it, you've just got to turn that volume up. Love Shack. Why be 52s? Okay.

Yeah. Great song. I mean, it doesn't need... They don't even need the singing. It just starts. And the beat, I'm like, I'm there. Oh, yeah. I always have to dance at D'Alla.

You know, the 60s kind of. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, that's awesome. Now, you said you love to be in the studio. You also said you love performing. When you're in front of the fans and all that energy, it doesn't get much better than that. Pretty sweet.

It is, and that's the sort of the fruits of your labour, isn't it? Yeah. That's when it all comes to fruition and, you know, the rapport that you can build with people and have a good laugh at them as well. But I do love the whole creative process. I love thinking about, like, photos and imagery, planning all that stuff. I really love collaborating with people who are good at what they do. I can give them lots of ideas like, I thought this and this and these colours and that imagery

and they're like, well, how about that? I do enjoy creative progress a lot. You just brought up collaboration. So who is that one singer that you would just love to sing with? I suppose I can't have Elvis Presley, can I? Sure. I'm absolutely mad on Elvis. Yeah, he's the best. It was absolutely fantastic. That would be great. I've got to be other people. I mean Bowie, I would absolutely, I think I could strike with Bowie. So after all these years, you've built quite a legacy.

In 10, 15, 20 years from now, someone listens to your music. What do you hope that they take from it? Anyone could do it. I could do that. Yeah, that's good. I like that. Yeah, I mean, I really hope now that I would love, like, particularly say like teenage girls, but also just anyone who doesn't know what to do in the music business,

you know, who should we be? What should we sound like? Be really, just be really true to yourself, you know, and think, well, I'll give it a go. Do it for a bit of fun, see what happens. But be yourself, don't be trying to craft yourself on the next, you know. At one point, everyone wanted to be the next Adele. Yeah. You know, or next, whoever, you know, that's done.

Just be who you are and, you know, make the most of that. With everything that you've done, hit records, videos, what was it like when you turned on the TV and then all of a sudden, there you are? Really fun, but you know what? when we used to watch any live performances back, because we did a lot of, like, kids' TV, Saturday morning, breakfast TV. We did ever such a lot of stuff. And we would just be laughing at each other.

Look what you did then. Oh, my God, don't you? You said that. Oh, you fell over because we did, especially Joe, the guitarist. You quite frequently fell over. Or, like, string would break or something, you know, and that would blow up.

Right. So we, although it was really fun, it was like watching a home movie to us. Nice. Yeah, it was never kind of, oh my God, look at us, we were on tech, how many people were viewing us, there's never that. That's a really great way to look at that. One of the great things about performing live is sharing the stage with other artists. Were there any bands or artists you played with that really stood out to you?

Erasmith was quite a cool one. Yeah, that's a good one. Actually, we weren't on a show with them, but we were tour in America. We did the East and the West Coast, and we were in Hollywood, I believe. were at the same hotel and we were in the foyer and we had these um makeup boxes that were actually toolboxes okay and it's funny because i i'm sure we're i reckon we were the first people to use like because makeup artists now use a similar thing don't they we thought it's a really cool idea we used to go down to it it's still going actually a famous our shop called halford's and um steven tyler

came in with all his band he's like oh my god what you got there actually it's a makeup box you wondered what we had in and so he opened it up and there's all these him makeup brushes and bluses and lipsies, everything beautifully all lined up. And he was like, it was absolutely fantastic. And he's telling his, you know, his crew, I'm having one of the wait again, what's that? How fertile? That's sweet. There's often a perception from the outside. People see you on TV, hear you on the radio, or watch you live, and it all looks glamorous. But the reality of it, it's a lot of hard work. How did you handle that difference between fame and reality. Yeah. I mean, I don't know whether we ever, as I say,

never really got madly into the whole kind of fame thing. I get that. You didn't get into the whole fame thing. Ultimately, the fans did. That's part of it too. People will see you and create their own perception of who you are, whether it's accurate or not. How did you balance that side of the fame with the reality of what your day-to-day life was really like? Yeah. I mean, it is true, someone will see a photo of band or a model or whatever. And it's like, oh my God, that is, that's great. And it looks like it's just a split moment, doesn't it? But it could have been eight hours.

Yeah. That shoot. Right. And there's so much that's been thrown away probably as well whilst that was happening. So there is a lot of hard work that goes in. I mean, nobody wants to hear like bands or actors, famous people, successful people, moaning about how difficult their life is and, you know, and how they struggle.

Nobody wants to hear that, do they? Yeah, a lot that goes into the scenes. And I think that's part of when it does become, is to start to feel a bit more like a job when some of it is quite tedious as such. But, you know, it can be quite monotonous. I mean, being on tour is really quite grueling. Just trying to get some sleep,

and then you're going from one venue to another, and then you're going to have to get it really early to either get up and travel or get to a few different radio stations. The fall on your voice is hard going. It is. been there. And in the early days, I did struggle a lot with that. And then I got myself super, super healthy, make sure I get on my eight hours sleep and local exercises. And it was a hard lesson for me to kind of learn. Yeah. It did mean that it wasn't as fun because the others could stay up and there'd be like, you know, partying. And I think, no, I'm going to go to bed and be boring and look after my throat and be professional. Yeah. Yeah. So what do you have coming up? You mentioned reunion. Is there anything on the horizon for that? Yeah, I'm sure we are. So we're just talking to a new agent right now, which is really cool.

Yeah. Kind of deciding where to go gig-wise. I think there will be some shows and festivals. I love festivals. So hopefully some of that over the summer and definitely towards the end of the year. We've got some plans there because it's the 40th anniversary of when we first released our album. Nice. So it's quite an exciting and big year for us.

So we want to get on and celebrate that. Plus promoting the book, really. We've been doing some really nice events around the book. It's fun because it's a bit different from just doing a straight gig. You can do all the Q&As with the audience, read that little lecture, you know, live performance. I really enjoyed that, actually. I like the variety of it as well. And the close interaction with your audience, that was fab.

Maybe new music, who knows? Yeah, that would be great. Now, it's time to put on your thinking cap. What would you use as a description to describe your band and what you've done? I was just looking on my book thinking, is there anything? And you'd come up with a snappy description. You know, four school girls from Birmingham. They've formed for a laugh.

End up having, you know, international success. Hopefully inspire others to get up and do the same. Yeah. Like something like that. You know, we thought there would be more women, like and girls, out doing it. We were surprised that we kind of weren't surrounded by loads and loads of other female musicians and bands that were doing the same. and by now, 40 years. What the heck?

I've spoken with some all-female bands here in the US, and there really aren't many that have had that kind of success. When you look at what you and the band accomplished, what does it mean to be part of that legacy? Do you know what? I mean, it's really great because we're actually, Fuzzbox are still the UK's most successful, all girl band,

eight instruments. Wow, that's great, something to shout about. But it annoys me as well, because, you know, We kind of thought when we realized, oh, actually we're an all-girl band, because we've just formed organically, and they were like, it's going to be loads of us. This is going to be brilliant. You know, this is going to be a thing. We had so many girls writing to us saying, oh, I've picked up a guitar because of you or I'm starting an all-girl band. We're like, yeah. Nice. You know, and it didn't really happen. I mean, 90s over here was quite good. You did have some bands that had some strong female, lead things, but also musicians in them. And there are a few around now.

But why is it like still so rare? Yeah, I know. What would you like to leave our listeners with that you would like them to know about you, what you've done, and of course what you're going to be doing moving forward? I'm more than happy to keep kind of celebrating Fuzzbox. I think that it was a really exciting way to spend my teenage years

and beyond. And so I'm more than happy to keep dipping back into that. I'm also really passionate about like musical well-being So that's why I do a lot of my work within mental health hospitals or working with a lot of disadvantaged groups and so on. So that's really important to me. I've always got some other project going on. I've currently got a really exciting solo project called BuzzFox. What I did there.

It's really fun because I just started to sort of sneakily release songs without making a big song and dance about it, not saying the connection. Yeah. I just wanted to go back to, it sounds a bit geeky, but like the art of it, just doing it for the fun of it. thinking, how do I want to dress? How do I want to sound? I loved that. I mean, it did sort of come out a little bit. I don't know. I mean, it's odd possible. Isn't that you here? I'm sharing it. Oh, okay. So it's sort of slightly out there. But it's really fun. It's almost like my alter ego who doesn't care at all about, you know, age and style and what I should be doing. Yeah, because of like my age or because of my musical history. Right. Exactly. Well, this has been really

nice. I really appreciate you taking the time to join us today. Oh, thank you so much for having me. because some great questions. A couple of them had to really get the brain working. Thank you so much. Really nice to speak to you. Thank you, Tony. It's really, really interesting, really cool. It's been my pleasure.

Thanks again. Thanks for joining us today. We hope you enjoyed the show. This has been a Tony Mantor production. For more information, contact media at plateau music.com.