Street Kings (From Bucks Free Press)

Street Kings

4:05pm Tuesday 5th May 2009

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FROM homelessness and playing impromptu gigs to protesters outside Parliament to critical acclaim and playing Radio 1's Big Weekend – quite a turnaround for the singer known as 'Itch'.

Ask Jonny 'Itch' Fox, lead singer of Hackney-based band The King Blues, about the struggle to make the musical big time and he'll tell you a story that makes most 'hard knock' celebrity tales sound like a holiday at Disney.

The 24-year-old was forced to live on the streets of London at 13 before he was taken in by a 'group of punks' who took him to protests and opened his eyes to the ideas that now drives his band.

Speaking ahead of the group's UK tour, Jonny said: “When I was about 13 I was forced to live on the streets and I was taken in by a group of punks who used to take me to demonstrations and protests.

“It was a real eye opener to issues and radical ideas that I had thought about, but had never embraced and I found out about new, radical ideas and it really got me interested and excited.”

The singer regularly writes a political blog for www.thestreetsareours.net website and even had a column printed in the Guardian newspaper.

“It's great that people want to read my political opinion but music is the most important thing.”

The band released new single, I Got Love, this week from the acclaimed album, Get the Girl, Save the World, and stop off at the Bucks Student Union on Thursday ahead of their performance at Radio 1's Big Weekend – but life wasn't always this easy.

Before the Blues, Jonny was in a different band called Ramraid the Offy but decided he wanted to try something different and ended up taking to the streets with band-mate Jamie Jazz and a PA system strapped to a tricycle.

“Everywhere we approached to do gigs just laughed at us when we told them we were an acoustic punk/folk/rock group, because it conjures up images of James Blunt and that is not a good look!

“So in the end we just gigged on the streets, at protests or found abandoned warehouses to throw parties. To start with people just came along for the party but they'd hear us while they were there and the word quickly spread.

“We're in a really privileged position now, we're able to perform to both small intimate crowds and the big venues, so we get the best of both worlds.

“I'm really excited about where we are at the moment, this is the first time for about 3-4 weeks we've been out on the road and every time we go back out there it seems to get bigger and better.

“We're currently on a three week tour of towns we've either never been to or not been to for ages and Wycombe is one we've not been to for a while – it has a good vibe.

But despite performing at Wembley Arena with Hard-Fi and playing to 'their crowd' at the Reading Festival, is he nervous about lining up alongside the likes of Lilly Allen, Ne-Yo and Snow Patrol?

“The Radio 1 gig should be great, it's probably the first 'mainstream' gig we've done and some of the audience won't perhaps have seen us before.

“But we thrive on those situations and it's always nice to play to a new audience to show them what we can do.

“I don't really know who else is on the bill without looking, it's not something I pay attention to.

“Music is for everyone, it's not just for a select few people who are deemed to be cooler than everyone else.”

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