With the Jam, Bruce Foxton forged a reputation as one of the great pop bassists. Tim Tucker catches up with him.

It's not often you get to meet one of your earliest musical influences, so it was with some trepidation that I entered Bruce's Surrey home to find out what he's up to now. Bruce was happy to talk about his days with the Jam, although he pointed out that it's all been well documented already. "After the Jam I didn't know what the hell I was going to do." At first, Bruce went for the solo career option. "The Jam's publisher got me a record deal as a solo artist almost overnight, so I signed with Arista Records in 1983. The first single, Freak, was just outside the top twenty, I think it got to twenty two. It was a promising start, but I didn't have the quality control from the record company. Whatever I submitted to them they just said, 'Yeah, go ahead, put it on the album,' when they should have been saying 'Well it's not very good is it?' They just wanted to cash in while the interest was still out there. Half of it I'm really proud of, but I think I bit off more than I could chew."

Bruce decided it was time to get back to what he loved. "I think the solo experience made me realise what I'm best at doing, and it just basically came back to being part of a band and contributing, as opposed to trying to run the whole show myself."

Through the rest of the 80s Bruce did "bits and pieces with various bands - 100 Men, Built Like Stone, Sharp. Once again it was, do some demos, do some gigs, near misses with record companies, the same old story."

After a brief stint with the Rhythm Sisters ("two or three years just doing the club circuit") Bruce got a call. "I was about at the end of my tether, and Jake Burns called and said, 'Would you like to join Stiff Little Fingers, 'cos the old bass player wants out?' and I said, 'Yeah great'. So I've been with them for the last three or four years."

But Bruce isn't comfortable unless he's working his arse off. "Jake and myself have also got into writing library music for ads and so on, and we're working on a new CD-ROM game. I'm also representing a young rock/funk band, called Headnoise. They'll be doing a couple of dates with SLF on tour in March."

So, with all this on the go, does Bruce expect a good year? "Yeah, tour in March, off to Europe, then a promo thing in the States - possibly Japan. I'm cautiously optimistic. Basically, I just can't wait to play at the moment." And that, as we all know, is what it's all about...