Fay Fife is a singer, songwriter and performer. She is a leading creative force with legendary Scottish punk band
The Rezillos and post punk band The Revillos. She is acknowledged as
one of Scotland’s foremost musical figures.
Although emerging at the same time as other bands in the punk rock movement, the Rezillos did not share the nihilism or social commentary of their contemporaries, but instead took a more light-hearted approach to their songs, preferring to describe themselves at the time as "a new wave beat group". Their songs are heavily influenced by 1950s rock and roll, 1960s English beat music and garage rock, early 1970s glam rock, and recurring lyrical themes of science fiction and B movies; their influences mirrored those of US bands the Cramps, the B-52s, and X, who were starting out at the same time. Having spent several months practising, the group's debut live performance was at Teviot Row House, the students' union building of the University of Edinburgh, on 5 November 1976, playing a set composed entirely of cover versions of 1950s and '60s classics. The set included "I Like It" and "Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked in Tonite", which would both appear on the band's debut album, and concluded with "I Wanna Be Your Man", which later became the B-side of their debut single. The band were an instant hit and began to grow rapidly in popularity as they gigged constantly: Callis estimated that the Rezillos played around 200 gigs in 1977.
During the first half of 1977 Fife moved to being the group's frontwoman alongside Reynolds. In June the band recorded their début single, "Can't Stand My Baby" (with "I Wanna Be Your Man" on the B-side), at Barclay Towers and was released in August on Sensible Records, an independent Edinburgh label run by Island Records local representative Lenny Love, and attracted radio airplay and attention from several major labels, including Sire Records who sent a telegram to Love three weeks after the release of "Can't Stand My Baby" asking for more information about the band.
At Sire's suggestion the band recorded their début album Can't Stand the Rezillos in February 1978 at the newly built Power Station studio in New York City. The album featured re-recorded versions of "Can't Stand My Baby", "(My Baby Does) Good Sculptures" and "Flying Saucer Attack". A third single was released to coincide with the album, a re-recorded version of the album track "Top of the Pops" with Templar on bass, as opposed to the album version which featured Mysterious. Can't Stand the Rezillos was released in July 1978 and reached number 16 in the UK Albums Chart. The single "Top of the Pops" also made the top 20 of the UK Singles Chart, reaching number 17, and ironically earned the group an appearance on the British television programme of the same name implicitly criticised in the song's lyrics.
In October 1978 the group recorded a new single, "Destination Venus", with producer Martin Rushent at The Manor, for release the following month. By now there were growing tensions within the band about the group's future direction and with what they felt was poor treatment from their label. Matters came to a head in November 1978, when after just five dates into a lengthy UK tour with The Undertones as support band, vocalist Fife developed scarring of the vocal cords, resulting in the postponement of the rest of the tour. During the hiatus Fife recalled that Callis had told her and Reynolds that "the other three in the band wanted to toe the line more because of pressure from our manager, who was finding the job really difficult, and he was getting pressure from the record company to make us act as though we liked them". Reynolds and Fife refused to agree to this, and unable to reach a consensus, on 22 November 1978 the Rezillos made the decision to split up. They did, however, reunite to play the last scheduled date of the aborted tour at the Glasgow Apollo on 23 December 1978, as a farewell concert.
By the early 80’s The Revillos formed and headed in a post punk Art – Pop direction. They released a series of albums and singles beginning with the Virgin/DinDisk album release Rev Up and the girl group influenced Where’s the Boy for me? The Revillos toured widely in the UK, USA, Europe and Japan. In 1994, The Revillos regrouped; touring and releasing singles in Japan to critical acclaim. Several Revillos songs have been covered, achieving chart and cult success in Europe. Fay has written and produced music for film alongside Revillos guitarist Kid Krupa.
During the 90’s Fay took a break from music but returned in 2001 when
The Rezillos reformed to play at Edinburgh's Hogmanay. Since then The
Rezillos have toured widely: including several tours of USA,
UK & Europe. The Rezillos were awarded The Scottish Music Awards -
The Tartan Clefs, The Reo Stakis Foundation Legends Award in 2011.
