Meet Bobbie Dazzle

Interview and story by Kira L. Schlechter, Heavy Hags

In these heavy, gloomy, dangerous times, boy, could we use some joy. Enter Miss Bobbie Dazzle, a k a Sian Greenaway, from Birmingham, England, who trails wafts of incense, clouds of glitter, and blazes of psychedelic color in her wake on her debut album “Fandabidozi,” just out on Rise Above Records.

Given that her previous gig was as frontwoman for the stoner/psych/doom band Alunah (she left that outfit in August, but does appear on their just-released album, “Fever Dream”), the throwback glam rock of this record is a real 360.

And just as she’s brought the carefree, groovy good times of ‘70s glam to us, the music serves the same purpose for her as well. After the loss of her sister, Coralie, to cancer in 2023, she says she needed an outlet for her grief – but as she said in the album bio, “you don’t have to sit in a dark place when you’re going through a dark time.”

“Growing up, glam rock had always been played in my household,” Greenaway said in response to emailed questions. Her dad loved the New York Dolls and Iggy Pop; her mom favored Bowie and T.Rex. “As a child, I remember it being fun, joyous, uplifting, and that nostalgia has always kept – it’s always been something uplifting for me to turn to.

“As a musician, there’s ways we feel like we need to create during different times in life. I decided to use all of the positivity I felt within listening to that music into creating it. This album started off as an escape from grief, but ended up being the most cathartic experience I’ve ever had in my life. I’m so thankful to this genre of music because it’s taken me through the toughest time in my life,” she added.

With a potent, rippling, burbling voice (and some mad flute skills, too), she’s definitely absorbed her glam education, creating a host of catchy choruses and music laden with spacey, trippy effects and confidently-played instrumentation, courtesy of her crack band.

She spoke of how they came together.

“A drummer (Eddy Geach) (and) I started chatting in a smoker area of a dive bar and we had a drunken conversation of doing a glam album,” she said. “About a year after that, I contacted him and he brought in the keys player (Chris Dando) and bass player (Leon Smith), who he’d worked with in previous bands.

“The guitarist (Tadhg Bean-Bradley) was a good friend of mine through the retro scene here in England,” she added.

Greenaway’s aggressive, percussive flute chops are displayed frugally and to great effect on tracks like “Merry Go Round” and “Lady On Fire,” slipping perfectly into the musical mix – you realize quickly that they’re exactly what the tunes need.

“I’m a big ‘70s progressive rock fan – bands like Jethro Tull and Focus I’ve always enjoyed,” she said. “I had no rules or restrictions, and so I decided to combine some prog elements in there. I (pay) homage to all of the music I love, but making it my own.”

She started playing the instrument as a child, but hated it, she says, because she found it “restrictive” and was “only playing classical pieces and there were so many rules.”

“I remember the first time I heard jazz prog flute and it was messy, gritty, dirty and I LOVED it,” she said. “I thought, wow, that’s how a flute can sound! So I decided to pick it back up as an adult and I really enjoy playing now.”

Aside from Suzi Quatro and the Runaways, glam was predominantly done by men back in the day – albeit very androgynous ones, like the aforementioned Bowie, Marc Bolan, and David Johansen. Greenaway feels she’s carrying on the tradition of the genre’s “freedom of expression.”

“I feel as though the visual and audio are fully intertwined – they have to be,” she said. “You cannot have glitter rock performed by a dude wearing a T-shirt and jeans. This is theatre, darling! It’s a complete experience of the unusual, the over-the-top, the otherworldly. 

“I think a lot of outcast people were drawn to it back in the day because men wearing makeup and shiny catsuits whilst singing about loving women was so backwards to what a man was expected to be back then, and isn’t that fabulous!? I think it was bravery and it opened up doors, broke barriers of what was expected from gender roles,” she added.

Speaking of those “shiny catsuits,” they are a Bobbie Dazzle trademark. She boasts an impressive collection in photos and videos. 

“I have a few amazing designers who I’ve worked with on my stagewear,” she said. “Obviously, conveying a certain style is important to me, but (they have) to be practical too, non-constrictive and durable. There’s (going to) be collaborations with either buying the creators’ designs or coming up with my own. 

“I have MANY catsuits,” she added ruefully. “It’s becoming a problem and I need a bigger wardrobe!” 

The album’s title, she said, is “a very British 1970s slang term based off the word ‘fantastic.’”

“It’s a nonsensical, whimsical descriptor which embodied how I felt about the album – I just thought it was the perfect way to describe what was inside,” she added. 

It sure does. The tracks pulse with authenticity and modernity at once, respectful to what’s come before without being derivative or slavish. Her lyrics follow the glam rock handbook in terms of imagery and phrases (like “pick the flowers that are growing up on Mars, planetary child”), but they are also full of her take-charge, modern woman philosophy (like “I’m no space cadet, I want to be the commander”).

One set of lyrics, though, those of “Lightning Fantasy,” has an interesting origin. She found them in one of her father’s old Bob Dylan albums while cleaning out her sister’s house following her passing. They were among several sets of lyrics he’d written when he was a teenager, “all varying very much in lyrical content,” she said.

“For example, one song was called ‘Castrator’ … maybe I’ll save that for the next album!” she cracked. “‘Lightning Fantasy’ is a song about difficult love, a woman who has toyed with his heart. Is it about my mother? Probably!” 

There’s a couple of pretty personal lines in “Revolution,” like “I finally found my way to make you sway” and “Rewriting the story the way it oughta be told.”  This is a woman happy in her self determination.

“‘Revolution’ is definitely a message to anyone stuck in a rut who needs a way out, just encouraging anyone to get out of an unhappy situation because there’s joy to be found elsewhere in life,” she said. “Don’t waste your life sitting in a place that doesn’t make you feel good!” 

And like many other spots on the album, there’s musical hints of great glam tracks of the past – here it’s a solo section reminiscent of Gary Glitter’s “Rock n Roll Pt. 2.”

“Throughout the album, there are nods here and there, little homages to great songs or artists who have influenced the record, whether that’s in a name of a song, a lyric in a line, or a stylistic choice of the music,” she said. “It’s also a little bit of fun for the listener to look out for these things.” 

She muses about traversing the eons in “Antique Time Machine”; of course, she’s doing that right now when you think about it. 

“I definitely have musically gone back to 1974 and I’m having a great time,” she said. “If anyone wants to come and join me, you’re more than welcome!”

If she could time-travel, aside from going “back to the 70s and enjoying the incredible music it had to offer,” she says she’d rather take a peek into the future. 

“Instead of seeing what people have already experienced, I’d rather go and see what’s yet to be,” she said. “Slightly terrifying idea, but I think it would be far more interesting. I hope I see some aliens!” 

“Flowers on Mars,” though, is firmly in the present, this new frontier, this “home on a new world.”

“‘Flowers on Mars’ was the first song I wrote as Bobbie Dazzle, so (it) will always hold a special place in my heart,” she said., “It’s another song about escaping and (experiencing) a better place with better people. In life you’ll always find there’s good people in the world who will welcome you with open arms.” 

Greenaway has already been playing a host of live dates as Bobbie Dazzle, and those will continue into 2025.

“I have a UK tour right after the album is out,” she said. “Then next year, I’ve booked a few festival slots so far, like Desertfest London, HRH Prog, and Call of the Wild, all in England.

“(In) 2025, I’ll be doing a European run of the tour and then (my) next plan is spreading the glitz and glam all over the globe!” she adds.

You’ve been warned. Pick up your platform boots, crushed velvet scarves, and bellbottoms now before it’s too late!