Janet Patricia Gardner (born March 17, 1962)[1] is an American rock singer. She is best known as the former lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the all-female glam metal band Vixen joining in 1983. She was the band's longest serving vocalist having performed on three of the band's four studio albums. When Vixen broke up in 1992 she took a hiatus from singing to pursue personal endeavors. She briefly unofficially reformed Vixen in 1997 with drummer Roxy Petrucci. She returned to Vixen in 2001, later studying to become a dental hygienist. In 2004 she took part in a Vixen reunion for a one-night-only gig as part of VH1's Bands Reunited TV show. She returned to Vixen full-time in 2012.
In 2017, she released her self-titled debut solo album and in 2019 decided to leave Vixen to focus on family and her solo career.
Lead guitarist Britt Lightning and lead vocalist Janet Gardner in Stuttgart, 2018
Early life
Gardner was born in Juneau, Alaska, and her birthday is listed as March 21, 1962.[1] Her father, Rulon B. Gardner, was a civil engineer who worked for the United States Forest Service in Utah, Alaska, and Michigan before taking a job in Bozeman, Montana, at the Forestry Sciences Laboratory at Montana State University in 1964, where Gardner grew up. Her mother, Margaret, was a piano player and church organist.[2] Her parents were of the Latter-day Saint faith.[2] Janet was the only girl in a family with four brothers.[2] She sang in school choirs and learned to play piano and guitar.[3]
Gardner became the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the all-woman hard rock band Vixen. She joined the band's early lineup in 1983, when it was a quintet. In 1984, the band appeared in the movie Hardbodies as Diaper Rash before moving to Los Angeles to further their career, playing in the pop rock genre. Gardner at the time was on lead vocals only. After some initial changes, the primary lineup of Vixen consisted of Gardner, doubling as the second guitarist, Jan Kuehnemund, Roxy Petrucci, and Share Ross, then known as Share Pedersen.[4] Vixen signed with EMI's Manhattan Records and recorded their self-titled debut album which was released in September 1988. Gardner described the pressure of recording as "We were just girls from Minnesota and Montana who loved playing live, so it was a bit of a rude awakening."[3]
Their lead single "Edge of a Broken Heart" became their signature hit song. It was co-written, arranged, and produced by Richard Marx. Vixen would go on worldwide tours in support of Ozzy Osbourne, Scorpions, and Bon Jovi along with their own headline shows. Vixen recorded and released their second album Rev It Up in July 1990. They toured for another year alongside KISS and Deep Purple before the band split up in 1992 citing musical differences.
In 1997, Gardner and Petrucci reformed Vixen with Rana Ross and Gina Stile for a US tour. In 1998, they recorded a third Vixen album titled Tangerine without Ross. The album would be a shift in styles going to a more late-90s post-grunge sound rather than the 80s hair metal sound of the previous two albums. Tangerine eventually became the last studio album for Gardner during her tenure with Vixen. Roxy Petrucci's sister Maxine joined the group as bassist for a tour until they were sued by original member Jan Kuehnemund over trademark infringement involving the use of the Vixen name.
In 2001, Kuehnemund decided to reform the band this time with Gardner and Petrucci, adding Pat Holloway on bass. The newly reformed Vixen toured the United States as part of the Voices of Metal tour until disagreements with management once again caused the band to split in the middle of the tour. Kuehnemund quickly replaced the band with three new members to finish the tour and they continued under the Vixen name.
VH1 contacted the original Vixen lineup in 2004 and got them to appear on the show Bands Reunited. The show featured a one-time reunion of the original group that aired in November 2004 coinciding with the re-release of the first two Vixen albums.
Gardner mostly stayed out of the spotlight until making a few special appearances singing with the band Scrap Metal in 2010 and 2011. In 2012, Share Ross and Roxy Petrucci, along with Gardner, contacted Jan Kuehnemund about reuniting the original Vixen, however Kuehnemund declined stating that she was happy with her new band. Soon after, it was announced that Gardner, Ross, and Petrucci would form their own band along with Gina Stile. They originally named the band "VXN" but decided to change it to avoid any possible lawsuits, thus they became known as simply JanetShareRoxyGina (or JSRG for short).
JSRG began playing shows at the end of 2012, followed by touring on the Monsters of Rock cruise in March 2013. After a long battle with cancer, Kuehnemund died on October 10, 2013.[5] Consequently, in December, JSRG decided to carry on as Vixen to honor Kuehnemund's legacy.[6]
Gardner released a self-titled solo album, co-produced and written by her and her husband, Justin James, on Pavement Entertainment on August 18, 2017.[7] In addition to vocals, she tripled as a bass guitarist and a drummer on her album, according to an interview with James,[8] who handled guitar duties. So, only the couple served as personnel on Janet Gardner.
In late May 2018, after recovery from surgery for a subdural hematoma, Gardner toured the United Kingdom.[9] Earlier in March, she was substituted by Femme Fatale's Lorraine Lewis during a show in Oklahoma.[10]
On January 16, 2019, Gardner confirmed in a Facebook post her resignation from Vixen[11] to devote more time to family and prioritize her budding role as a solo artist. Her last appearance with the band was at the Mohegan Sun Casino Wolf Den in Uncasville, Connecticut, during the previous November.[12] Her final contribution on lead vocals was when the band recorded two studio tracks, their own cover of Ray Kennedy's "You Oughta Know by Now," titled "You Ought to Know by Now" and an acoustic version of "Edge of a Broken Heart" for the 2018 live album Live Fire. The first song was originally on his 1980 self-titled album. Her former bandmates eventually named Lewis as her successor.[13] Gardner recorded her second album Your Place in the Sun with James. It was released on May 31, 2019.[14]
Gardner and James released Synergy in May 2020 under the different band name Gardner/James which confirmed her eponymous solo project was officially considered a duo.
Personal life
Sometime after Gardner was asked to leave Vixen during the tension-marred 2001 tour, she attended the University of Bridgeport and, from there, graduated with a degree in dental hygiene, becoming a dental hygienist in 2005.[15] For almost 15 years she maintained a license that expired on March 31, 2020,[16] and worked as a hygienist when not working on musical projects.[17] Previously, during her former band's heydays in Los Angeles, Gardner worked at a golf coursepro shop.[18]
Gardner has been married to guitarist Justin James since 2016.[7] She has a son from her previous marriage to Andy Katz, an engineer whom she met during the recording of Tangerine.[15] Gardner is also the stepmother to James's two children.[19] She shares the same birthday with her former Vixen bandmate Roxy Petrucci.[1] Janet and Justin James released their 4th CD together "No Strings" on Frontiers records in June 2023
Gardner/James Band
Janet Gardner – lead vocals, guitars, bass, drums (2017–)
Justin James – guitars, bass, drums, backing vocals (2017–)
Dream Theater is an American progressive metal band formed in 1985 in Boston, Massachusetts. The band comprises John Petrucci (guitar), John Myung (bass), Mike Portnoy (drums), James LaBrie (vocals) and Jordan Rudess (keyboards).
An all-female band is a musical group in popular music that is exclusively composed of female musicians. This is distinct from a girl group, in which the female members are solely vocalists, though this terminology is not universally followed. While all-male bands are common in many rock and pop scenes, all-female bands are less common.
John Peter Petrucci is an American guitarist, best known as a founding member of the progressive metal band Dream Theater. He produced or co-produced all of Dream Theater's albums from Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory (1999) to A View from the Top of the World (2021), and has been the sole producer of the band's albums released since A Dramatic Turn of Events (2011). Petrucci has also released two solo albums: Suspended Animation (2005) and Terminal Velocity (2020).
Floor Jansen is a Dutch singer and songwriter. She is the third and current lead vocalist of Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish.
Tracy Irving Richard Ulrich, known professionally as Tracii Guns, is an American guitarist best known as the co-founder of glam metal group L.A. Guns, as well as the supergroups Brides of Destruction and Contraband. He was also a founding member of Guns N' Roses, but left shortly afterwards and was replaced by guitarist Slash.
Vixen is an American rock band formed in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1980. During its most commercially successful period from 1987 to 1992, the band consisted of Jan Kuehnemund, Janet Gardner, Share Ross, and Roxy Petrucci (drums).
Alcatrazz is a heavy metal band formed in 1983 by Graham Bonnet, Jimmy Waldo, and Gary Shea. They are best known for their songs "Island in the Sun", "Hiroshima Mon Amour", and "God Blessed Video". They are also notable for featuring a previously-unknown Yngwie Malmsteen as their lead guitarist for a year, who was then replaced by Steve Vai, with whom they recorded one album.
Jenna Leah Sanz-Agero is the former lead singer of the female rock group Vixen, and a former president of Media 8.
Crimson Glory is an American heavy metal band that was formed in 1983 in Sarasota, Florida, USA. It started in 1979 under the name Pierced Arrow, then Beowulf, before settling on Crimson Glory. The classic line-up consisted of the vocalist Midnight, guitarists Jon Drenning and Ben Jackson, bass guitarist Jeff Lords and drummer Dana Burnell. With that lineup, the band rose to international fame in the mid-1980s and was considered one of the pioneers of the American progressive metal movement, along with Queensrÿche, Dream Theater, Fates Warning and Watchtower. During its career, the band released four studio albums and one EP.
Beautiful Creatures is an American hard rock band formed in 1999 by guitarist DJ Ashba and singer Joe Lesté of Bang Tango. The group's current lineup is composed of Lesté, Alex Grossi, Anthony Focx, Kenny Kweens (bass) and Timmy Russell (drums). Previously the group featured Michael Thomas and Glen Sobel among others while founder DJ Ashba is currently the lead guitarist for Sixx:A.M.
Femme Fatale was an American hard rock band. Originally from Albuquerque, the band moved to Los Angeles and released one studio album before disbanding. Lead vocalist, Lorraine Lewis, restarted the band in 2013 with an all-female line-up.
Janice Lynn Kuehnemund was an American guitarist who founded the all-female hard rock/glam metal band Vixen.
Roxanne Dora Petrucci is an American drummer best known for her work with the heavy metal bands Madam X and Vixen.
Sharon June "Share" Ross is an American musician. She was the bassist, and high-harmony vocalist of the female hard rock band, Vixen, from whom she has been on hiatus since February 2022.
Live & Learn is the fourth studio album by American hard rock band Vixen, released on November 6, 2006, in Europe and on January 30, 2007, in the United States. The band's line-up performing on this album was formed in 2001 with the only original member guitarist Jan Kuehnemund.
Vixen is the debut studio album by American rock band Vixen, released on August 31, 1988, by EMI's Manhattan Records. It includes the singles "Edge of a Broken Heart" and "Cryin'", which reached numbers 26 and 22 on the Billboard Hot 100, respectively.
Tangerine is the third album by the American rock band Vixen. It was recorded without contributions from Jan Kuehnemund and Share Pederson. The line-up for this album consisted of Janet Gardner, Gina Stile, and Roxy Petrucci. Tangerine has a different sound from the music of the previous albums of the band, more similar to post-grunge than glam metal. This is the only album to have Stile as Vixen guitarist and the final studio release to feature Gardner as vocalist-guitarist during their tenures in the band; they were forced to part ways following the Tangerine tour for legal reasons as the courts found Kuehnemund to be the sole owner of the band name thereby making this release unrecognized and unofficial.
Madam X is an American hard rock band first active in glam metal during the 1980s. Originally formed by two sisters, Maxine and Roxy Petrucci, the band also featured male members John (Jayme) Grosjean, Bret Kaiser and Chris Doliber, and later included future Skid Row vocalist Sebastian Bach. Disbanding in 1988, the group reformed briefly in 1991, and has become active again after reforming for a second time in 2013. The band released a new album, Monstrocity, on October 31, 2017.
Franky Perez is an American musician best known as a solo artist, touring vocalist of the Finnish metal band Apocalyptica, and as former guitarist for Scars on Broadway. He has also released three solo albums, Poor Man's Son, My 4th of July, and Addict, and performed with guitarist Slash in his live band before Slash assembled the touring band that backed him during his first full solo tour with Myles Kennedy. Perez has also collaborated with Slash's Velvet Revolver bandmate Dave Kushner, releasing songs under the pseudonym of DKFXP, as well as the virtual band Pusher Jones, contributing the song "Count Me Out" to The Avengers soundtrack.
Gina Tagliente, better known as Gina Stile, is an American former guitarist. She was lead guitar player of the reformed female hard rock band, Vixen, from 1997 to 1998 and 2013 until her departure from the band in March 2017.
References
1 2 3 "Rock Almanac"(PDF). The Hard Report. No.315. March 5, 1993. p.65. Retrieved May 27, 2015. Sunday, March 21 ... 1962 Birthday of Janet Gardner, vocalist with Vixen, in Alaska.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
