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  • Ruby Hashmi

KING COXY

‘The man with an edge; a self proclaimed gentleman by day and an “egotistical, crowd diving, guitar smashing, nasty bastard” by night, striving to make it in a world of money-grabbers, excess and fakes; here’s how he made sense of it all.’

Photography Credit: Instagram @kissofbethsphotography



I didn't know what to expect when I called up Coxy, rhythm guitarist for The Rattlebacks, but I definitely knew I was in for a ride. The Rattlebacks do everything from smashing up amps to diving into the crowd (and in Coxy's case, spitting at them too). I guess all I knew was that any minute now some leather-clad rockstar would pop up on my screen, probably with a bottle of Jack in hand and a cig dangling from his lips. But what I didn't expect was for a gentleman to appear (did I dial up the right guy?) a few minutes after I had logged on; glass of wine in hand, eloquent as fuck and ready to tell me the story of how Jack Cox, head of recruitment by day, becomes Coxy of The Rattlebacks by night.


“I’ve always loved the idea of performing; of being this debauched, depraved, drug-addict, fuck-up, sexual-enigma. Ever since I was a child I’ve looked up to people like Freddie Mercury and Axl Rose, these larger than life characters. I was just drawn to the performance aspect, the desire to be larger than life. Whether it be acting, comedy, theatre or music, I just wanted to perform.


Axl, in particular, has always been my hero. I have this memory that is very obvious in my mind and that is listening to Appetite For Destruction on a Scouts bus when I was 8 years old. Being an only-child, I was in tears. I had this separation-anxiety from my mum when I was a kid. I was bawling my eyes out and I didn’t want to go on this trip. Then, just as we joined the motorway, I heard ‘Jungle’, ‘Paradise City’ and ‘Sweet Child’ playing and I asked everyone on the bus what this was because it was blowing my mind. For the first time ever I identified with something of my own. Subconsciously that would’ve been the first thing that got me into music.


The story of how I got into playing guitar in particular then all starts with Max Horn, our lead guitar player, who is also my godparent’s son (so he is what is affectionately known as my god-brother). I've known him since I was a week old. For his 10th birthday he got a guitar and If he wanted to do something then I always wanted to do it too so I asked my mum for this shitty Argos acoustic guitar. I was very conscious that I didn’t want to cost my mum money so I just picked the cheapest, shittest thing I could find. Then, on Christmas morning I saw this thing wrapped up under the tree and I said “Oh mum, you’ve got the wrong guitar”. It was an electric guitar and it was mind blowing to what I expected. I got guitar lessons from there and then I decided I was going to be in a band.


I first joined a band and forced myself to go on stage at 13. It was terrifying but the rush of adrenaline was amazing. In my head I ran around the stage like Freddie Mercury but in retrospect I probably just stood there strumming away like any other boring fucker. But that was the moment I knew that I never really wanted to do anything else.


From the first band I got into, I was then in a series of shit bands. These were my formative years; I was yet to be able to communicate with people and put my passion across in a way that was constructive instead of coming across as arrogant. Someone that I used to play football with when I was younger was in a pop punk band that I was monitoring called Fate Will Follow and I decided I wanted a bit of that so I called the band up and said I wanted in. I had some songs prepared and they were like “Woah, we’ve never had a song that was over 2 minutes. You’re fucking amazing” and I was like yeah, sure, I’ll run with that. I was with them from 14 to 17. The following year, we played Guild Fest and we were the youngest band to play on stage. At the time, nobody told me I had to bring my own amp so I turned up with my guitar and had to play on an acoustic amp. I was fucking livid. I was begging all these bands to let me borrow some of their gear and they all said no so I called them out on stage. Sure, it was awful but I was angry and, at the end of the day, I'm a big fan of Axl Rose and his rants so I thought fuck it.


It's safe to say that I've come a long way since being the kid without an amp for my electric guitar. Nowadays, I’m actually kind of known for smashing amps up. When on stage with The Rattlebacks, I’ll smash a guitar or spit on stage. Well I don't mean to spit on people but it has been known… I just want people to look at me and feel something; it might be anger or disgust but it doesn’t matter, I just want people to feel something, anything, and if that means provoking a reaction by spitting or being a nasty bastard (in terms of how I perform) then that is exactly my purpose in what I'm trying to achieve. Though, afterwards I will probably talk to you and look at the floor. It's just like a switch I suppose. With the bravado of what I put on, on stage, I try to portray myself as this egotistical, crowd-diving, guitar-smashing, tough, macho, nasty-bastard. I can be that horrible individual that I want to portray but when it comes down to it, I’m not really that guy, that’s not who I am. It’s who I wish I was, even though that person is not particularly nice. Life is a performance. That's something that you learn from being on stage; that people can be fooled into thinking you’re someone that you’re not. For those 45 minutes, you can be the person that you want to be, or, in my case, think you are, an alter-ego almost and there is something so touching about that to me. It’s not an act. It’s how I want to portray myself in normal life but, in reality, I’m just not that guy. I want to be polite and liked, I want to be all these things but for that half-hour or so I'm a horrible, nasty human being and it's my stage you’re all going to look at me. It's very much a form of escapism and it's just beautiful. I am addicted to it, I love it, I live it and I breathe it.


Now at this point I was beginning to wonder exactly what it was that the great ‘King Coxy’ was escaping from. So, in my upfront, call a spade a spade fashion, I asked him what the hell he was running from. Reality? Himself? The answer was not one that I was expecting.


“Yesterday, I listened to a podcast with Russell Brand featuring Annie Lennox. What they were talking about was how they'd both come from only-child backgrounds. I'm an only-child myself and grew up with only my mum and seeing my dad every other weekend. What they were saying in this podcast really resonated with me and it honestly kept me up thinking about it. You spend a large period of time on your own as an only-child and when you discover a guitar you talk to it and it talks to you. It's an expression of emotion, an expression of identity. Playing guitar was my own space to escape to for up to 6 hours at a time. It was everything. I also realised that my desire to be on stage and have attention is a form of escapism coming from that same loneliness of being an only-child. I don't know if I’d be attracted to an instrument in the first place if it wasn't for me being an only-child. But, in all honesty, It was never about the guitar itself, it was about the guitar being a platform to allow me to be a complete show-off and attention-whore.”


Coxy’s passion for his art was inspiring, even more so when I heard the reason behind his desire for escapism through playing music and fashioning an alter-ego. It soon became apparent that Coxy’s passion for music was his one true love and this love of music was so dear to him that he had a lot to say on other musicians; primarily, that the majority of them just do not give a fuck.


“To perform to people is something quite magical and I think that magic is something that is lacking from a lot of ‘rockstars’ these days; nobody seems to give a fuck, at least not on stage. We want to be the band that we don't see in current Rock n Roll and that entails a certain level of attitude, aggression and desperation. We’re hungry; that's exactly what bands should be. To me, performing isn’t about ‘beer and babes’, It’s about the thrill, knowing that come a certain time (as far as my ego’s concerned) all eyes are on me. Thats why I go on stage and shake my ass as much as I do; to ensure everyone’s looking at me and not anyone else and I think thats how a healthy band operates; you’re trying to make everyone look at you, you’re fighting for attention and as an only-child, I’m good at fighting for attention. That feeling of being on stage is just indescribable. It’s better than drugs or sex or booze. Performing and playing music is an addiction that I can’t shake, won’t shake, refuse to shake. I am in love with it. It is romantic to me.


Thats why I can’t stand people that bring you out to their show and, even if they’re crazy talented, just stand there. Don’t waste my time and these other people's time and, more importantly, their money, for you to stand there like you don’t give a fuck. How dare you not give those people your passion. Get the fuck out of my way because there are people who deserve it a lot more than you do and they are willing to sweat and die for music, for their passion and that is something that I hope comes across from The Rattlebacks. I, and the rest of the band will kill ourselves. I've smashed up amps, we’ve all jumped into the crowd. If I haven't left the stage after throwing up, physically exerting myself to the point my fingers won’t work anymore and I’m drenched in sweat then there’s no point because the people there deserve that. Rock n Roll deserves that. Music deserves that. Ultimately, you have to be true to yourself. I think talent gets you so far but for you to become great, you have to be a good performer. I don't know, Adele doesn’t go around spitting on people and she’s still a good performer. But for Rock n Roll specifically, you’ve got to kill yourself up there.”


It was touching to hear the lengths Coxy would go to just to put on a show, just to put a smile on peoples faces, almost driving himself into the ground just to honour Rock n Roll. But what exactly is it then that rock stars are killing themselves up on stage for? Coxy made it clear that he is willing to smash shit, almost break his fingers and puke up, covered in sweat all in the name of Rock n Roll, the greatest cause of all it would seem but what the fuck is he dying for? For money? I wondered. For the chicks that come with being a rockstar? For the free blow and booze? What is it that's so good that it's worth dying for? I asked Coxy outright if it was the excess. I expected to hear about the women who fall at his feet and the blurry nights he just about remembers, the random couches he’d woken up on. He's a rockstar. That's what they do, that's what they’re in it for, right? Coxy shook his head and gave me a half-smirk, a look of ‘Pfsh, god no...really ?’


Being a musician is overly glamorised, it's not sexy. People think it's all excess, drugs, women, fun but it's hard work. There's a certain level of bravado that goes with the glamour and romanticism of Rock n Roll and excess. I romanticise with it. That's something that attracted me to it in the first place. Parts of that are in me; I can drink and do drugs with the rest of them if I want to. There was this one gig we played with Hellfire Club where I got hammered on Sambuca shots, glasses were getting smashed left right and centre and I passed out in the middle of the road outside the venue. Our drummer, Charlie, had to pick my legs up and drag me back to the venue and in true rockstar fashion, I had a plane to catch the next morning. But I suppose ultimately it’s not about how hard I can party but who I am as a human being, that’s what it comes down to. There’s people even close to me that I think are very much in love with that idea of what a rockstar should be and they will drink themselves into a hole or do as many drugs and lines because that's the macho ‘Rock and Roller’ they can be. That's the romanticised idea, what it really boils down to is hard work. Don’t get into this sort of game if thats what you’re in it for because I tell you now, I wouldn't be able to function and play and write and be the rockstar if I was 24/7 drunk or on drugs. You don't get handed anything. You get what you put in, you reap what you sow.


You will not get anything from this industry unless you are immensely passionate or talented and if you’re a mix of both then you stand some kind of chance or opportunity. I would say being a musician has led to fuck-all opportunities for me and you will get fuck-all until you’re worth money to somebody. Only then will someone provide you with lots of opportunities because you can make them money. There’s a venue that we paid to do a show; we booked some great bands, paid a £450 deposit and had about 175 people turn up but the venue told us we wouldn’t get our deposit back unless we made £1500 at the bar that night. I thought to myself, not only have I paid for your venue and put money in, promoted it and done all the hard work but you act like I still have to do more just to be privileged enough to play in your venue, fuck off. Don’t kid yourself into thinking anyones here to look after you. They’re here to extort you, rape and pillage you for every cent you’re worth if you possess any level of talent they can monetise.


Don't get me wrong, the first chance it's afforded to me, I am going to throw TVs out of windows. I want the bad press, I want to be this horrible monster of a Rock and Roller but that would only be for a time when I can enjoy it and I know that there aren't any consequences to my actions financially. If I was to act like that and I wasn't successful and a label had just signed me they'd drop me and that would be the end of my career.


So you see, you have to be very careful about how you play the big Rock and Roller game. I have to hold down a full-time job to fund my ambitions and my dreams. If you want a snapshot of a real day in the life of Jack Cox; I wake up at 7:30am. My workplace is only 7 minutes away by car (if there’s no traffic) but I turn up to work about 15 minutes late every day, my boss is very understanding. I get to the office at 9am and start my working day in recruitment. This usually entails trying to find people on Linkedin, booking interviews and speaking to quantity surveyors. Then I go home for some lunch, its normally beans on toast, I’m clearly living a life of luxury, what can I say. I get back to work for 1pm and I come home for around 5:30pm. As boring as that sounds, the fact of the matter is that It's not 1986 anymore, it's not ‘GnR’, we’re not all doing smack and strippers. I cant fund these projects if thats how I'm going to act and behave. It's just not how it is anymore, you have to be a little more clean cut.


The amount of hard work that I put into being a musician doesn’t just entail the work that I put into creating records or performing on stage like a crazy motherfucker or holding down a job to fund my projects but I also put a lot of hard work into my image. I’ve recently gained more of an understanding of myself and have pushed myself to work towards my ideal image, the best version of me. I’m very comfortable with who I am right now and I’ve been trying to exercise more to lose weight. I’ve got this big ambition to be shirtless on stage. When I think about being shirtless on stage, I think about the media not liking you unless you’re skinny and pretty and I think about people calling you fat. I think about all of these things and, for me, exercise is a release point of anger and a big step towards trying to be the person that I want to be up there.”


It was thought-provoking to consider the issue of body image and body-shaming by the media in relation to men as opposed to the already-running, more widely talked about, conversation about women and body-image. I was intrigued by the fact that there is hardly any conversation surrounding this even though body-shaming is clearly a concern men also have.


“I will put blood, sweat and tears into this. I will do whatever it takes to become the person that I want to become, whether its exercising to be the guy that I want to be on stage, working my ass off to earn money, writing every second I have a chance to, I will do everything and anything because music and performing is my life. Every time I go up on stage i'm thankful that I'm alive and that this is what I get to do.


There was a gig I can remember vividly, perhaps our last gig with Paul. There were a lot of people there. We’d gone from 5, to 15, to 25, to 50, to 200 people. I always play on the right and Max plays on the left. You’ve got to remember, I’ve known this guy my entire life, we’ve talked about this forever, we’ve fantasised about this together and there was this moment where I looked to my left and for some reason he looked to his right and we made eye contact for a second, more than a second, I don't know, it felt like forever. He looked at me and I looked at him and it was like we are doing exactly what it is we set out to do and whether it reaches commercial success or validation on a mass-scale it doesn't matter because we've shared what we've always dreamed of. In that precise moment in time people were listening and paying to see us and enjoying it. We had everything in the palm of our hands and we just gave a knowing look to each other to say “I'm proud of you”, a congratulations, celebrating each other’s dreams. We had done what we set out to do and there’s no stopping us.”


You can follow The Rattlebacks at:

Instagram: @the_rattlebacks Twitter: @TheRattlebacks





About Me

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Hi my name is Ruby and I'm an addict...

 

To me music is an addiction. I'm either listening to music, reading about it, speaking to musicians, going to gigs or playing piano or guitar. 

 I believe that it is important to connect with artists as human beings in order to truly understand their work and appreciate their magic. 

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