The band's eponymous first album was released in 1988, and reached No. 41 on the Billboard 200. Their second studio album Rev It Up was released in 1990, and reached No. 52 on the Billboard 200. Their third studio album Tangerine was released in 1998. Their fourth studio album Live & Learn was released in 2006.
Part of the Los Angeles, California, glam metal scene, the band has been described as "the female Bon Jovi."[2] Several singles released by the band from 1988 to 1990 reached the Billboard Hot 100, including the Top 40 singles "Edge of a Broken Heart" at No. 26, and "Cryin'" at No. 22.
While the band originally disbanded in 1992, it reformed from 1997 to 1998 by Gardner and Petrucci but a lawsuit filed by Kuehnemund over ownership of the name ruled in her favor ending that version of the band.
Kuehnemund reunited the band with the classic lineup in 2001 but disagreements caused Kuehnemund to quickly recruit a new version of the band with three new members; this lineup lasted until 2011. Kuehnemund died in 2013. From then on Gardner, Ross, and Petrucci reformed the band with Gina Stile on guitar.
As of June 21, 2024, the band currently consists of Petrucci, Britt Lightning, Julia Lage, and newly announced lead singer Rosa Laricchiuta.
The band in 2014, (l-r) Sharon Ross, Janet Gardner, Roxy Petrucci, Gina Stile
History
Early years
Vixen was formed in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1980 by guitarist Jan Kuehnemund after playing in the band Lemon Pepper in high school later changing the name to Genesis, which broke up in 1974. Nancy Shanks was her bandmate during that time and two drummers were featured, Marlene Peterson and Laurie Hedlund. Six years later she formed a new all-female rock band named Vixen with a new lineup.[citation needed]
Alex Henderson, writing for AllMusic, said they started in 1981 in Los Angeles,[3] California, but Kuehnemund herself denied this. In 1984, an early version of the band with Kuehnemund, singer Janet Gardner, bassist Pia Maiocco, drummer Laurie Hedlund, and rhythm guitarist/singer-songwriter Tamara "Tammy" Ivanov appeared in the movie Hardbodies, as the on-screen band Diaper Rash. They were a quintet at that time, playing in a pop rock style. In 1985, the band moved to the inner areas of Los Angeles to join the city's rock scene.[citation needed]
In 1988, the band was signed to EMI Manhattan, and they began recording their self-titled debut album Vixen, which was released on August 31.[4] Singer-songwriter Richard Marx co-wrote with Fee Waybill and arranged their signature hit, "Edge of a Broken Heart" and produced the song.[1] Marx had nothing to do with their follow-up CD, since he was becoming more of a mainline singer than songwriter. Vixen spent the next year touring the world, supporting acts such as Ozzy Osbourne, Scorpions, and Bon Jovi, as well as headlining their own shows. The band returned to the studio in late 1989/early 1990 to record their follow-up album, Rev It Up, which was released in July 1990.[1] A year of touring followed, including headlining their own shows and supporting acts such as KISS and Deep Purple. After the tour concluded in mid-1991, the group disbanded in 1992 due to musical differences.[citation needed]
First reunion
In 1997, drummer Roxy Petrucci reformed Vixen, with Janet Gardner and recruited Gina Stile on lead guitar and Rana Ross, previously from Phantom Blue, on bass guitar. This lineup toured the United States later that year, and in 1998 Gardner, Stile, and Petrucci recorded the album Tangerine, which eventually became Stile's only album and Gardner's last during their respective tenures in the band. After the release of the new album, Roxy's sister Maxine Petrucci was brought in to play bass on a US tour during 1998, but they were sued successfully for trademark infringement by Kuehnemund.[5] According to her, she realized that the rest of Vixen left her out and usurped her right to represent them.[6]
In 1999, Share Ross joined her husband's band, The Dogs D'Amour, who reformed after a long hiatus. She appeared on their 2000 albums Happy Ever After and Seconds, playing bass, keyboards, and backing vocals, later leaving that band. Share and her husband, Bam, also had their own band, Bubble, which was very popular in L.A.[citation needed]
Second reunion
In 2001, Vixen was reformed by Kuehnemund with a lineup consisting of herself, Janet Gardner, Roxy Petrucci, and new bassist Pat Holloway. This lineup toured the US as part of the Voices of Metal tour. Halfway through the tour, disagreements with management caused the band to split-up, with only Kuehnemund remaining.[7][8] Kuehnemund quickly recruited Jenna Sanz-Agero (Jenna Piccolo), Lynn Louise Lowrey, and Kathrin "Kat" Kraft to complete the tour. They released two new albums in 2006, a live album, recorded at a live show in Sweden, called Extended Versions, and a studio album, Live & Learn.[citation needed]
Later events
In 2004, VH1 approached the four members of the "classic lineup" to appear on their show Bands Reunited. The show was recorded in August 2004 and broadcast in the U.S. in November 2004. Following the broadcast EMI's American label Capitol re-released the first two Vixen albums, Vixen and Rev It Up.[citation needed]
Vixen also won the sixth annual Independent Music Awards Vox Pop vote for Best Hard Rock/Metal Song for "I Try".[citation needed]
Sanz-Agero confirmed in a 2011 interview that a second album featuring the 2001 lineup was in the works and that a track called "I Understand" existed along with other new recordings and outtakes from the Live & Learn sessions.[9] There has yet to be a proper release for these recordings because every member from that lineup has either retired from music or is pursuing non-musical careers.[citation needed]
At the end of 2012 Jan Kuehnemund was planning to reunite the classic Vixen lineup with Janet Gardner, Share Ross, and Roxy Petrucci, who had since reunited in JSRG with guitarist Gina Stile. However, in January 2013, days before they were about to make the official announcement of their reunion, Kuehnemund was diagnosed with cancer. This forced them to delay the announcement indefinitely, until possibly when Kuehnemund was fully recovered and cancer-free. The plan for a full-fledged reunion became impossible on October 10, 2013, when, after nine months battling her cancer, Jan Kuehnemund died at the age of 59.[10]
In December 2013 the three surviving classic lineup members with Gina Stile on guitar, decided to carry on under the name of Vixen in honor of Jan Kuehnemund.[11]
They played several gigs in 2014 in the U.S., Spain, and Canada. In October 2014 drummer Roxy Petrucci said in an interview that Vixen was working on a new album, featuring one song dedicated to Jan Kuehnemund.[12]
In March 2017, Vixen parted ways with lead guitarist Gina Stile and chose Britt Lightning to succeed her. Lightning had previously played in Jaded, another all-female band that is defunct.[13] Initially, in a June 2018 interview, Petrucci said that the band's new album was to come out in 2019.[14] During 2018, Gardner's last contribution as lead singer was when Vixen went to a studio for the first time in more than 10 years and recorded two tracks for the Live Fire album, "You Ought to Know by Now" and an acoustic version of "Edge of a Broken Heart". The former is their own cover of Ray Kennedy's "You Oughta Know by Now", originally on his 1980 self-titled album.[15]
On January 16, 2019, Gardner confirmed in a Facebook post that she had definitely left Vixen,[16] to devote more time to family and prioritize her solo career. The band later released a statement on their official Facebook page stating they plan to continue without Gardner and that a new studio album has been in the works for what would have been a 2019 release.[17] On January 22, they announced that Lorraine Lewis of Femme Fatale, Vixen's contemporaries during the glam metal heyday and also an all-female band from its refoundation in 2013 until its dissolution later in 2019, became their new singer, starting with a performance on February 9 in Clearwater, Florida.[18] Lewis met Petrucci and Ross during her past collaborations with them in Rocktopuss and L.A. Nookie, a local cover band, respectively. She later explained in May that the band's upcoming album would have had a tentative 2020 release year.[19] However, this album's release stalled, with its recording and writing sessions being continual and infrequent throughout 2021 and 2022.[citation needed]
On February 8, 2022, bassist Share Ross announced she was taking a hiatus from the band and announced Julia Lage as her replacement, who is the wife of guitarist Richie Kotzen. Lage, a Brazilian, is Vixen's first member not from the United States.[20]
On October 2, 2023, the band released a new single "Red", co-written by Fred Coury, Carly Robyn Green and Peter Amato.[21] This was their first release to feature Lewis on vocals and Lage on bass.[22]
On May 26, 2024, Lewis announced on her social media channels that she was no longer with Vixen as "The band has taken a different direction."[23] The next day, May 27, the band announced it had already found a replacement lead singer. However, Lewis' replacement was not announced until June 21 at the Honda Center in Anaheim, CA when new lead singer Rosa Laricchiuta first took the stage with Vixen. They co-headlined the show with Great White, Slaughter, and Quiet Riot. [24]
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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.
Rev It Up is the second album by the American hard rock band Vixen, released by EMI in 1990. It entered the UK Albums Chart at No. 20, and placed two songs inside the Billboard Hot 100. However, it did not match up to its predecessor in the US and EMI dropped the band shortly thereafter. Therefore, this album is the band's last release from a major label. The race car on the US cover belonged to local racing legend and all around hero Bobby Baldwin. The European and Japanese covers show a picture of the band, which is on the back cover for the US release. A remastered version was released on CD by Rock Candy Records in February 2023
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.
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Janet Patricia Gardner 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.
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.
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