It’s almost 40 years since the indomitable Wendy James burst onto the music scene with punk-pop chart-toppers Transvision Vamp – originally from Putney, London and formed in 1986.
Debuting that same year with “Revolution Baby”, the band had 10 UK chart hits with tracks such as “Tell That Girl To Shut Up”, “I Want Your Love” and their biggest hit, 1989’s “Baby I Don’t Care”, propelled the band up the singles charts around the world while albums such as “Pop Art” (1988) and “Velveteen” (1989) put gold and platinum discs on the walls, before the band split in 1992.
Wendy then launched her solo career, collaborating with Elvis Costello on her debut album, “Now Ain’t The Time For Your Tears” (1993). Nine more solo albums later, and she’s getting ready to go out on the road on a 21-date tour this autumn.
There’s no doubting Wendy’s place in the history of pop culture, not least for her whirlwind of sexual energy and feisty defiance.
Back in the day, the bookish girls were terrified of her, the rebellious girls were emboldened by her, and as for the boys…well, put it this way, my own partner of 30 years still will not part with his 1989 Transvision Vamp T-shirt [see picture above!] and poster, on which a half-dressed Wendy wears nothing more than a pair of unbuttoned jeans and a smouldering expression that gives us all a masterclass in unshakeable confidence.
If ever an artist and a song were perfectly matched, it was this 5’4” firebrand roaring that – baby, she don’t care.
But I realise very quickly as we chat that underneath the flames and the ballsiness, actually Wendy James does care. Sure, your opinions about her can almost certainly go whistle, but when it comes to justice, social issues and integrity – Wendy cares deeply.
She is reflective, well read, articulate. She is softly spoken with a refinement rather at odds with that mildly erotic poster image. I find myself wondering what drove that well-spoken young blonde to stick two fingers up so loudly at the establishment?
“It must come from inside me, because I didn’t grow up in an environment like that,” Wendy tells me. “It’s not like I grew up on the mean streets, you know, having to shoplift and run from the cops.
“I grew up in a very straight, disciplined to some degree, middle-class life. You know the sort, with a very regulated school uniform. Just normal middle-class Britain in the 1970s. If one word could sum it up, it would be ‘straight’ – but I just didn’t think any of the rules really applied to me.
“For instance, I grew up never once thinking my gender disadvantaged me in any single way. Obviously I have physical deficits and I wouldn’t beat a man in shot-put or javelin. And I watch my boyfriend lug boxes up the stairs and he’s better at that than I am.”
“But my ability to walk out onto any stage and go toe-to-toe, head-to-head with anyone…well, I’m going in for the competition, and I’ll come out the winner.”
In the tussle between nature and nurture I suspect Wendy was simply born with a core of steely self-assurance, but she offers a deeper theory.
“It might be something to do with being adopted, rather than my environment growing up. I can’t speak for all adopted people, I don’t know if they’ve all got this ridiculous iron strength in them. We’ll never know, but certainly I just always grew up within myself. It wasn’t a lesson I was externally taught.
“I always knew I was adopted; it wasn’t a big reveal, which I think is very much the right decision. There was never that moment, though as I grew up and into my own character I could see that we are obviously very different people. However, most people think that about their birth parents as they’re growing up!
“I’ve never tried to find my birth parents, but I do know my mother’s Norwegian. I’ve got a spine of Norwegian steel in me! I’ve never tried, because I know it’s a big deal and the older I get it’s an even bigger deal, you know, I will have lived a whole adult life without knowing who they are, and I’ve never had the time. I would have had to take the time out to be emotionally upheaved, if that’s a word.
“There are so many advantages to being adopted and I consider myself very lucky. I could have been institutionalised into a children’s home. And when it comes to health, I don’t live with the spectre of breast cancer hanging over me, or worrying that I’m going to die of a heart attack at 60 because everyone else in the family does.
“I’ve written my own history. And I don’t have children, so it started and it will end with me.”
Wendy hasn’t only written her own history. She has shared it with us through her catalogue of work, and it is fitting that her 10th solo album is called “The Shape of History”.
“Ten solo albums is quite a landmark anniversary really, and this one is just the arc of my history. I’ve gone on a journey as much as my audience have and I think my lyrics kind of track that evolution. Some things remain the same. You know, there will always be some punky attitude songs on my albums, but there’s a bit of philosophy that has eked its way into my life, and that shows in my lyrics too.”
I think Wendy underplays in those words the impact of philosophy in her writing. She credits reading as “nutritious”, and the writers she most adores are heavyweight essayists, such as the New Journalism pioneers Joan Didion, Hunter Thompson and Tom Wolfe, the economic commentator Michael Lewis, and perhaps the greatest self-editor of all – Ernest Hemingway.
“I’m a good editor as well. My touchstone is Joan Didion, who is brutal in self-editing out any indulgent wallowing or superfluous emotion, and I really like that. I don’t like waffle, and I know when notes or an extra chord aren’t needed.
“I also don’t wallow and I don’t self indulge. If I’m singing, I don’t need people to tell me how great I am because I know when I’ve done it well and I know when I haven’t.
“I did whole seasons of reading when I lived in New York (and I lived in New York for more of my adult life than in London). I would go up on the roof and just read: every single thing that Didion had written, then every single thing Wolfe had done, everything that Hemingway had written. And it helps me as a lyricist. It has filled my soul with knowledge and a kind of poetry, but it’s also advised me on a style of writing for myself.
“My favourite authors have the same attitude as my favourite musicians. It’s commentary on the political and societal – like the rape and pillaging the markets do on ordinary folk. You know, that world is fascinating. I once went to Japan to raise money for one of my albums, ‘I Came Here To Blow Minds’ (2010), and it was so “loadsamoney”, it was obnoxious.
“There’s a saying about partying like a rock star, but I’m telling you – no matter how much of a Keith Richards you are, it’s got nothing on those hedge fund boys! They’re gambling with billions of dollars every day, without responsibility.”
It sounds like “The Shape of History” tour will be provocative as well as a rousing good night of musical entertainment for the fans. But I’m always interested to know what makes a good gig for the artist, too, and in this instance it seems it’s on us to make it a ‘next level’ performance…
“It’s all about good audiences,” Wendy tells me. “Of course, it’s always exciting and inspirational in real time when you look across the stage and the band knows you’re having a good one. But what tips it over the edge is a receptive and enthusiastic audience notching it up. Gig-going is a participant sport and if the audience is involved and excited, rather than just standing there and going: ‘what have you got?’, the adrenaline kicks in and everyone really lifts their game.”
To me she seems ageless, and shamelessly authentic, but I wonder what 25-year-old Wendy, riding the top of the charts and declaring her intention to be bigger than Madonna with all the self-assured audacity of genuine girl-power, would make of 59-year-old Wendy. Would she recognise the energy of that irrepressible girl still burning bright in the body of an older woman?
“I feel ageless in my soul, certainly. And, you know, there will be an eleventh album, so I guess I’m just going to work forever!
“Life hasn’t trampled me down. Of course there have been many learning curves, some tears and sadness, self-reflection, betrayal and all the usual things we go through at different stages. But I have escaped a lot of what can happen to people, and I’ve had a good life so far.
“And that’s not so much to do with, you know, ‘oh, I got rich and privileged’. It’s just that inexhaustible, non-conformist thing that’s inside me that just…I don’t apply the rules to me. I live by the law as we all do, but when it comes to things like what dress is suitable for a woman over 40, how I should do my make-up at this age…no. Do what you want.”
Wendy and I are much the same age, so I know this is a good time of life to review the mental archives and clear out any old regrets. I ask her if she would do anything differently if she got to do it all over again, and it sounds to me that while she might take a few different steps along the way, she’d choose the same path over and over again.
“I wouldn’t have sold my house, and I’d have invested my money. But that’s purely pragmatic because, although I’m not there now, there have been times in my life when I’ve been down to my last ten dollars and people have had to wire me a couple of hundred quid.
“But that’s because I insist on making music all the time. It’s my choice. I haven’t cruised along with swimming pools and I don’t do savings accounts; making music is the priority.
“I’m not much different as a person now, just more evolved. My attitude that I had at 17 or 18 is not diminished in any way.
“In some ways the older you get, the more endowed with attitude you are because you’ve gone through some things and you really know what matters and what doesn’t.
“You can walk out on stage, or just down the street, pretty fucking untouchable.”
Wendy’s album “The Shape of History” is available now. Tickets are on sale for her 21-date tour, kicking off in London on October 1st and ending 30 days later in Brighton. She will be accompanied on tour by a full band, featuring Transvision Vamp’s bass player Dave Parsons, Jim Sclavunos from Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds on drums and Alex Ward (Thurston Moore Group) on guitar.
- STOP PRESS: Transvision Vamp will tour Australia in 2026, their first headline tour there in 27 years.
Words by Lucy Boulter
Photos by Ricardo Gomes / Other pix: PR supplied [with no photographer credit]
Fountain [colour] photo by David Leigh Dodd
