Bruce Foxton
Bruce Foxton is an
English rock and roll musician (born
1 September 1955 in
Woking, Surrey) who is best remembered as the
bass player in
punk/
new wave band The Jam. He was also for fifteen years the bassist for
Stiff Little Fingers, leaving the band in January 2006 to pursue other projects.
In The Jam, he and drummer
Rick Buckler played a subordinate role behind
singer,
guitarist, and
songwriter Paul Weller. However, Foxton's deft,
melodic bass playing and
vocal harmonies were indisputably crucial components of The Jam's sound.
Foxton did take lead vocals on a few tracks, most notably the singles "
David Watts" (a cover of a
Kinks track) and "
News Of The World", which was his own composition. Unsurprisingly, those were the only Jam
A-sides not written by
Weller. Foxton did pen a few other tracks, but they were relegated to
B-sides and
album tracks; he was considered an inferior songwriter to Weller. Critics and fans alike agree almost unanimously that his best contribution as a songwriter is "Smithers-Jones", done as a straightforward rock take for the
B-side of "
When You're Young" and later reworked with strings for the now-classic
Setting Sons LP.
Stiff Little Fingers would regularly perform the song live after Foxton joined.
While in The Jam, Foxton discovered
The Vapors and co-managed the group with Jam manager
John Weller, Paul's father. Ironically, The Vapors enjoyed greater success in the
U.S. than The Jam would ever have with the
Top 40 single "
Turning Japanese", but broke up shortly thereafter.
After Paul Weller broke up
The Jam in 1982 over the protests of Foxton and Buckler to follow his own muse in
The Style Council, Foxton pursued a brief
solo career. He had a minor
UK hit with the single "Freak" before his solo album bombed, and he bounced from small-time group to small-time group until he got the call from Stiff Little Fingers'
Jake Burns.
In the early
1990s, Foxton and
Buckler collaborated on
Our Story, a
biography of their years in The Jam which Weller fans dismissed as a protracted attack on the latter. Weller has frequently stated in interviews he has no wish to reform The Jam, and that he has had no social contact with Foxton or Buckler since the split.
Foxton is currently (as of 2006) touring with
Bruce Watson,
Mark Brzezicki and
Simon Townshend as
The Casbah Club.
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Official website
