Interview with Bassist Billy Childs of Britny Fox - Part I
By Mick Michaels
The Cosmick View:
Hello Billy! Welcome to The Cosmick View! Appreciate you taking the time to talk. Things have been quiet. What have you been up to?
Billy Childs:
I’ve been living in Maine for about 10 years now. It’s nice up here. It’s quiet and peaceful, and for someone my age, it’s basically 90% retirement. The area hasn’t been impacted by many of the issues affecting the rest of the country. Our costs have gone up a little, but not drastically. Things haven’t gotten crazy yet, and there’s no crime. It’s just a nice, quiet place to live. If I were 25 or 35, I might feel differently, but at this stage in my life, it’s perfect for me. I’m married now, so I’ve settled down a bit.
The Cosmick View:
That’s good to hear. So, with everything going on, are you still doing many dates with Britny Fox and the new lineup?
Billy Childs:
No, I’ve gotten a lot of offers, but I’ve turned a lot of stuff down. I turned down a festival in the UK last year—maybe the year before—and a few in California. I did one in California just to keep working. though. I looked at it as a bit of a vacation. I hadn’t been out that way since I was with Get the Led Out and I did a few gigs with Britny Fox in 2016–2018, back when John and Tommy were in the band. But I haven’t been out that way in about five years.
The Cosmick View:
You don’t do a lot if interviews. Fans rarely get to hear from you. Has that been a conscious effort to avoid the media?
Billy Childs:
I’ve turned down so many interviews over the past five or six years, man. But it’s always the same questions—where did you get the clothes, how did the band name come about, and all that. I understand those questions need to be asked, but I’m more into real conversations like this one. It’s refreshing. That’s much more interesting to me.
The Cosmick View:
I’ve read that there seems to be some level of confusion regarding the use of the Britny Fox name and brand. Can you offer some clarity on that?
Billy Childs:
As for the trademark issue, I’ve owned the Britny Fox trademark since 2007. So, there’s no confusion—if someone wants to license it, it goes through me. I’ve heard interviews where people say it's complicated, but it’s not. I’m the one who picked it up when it was abandoned, and I’ve been paying for it ever since. I just want to clear that up.
The Cosmick View:
Why do you think they’re confused about the trademark?
Billy Childs:
I’ve seen interviews where they don’t seem to know who owns it. John knows, but I’m not sure about the others. Maybe they don’t understand, or maybe they’ve forgotten, but it’s really not complicated. I’m the one who’s been keeping it going. I’m the guy who picked up the name Britny Fox when it was abandoned, and nobody else wanted to take it on. For the longest time, nobody wanted anything to do with it. That’s why I started doing it again. This was in 2007, from 2007 to about 2010.
The Cosmick View:
Do you think the original Britny Fox lineup will ever reunite, despite the confusion over the trademark?
Billy Childs:
I don’t think that’s likely. Tommy doesn’t have the voice he once did, and he’s said as much. He was already struggling with some songs back in 2017 and 2018. He has a good gig now, playing keyboards and backup vocals for Count’s 77 in Vegas. I think that ship has sailed.
Johnny’s with Doro, I don’t really follow it, but I know he’s been keeping busy. As for Michael Kelly Smith, I heard he’s raising horses and doing lessons. I’ve seen him pop up more lately at record stores and doing appearances.
I haven’t talked to Mike much recently, but we’re on good terms.
The Cosmick View:
So, going back a bit—how did you get into music? Was it something you fell into, or was it a conscious decision?
Billy Childs:
It was definitely a conscious choice. I’ve loved music from a young age. My parents didn’t expose me to much, so I found it through friends. I met a guy whose older brother had Beatles records, and I fell in love with them. I also got into bands like Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. Rock music just resonated with me. I loved it. I started growing my hair out, which my dad hated, and people thought I was a hippie. But I wasn’t a hippie—I was a rock star in the making! That’s when I knew I wanted to pursue music. I moved to Florida when I was 13, I was actually born in Florida, and there were only two bands in my small town and one bass player. I went to a high school dance one night that the one band was playing and nobody danced. I was one of those 15 to 20-year-old guys standing in front of the band, watching them, and it hit me—that's what I wanted to do. I wasn’t cut out to be a singer. Guitar looked too complicated. Drums were kind of too much in the back for me and I looked at the bass player and I went wow 4 strings…one note at a time…this this looks doable. I figured bass was something I could do. So, I got a bass for my birthday and started learning songs. I wasn’t great at first, but I kept at it. Within a month, I was showing the other guys how to play the songs, and that’s how it all started. I played for about a year and a half [in Florida]. Then my father passed away while we were down there. My mom and I moved back to Philly.
The Cosmick View:
So, after a couple years in Florida, you move back to Philly. At that point musically for you, was it mostly local garage-type bands, or did you find yourself involved in the broader Philly music scene?
Billy Childs:
I was about 16 when I moved back to Philly, and I quickly got involved with local bands. They were like, "Oh, this guy’s great!" I thought, “I’m really not very good at all, but if they think I am, that’s fantastic.”
I met [drummer] Adam (Ferraioli, aka Adam West – Tangier, Get the Led Out) in junior high, and we bonded over our love of Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. He and I ended up playing in a band together, though we never had a singer, so it didn’t go anywhere. But it was around 1980–1981 when I started playing more venues, driving to different clubs, and really diving into the local scene. It was a great time.
[At the time] I was a huge fan of the Dead End Kids and was lucky enough to become friends with a couple of them later in life. At that time, I remember Adam was in a band called Thrust, which was just getting started. There were a lot of other bands around, especially in Jersey and the northeast. I started going to some of those clubs a little later, but Central Park, near McDade Blvd, was the closest to me — about a 20-minute drive away, where cover bands like Witness and the Dead End Kids used to play. I’d go there a lot and eventually started meeting people, forming bands, and doing different things. Eventually, I managed to get a band that could play for free on off nights at clubs. We were playing rock from that era—early Def Leppard, Y&T, some Priest songs. My bands were always a little bit heavier.
Central Park was actually one of those clubs because I knew the owners by then, and they loved us because we were half-decent and played for nothing.
So that’s how it all started for me. From there, I started meeting more people, going to different clubs, and meeting guys from Jersey, Philly, and all over.
The Cosmick View:
What were bands playing back then, especially in the early '80s? Was it mostly covers or were original songs starting to make their way in?
Billy Childs:
At that time, you had to play covers. The nightclub circuit was pretty much controlled by Freddie Baker from Apollo Artist Attractions, so you were expected to play covers. My bands were always a bit heavier — a little too heavy for most of the time, which made it hard to get gigs. But we did get some work. Over in Jersey, there was a club called The Galaxy, and the owner, Bill Haigh, didn't get along with Freddie too well. Bill wanted to do something different, so he started an original night at The Galaxy. That’s how I got to play there, even though my band was primarily a cover band at the time. We didn’t have any original songs yet, but we were heavy and pretty good, so we still got a chance to perform.
The Cosmick View:
Was this around the time you were working with John Corabi?
Billy Childs:
Yeah, I was in a band with John Corabi, who later joined Mötley Crüe. We had a band called Fragile, and it was me, Adam, and a guitar player named Ron E Kayfield, who was considered one of the best in the area. We were actually doing a Led Zeppelin tribute show, which, oddly enough, ended up being the idea for Get The Led Out years later. Ron E Kayfield was the one who tied all of that together later on. The band he put together in the early 2000s eventually led to the creation of Get The Led Out, which included some of the guys from that band. One of the guys was Paul Pacari, who played bass.
The Cosmick View:
So, were you already involved in a lot of recording and original music before Britny Fox started?
Billy Childs:
Yes, by that point, I had already been involved in a lot of original music. I became known as a go-to guy for recording. If your band was decent but needed a bass player, I’d get a lot of calls to record with people. I played on a lot of demos floating around Philly. At the time, a lot of people who were just getting started in the local scene would ask me to record with them. I also played with Ron E Kayfield’s band for a while, which had some great original songs. Ron E had some good connections, and at that point, he was one of the bigger names in the local rock scene.
Ron E had toured with a band called Waysted, which was a big deal in Philly at the time. I don’t think he did an album with them.
The Cosmick View:
Were you friendly, or at least aware of the members of who would be Britny Fox before joining the band?
Billy Childs:
I met Dean (Davidson) in the early '80s. He used to be a drummer for the band World War III. We ended up splitting a practice place, and that’s when I first met him. I also played in a band with Mike (Michael Kelly Smith) after his time with Cinderella.
The Cosmick View:
You joined Britny Fox in 1985. How did things really start rolling for you from that point?
Billy Childs:
At the time, I was playing on other people’s stuff, basically not going anywhere. Then, the Britny Fox thing happened, and I got in on the ground floor.
We got together at the Warehouse in Philly, a practice facility, around Christmas in 1985. But the band really started to come together after the New Year (’86). It was me, Mike (Michael Kelly Smith), Tony (Destra), and Dean (Davidson), and we started practicing together. Right off the bat, it just clicked. The chemistry was great right from the start, which is important when you’re trying to form a band. At the time, I had been playing in a lot of different bands, so I had the experience of working with different people. This helped a lot when we were forming Britny Fox, as we already had a set of songs, and it just clicked, our styles really meshed.
After getting a set together, I remember when Cinderella left, either to record an album or go on their first tour. I can’t remember which, but they had been playing at the Galaxy on Saturdays, which was the big night. The very next week, we started playing Saturdays, so we were doing pretty well locally from the start.
Things moved fast from there.
The Cosmick View:
Did Michael Kelly Smith’s connection with Gene Simmons play any part of in Britny Fox’s early success?
Billy Childs:
Honestly, I’m not sure how much of that connection paid off, but things really took off after Cinderella got their deal. Since Mike and Tony were in Cinderella, we had a bit of a built-in audience already. Bill Haigh, who owned The Galaxy, was really supportive and let us play there regularly, so we started to get noticed. We also started to get attention from different labels. Back then, we’d record demos and hope to get an A&R guy to come see us. We had people from different labels coming to see us, but nothing ever happened. There was always a reason for why nothing worked out.
Eventually, a guy named John Marvos from Columbia Records saw us at a show in Wildwood (Wildwood Convention Center opening for Cinderella). It was the biggest place we played and that’s when things really started to move forward. I think seeing us in that kind of venue was better than seeing us in nightclubs. He liked what he saw and wanted to sign us immediately.
The band had been together less than two years when we got that deal, though it felt like a lot longer than that.
If Cinderella hadn’t given us that opening slot, we might never have gotten that deal.
The Cosmick View:
How quickly did things move once you got that deal?
Billy Childs:
Things moved pretty fast. Once we had that show at Wildwood and caught the attention of Columbia, we were on our way. We’d been playing a lot at The Galaxy, and that helped us build a local following. The labels were always looking for bands that were almost fully formed, so we made sure we had everything together, even though we didn’t have a major label behind us. We had our own logo, we could rehearse and record for free at The Galaxy, and it all came together.
The Cosmick View:
You had a strong image from the start — like you already had a production company behind you. Was that part of your strategy, or was it just how things worked out?
Billy Childs:
It was definitely part of the strategy. We knew that labels were looking for a close to finished product, so we worked hard to make sure we looked the part. We just saw that as part of the deal.
We had to look like we were somebody and act like we were somebody. That was the strategy behind that.
It wasn’t like we had a big company behind us. There was nobody behind us. It was just us, but we did have Bill Haigh’s support and a place to rehearse and record, which made a huge difference. We knew the labels would take us more seriously if we looked like we had our act together, so we made sure we presented ourselves that way.
The Cosmick View:
Though Britny Fox quickly started seeing success early on, the band would unfortunately experience a setback with the untimely passing of original drummer Tony Destra. What happened after Tony’s passing? How did that affect the band?
Billy Childs:
When Tony passed, it was a huge shock, but we didn’t even consider stopping. Adam was already familiar with our music, having seen us play at The Galaxy, and he stepped in without missing a beat. He and Tony were both amazing drummers, and Adam was the perfect fit. We took a week off to process everything, but after that, we were back at it. It was tough emotionally, but professionally, it didn’t take long for us to sound like we had before. Adam really made the transition smooth. We kept going because that’s what Tony would have wanted — for us to keep pushing forward.
The Cosmick View:
But eventually, Adam was let go from the band. Was that a tough decision?
Billy Childs:
It wasn’t an easy decision, but it was one made by the label. Personally, I wanted to keep Adam in the band — he sounded great, and we were good friends. But the label wanted a more glam look, and they didn’t feel Adam fit that image. So, as much as I fought for him to stay, it wasn’t really up to us.
When we had to replace Adam, there was really no other choice. Johnny Dee was the guy. Not only that, but the bass player was extremely tight with him, and they played really well together. He looked great too. So, it was the obvious choice. With all these drummer changes, we never really had to think about it; it was always clear who the next guy would be.
The Cosmick View:
Did you feel like there was a music scene in Philadelphia at the time, or was it only just a few places to play?
Billy Childs:
There wasn’t much of a scene until Cinderella got signed. They were a game-changer for Philly. Back then, when one band did well from a particular area, labels would flock to that area, looking for other talent. That happened in Philly. When they made it, labels started looking at the area for more talent. But the Philly scene was pretty small—there were only a few places to play, like the Galaxy and the Empire Rock Club. Bands like us got lucky because we were next in line after Cinderella. We got signed, and a few others did too, but nothing really ever exploded out of Philly. Cinderella did well, and we did, too, but not on the same level.
People talk about the scene, but there really wasn’t much of a scene. It’s been overrated. There were only a few nightclubs to play—Galaxy and the Empire Rock Club in Northeast Philly. Those were really the only places for original bands. There weren’t a lot of clubs or bands, and everything was centered around the Galaxy and Empire Rock Room. That was really all there was.
As for Philly’s rock scene, and I’m not sure about the current situation, but besides like The Empire and the Galaxy, I remember some places like Bonnie’s and later the Cell Block started offering a platform for bands. Once we got big and hit the road, I lost touch with it. I was on the road for 10 months a year. I still lived there, but I didn’t really spend much time there, let alone go to clubs.
After we moved on, things seemed to shift, and the scene changed fast. But there was definitely a time when original bands were in demand, and that made things exciting.
To Be Continued...
Check out Part II
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My name is Mick Michaels...I'm an artist, music fan, songwriter, producer, show host, dreamer and guitarist for the traditional Heavy Metal band Corners of Sanctuary. Writing has always been a creative outlet for me; what I couldn't say in speech, I was able to do with the written word. Writing has given me a voice and a way for me to create on a multitude of platforms including music and song, articles, independent screenplays, books and now, artist interviews. The Cosmick View is an opportunity to raise the bar and showcase artists in a positive and inspirational light. For me, it's another out-of-this-world adventure.
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