Sybil: The Boys Ditch Their Trashy Lingerie For Pants. But Will They Be Taken Seriously Now?

Originally published in Rave-Up issue #11 (1986)
By Devorah Ostrov

Sybil at the height of their trashy lingerie phase.
L-R: Syd Tyble, Pat. Pend, Roxy, Willie or Wonnie & James
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

Sybil, the movie, concerns the multiple personalities of a woman desperately trying to gain control of her life and become "normal."

Sybil, the group, are five gorgeous boys who take to prancing about onstage in trashy ladies' lingerie and have nothing in common with the film — not even the name.

Roxy
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

Roxy: The name came from my second-grade teacher. She left a lasting impression on my life. She directed me toward the goals I currently have.

Rave-Up: How did she do that?

Roxy: A lot of after-school work.

Rave-Up: The last time I talked to you, you mentioned that you'd heard from some record companies.

Roxy: Yeah, some of them have called us, but you know how that goes. They just say a lot of things like, "Well, they're good songs. Send us more stuff." But so far, none of them have done anything.

Rave-Up: Are you being taken more seriously now that you're wearing pants instead of trashy lingerie?

Roxy: No. Well, they [record companies] never see us anyway, except for publicity pictures. No one really changed the way they look except for me. I got tired of wearing the miniskirts and getting a lot of Specimen comparisons. And Syd isn't wearing those obnoxious slips anymore!

The boys in pants and posing in a ditch
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

Rave-Up: How about the audiences? Are they taking you more seriously?

Roxy: I don't know, we've only done two shows up here without the dresses and one in LA. The people in LA didn't know any better, and the people up here just thought it was neat for a change.

Rave-Up: Is it more comfortable for you?

Roxy: Kind of, yeah. I don't have to worry about all my clothes falling off! At our second show, Mickey [from Jetboy] and Drew [from Lip Service] pulled all my underwear and garter belts off! That doesn't happen anymore.

Rave-Up: Did wearing the lingerie work to your advantage in the beginning?

Roxy: It got a lot of attention. Even people that haven't seen us have at least heard of us and have heard that we're a good band. We still dress pretty wild compared to the normal Joe on the street.

Rave-Up: What's going on with the record you've been working on?

Roxy: It's done, but we've got to get somebody to release it. We can't afford to do anything with the master tape now.

L-R: Pat. Pend, Willie or Wonnie, Roxy, Syd Tyble & James
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

Rave-Up: It seemed like you were working on that tape for a very long time.

Roxy: Forever! We got the studio on "spec time," so we could only use it when it didn't interfere with other people's schedules. Then after we got everything done — we produced it ourselves — we discovered that we didn't know what we were doing, so we did it all over again.

Roxy posing atop Barbar the Elephant
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

Rave-Up: What songs are on it?

Roxy: "Murder on My Mind," "I've Been Dreaming," "Too Much Punch for Judy," "She's a Machine," "I Need a Gun," "Stop the Show," "Too Late," "She Said," and a cover of Stiv Bators' "I Wanna Forget You Just the Way You Are."

Rave-Up: Your songs are all fairly pop-oriented. Is that where your influences come from?

Roxy: Some of them. Cheap Trick and the Beatles... the Lords, everybody. We rip-off everything!

Rave-Up: Do you intentionally try to write catchy pop songs?

Roxy: Not really. We just write whatever we'd like to listen to. We make the songs catchy, at least to us, so that we can remember how to play them at the next practice. If it was too avant-garde, we wouldn't be able to remember them. We always forget everything anyway. That's what makes it raw and spontaneous!

Rave-Up: Every show is a new experience!

Roxy channeling Johnny Thunders
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

Roxy: Yeah! At the show in LA, the stage was real small, so they moved the monitors to the edge to give us more room...

Rave-Up: And they fell off?

Roxy: While I was standing on them! But somebody saved me. He ran up and held onto the monitor until I could get off the thing. I was pretty close to death for a minute there. I would have felt really stupid.

Rave-Up: Any other real embarrassing moments you'd care to mention?

Roxy: Well, there was our second show... That was the night Willie forgot to plug in his amp — he was wondering why it wouldn't work, and we'd already started the set. After he figured it out, we started all over again. Then, James broke two strings. We just said FUCK IT! We stopped playing.

Rave-Up: Are you surprised that your image draws large numbers of female fans?

Roxy: Kind of, considering we don't try to make ourselves look good or anything. We were really unsure of ourselves at the first show.

The boys in their lingerie.
L-R: James, Pat. Pend., Willie or Wonnie, Syd Tyble
Photos: Devorah Ostrov

Rave-Up: Really? Why?

Roxy: Because I came out in a prom dress, and I had big plastic duck feet on. We were being completely stupid! We weren't really sure if people could accept that.

Roxy live at the Mabuhay

Rave-Up: Obviously, the kids in California have accepted Sybil, but how do you think the world, in general, is going to deal with you guys?

Roxy: Well, right now "She Said" is #6 on this radio chart in Paris!

Rave-Up: Wow!

Roxy: Yeah, Syd's got the chart at home. I was pretty thrilled when I saw that. And we got a petition from England signed by 200 people who want us to play over there. They play our tape in the clubs over there a lot.

Rave-Up: It seems like you're starting to take Sybil a bit more seriously these days. You used to tell me how everyone else in the band wanted to be famous and make money, but you just couldn't take it seriously.

Roxy: I know, they were all getting mad at me. They pounded it into my head — "YOU'RE A GOD!" So, now I know I'm Christ reincarnated.

Rave-Up: You guys just got home from doing your first shows in LA. Do you think the music scene is better down there than in San Francisco?

I don't know why we thought a photo session at the petting
zoo was a good idea. But I love this pic of Roxy & a goat!
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

Roxy: I guess for bands, it's better in LA 'cause there are more places to play. There's more competition, but 90% of the competition is just horrible. There's no competition up here, but there's also nobody to notice the lack of competition. I couldn't live in LA all the time though, it's too hot. The first day we were there, it was 98 degrees at 10:00 in the morning. We just stayed in bed all day with the air conditioner on. We'd crawl out of bed at midnight and go to the clubs and stay out till 9:00 in the morning and crawl back into bed. Things are so different in LA. We "practice" and they "rehearse." We do "shows" and they do "industry showcases." Every band down there has a backer who gives them money; they all have managers. Up here, you have to scrape to make fliers.

Roxy
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

Rave-Up: But isn't that what makes rock 'n' roll real, and gives it spirit and feeling?

Roxy: Being poor? Yeah, 'cause if you've got money all the time, you're not hungry. I like being poor; I have a lot of fun! I always wonder if after you get signed, you start to lose it? In LA, all these rich kids live at their parent's houses in the Valley, but they try to pretend that they're poor scum. It's like a trend!

Rave-Up: But its pretend scumminess.

Roxy: I know. I've been scummy forever!

Follow Sybil on Facebook: facebook.com/sybil
Watch Sybil on YouTube:
"Too Much Punch for Judy"
"I Wanna Forget You (Just the Way You Are)"

R.I.P. Sadly, Michael (Roxy) Marquesen passed away suddenly in October 2019