Anthony Doughty, the man that would one day be known to the world as Tex Axile, was released into the world on July 13, 1965. This date of course is a lie concocted during his days in Transvision Vamp. If one assumes that Tex would have become most interested in the Punk music movement during his teens years, one might add five to ten years to that date. Regardless, growing up in Crawley Sussex, Tex appears to have first become interested in music in 1975 when saw his girlfriend's cousin play in a band. Tex was also school mates with Porl Thompson, who started The Easy Cure in 1976, who would soon change their name to The Cure and go on to great notoriety. Tex himelf joined a local band called The Eye. After being fascinated by a Brighton band in his local pub, Tex started skipping school and hitch-hiking to Brighton to see more of the emerging Punk music scene of the time.

Making the decision to switch from watching the Punk scene to participating in it, Tex moved to London in 1977 to begin his own Punk career. Tex started out by playing bass for a band called Peroxide Romance, with whom he played about 80 gigs during 1977-1978. Tex then joined the short lived band, The Moors Murderers. Again he played bass, although this time he was joined on guitar by Chrissie Hynde, who of course later became legendary in The Pretenders, and Topper Headon, who was borrowed from The Clash.

Tex claims to have next joined The Sniveling Shits, who released one single, before becoming a part of X-Ray-Spex just as that band was beginning to fall apart. Tex took over as lead vocalist for 1978-1979 until the band further splintered, Tex's part calling themselves Agent Orange.

1979 brought Tex to his most memorable and enjoyable band experience yet. He became the lead singer for a very successful and energetic band called The Outpatients. Their show started with Tex being carried onto the stage nailed into a coffin, where he would remain while singing the opening song. The Outpatients employed all sorts of amusing props during their gigs, and Tex's well known on-stage antics seem to have been born here. The band played all the hot spots of the time, and had concerts in conjunction with all sorts of well known bands including The Police, U2, Ultravox, Wire, XTC and The Psychedelic Furs. Tex seems to have surged alive with his performances with The Outpatients. From the words on texaxile.com, "They were way ahead of their time and should have been huge, Alas they fell apart in 1982."

In 1982-1983, Tex was lead singer for R.V.K. Quite the contrast to his previous effort, this band was more like Genesis or Yes. Tex apparently thought the music was terrible, but enjoyed the fringe benefits of playing to upperclass solcialites.

After this experience, Tex went solo for three years, releasing some fantastically immaginative and artistically insightful work under the name Qxx. His first album, titled "The Silence Of The Big Space," is a unique work of art. Tex arranged the blank sleeves of the 1000 album copies on a warehouse floor and proceeded to create one giant painting, each sleeve becoming 1/1000th of the giant undertaking. Going one step further, Tex released a single from that album with the ultimate throw away b-side - a series of pictures were actually engraved into the backside of the vinyl.

During this solo period, Tex also produced a series of sculptures that were an amazing combination music and art. Entitled "Music---Seen but not heard", each piece comprised of 250 cassettes super-glued together to form a sculpture. During the various exhibitions around the world, the sculpture would be set on fire while the master tape of the recording, which contained about 20 minutes of music, passed through the tape recorder and instead of winding onto the second reel, would also be fed in to the burning sculpture. Along with music, Tex also emersed himself in painting, and completed a large amount of pieces, exhibiting in galleries around London, Paris and New York.

In 1986, Tex had a flat in London. Right next door, a couple had moved in to begin recording an album. They were a lovely blonde singer named Wendy James, and a plucky upstart guitarist/songwriter named Nick Sayer, and they had just been signed to MCA. They were Transvision Vamp! Tex of course was neighborly, and when Wendy and Nick mentioned they were in need of a drummer, Tex volunteered. He did let them know he'd rather play keyboards, and that they'd have to get a good drummer if they were ever going to play live! :) They also met Dave Parsons between their flats and the local pub, who joined the band on bass. Tex played drums and keyboards while recording Transvision Vamp's debut album "Pop Art."

Of course Transvision Vamp was soon a success and began playing exciting live shows, to which Tex brought a huge amount of enthusiastic energy. Tex played keyboards and took care of the complex sequencer during concerts, leaving drums to Pol Burton at first, and later Martin Hallet (Mallett). Tex even played the guitar during "Andy Warhol Is Dead" on the Pop Art tour, and sang the male vocal parts during "Velveteen" on the tour of the same name. Tex certainly enjoyed recording the three immensely successful Transvision Vamp albums, and touring the world in support of them over the period of time between 1986 and 1992. Tex even had a part in a movie in 1990. He played a barkeep in "I Hired A Contract Killer."

After the conclusion of Transvision Vamp, Tex went on to play keyboards in the band Max. They recorded an album together, and Tex enjoyed his time with Max, but the band was dropped by the label and broke up in 1994. Tex has been doing solo work ever since.

In 1998 Tex released his album "Diary of A Genius", which he wrote, produced, did all the artwork, photography, instruments and vocals on. It is a fantastically diverse album, which shows the talents of a musician who knows how to do it all after "being there and doing that." In 2000, Tex followed up with "Little Monsters", another extremely dynamic and enjoyable collection of music, once again completing the album from top to bottom. You may listen to a track from each album here at mp3.com. I've got both of these albums and have them on regular rotation, so recommend them to you. Several of the tracks from these albums did circulate on college radio stations. Tex lived in New York during this time period, appeared on the Howard Stern radio show, as well as becoming co-owner for a bar named Little Nell's. Tex also continued his love of photography, painting, writing poetry, and travelling the world.

For the past several years, Tex has been concentrating on a documentary film entitled "Color White." The film follows female ski racers through the 2000 season, 2001 World Championships, and ultimately to the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. Tex has owns a house in the Pyrenees Mountains in Southern France to which he moved to full time in 2001.

Most of this information was summarized with permission from Tex's own website. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you go visit his site for the entire story as it is so facinating. www.texaxile.com

Tex contacted me by email when his website first came out and WATV was in a very early incarnation. We have had many enjoyable writings over the years since then, on a fairly consistant basis (never enough in my opinion, but I hate to bug him so!) When Tex called me on the phone back then, I was starstruck and dumbfounded, probably sounded like an idiot, but Tex was very kind, funny, and helpful. Following is a peek into his warped cranium through a silly mini-questionaire I asked him during that phone call. THANKS FOR THE MUSIC AND MEMORIES TEX!