Bruce Foxton

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Bruce Foxton

Background information
Born	September 1, 1955
Origin	Woking, Surrey, United Kingdom
Genre(s)	Rock and roll
Occupation(s)	Bass player
Instrument(s)	Bass guitar
Associated acts	The Jam Stiff Little Fingers Casbah Club
Website	BruceFoxton.com

Bruce Foxton is an English rock and roll musician (born 1 September 1955 in Woking, Surrey) who is best remembered as the bass player in punk/new wave bands The Jam and Stiff Little Fingers.

In The Jam, he and drummer Rick Buckler played a subordinate role behind singer, guitarist, and songwriter Paul Weller. Foxton did, however, take lead vocals on a few tracks, most notably the singles "David Watts" (a cover of a Kinks track) and "News Of The World", which was his own composition. Foxton did pen a few other tracks, possibly the most notable being "Smithers-Jones", done as a straightforward rock take for the B-side of "When You're Young" and later reworked with strings for the Setting Sons LP. Stiff Little Fingers would regularly perform the song live after Foxton joined.

While in The Jam, Foxton discovered The Vapors and co-managed the group with John Weller, Paul's father. Ironically, The Vapors enjoyed greater success in the U.S. than The Jam would ever have with the Top 40 single "Turning Japanese", but broke up shortly thereafter.

After The Jam split, Foxton pursued a brief solo career. He had a minor UK hit with the single "Freak" and played in several less well known groups, until he got the call from Stiff Little Fingers' Jake Burns. It was also around this time that Foxton founded the London estate agent Foxton's.

His stayed with Stiff Little Fingers for fifteen years, during which time they recorded four albums, namely, Flags and Emblems, Get a Life, Tinderbox, and Guitar and Drum. During his time with the band, he wrote and co-wrote several tracks, and along with Jake Burns, managed the group for a while, after Russel Emmanuel gave up the job.

In 1994, Foxton and Buckler collaborated on Our Story, a biography of their years in The Jam.

Foxton is currently (as of 2006) touring with Bruce Watson, Mark Brzezicki and Simon Townshend as The Casbah Club.

In February 2007, Foxton and drummer Rick Buckler announced they would be touring again as "from The Jam". Original vocalist Paul Weller was invited to join the tour, but (as of Feb 20th 2007) has declined to answer the invitation.