Lords of Metal
Arrow Lords of Metal

Ex-STEEL PANTHER bassist TRAVIS HALEY (LEXXI FOXX) steps away from music

Says he's had to put a pause on music while focusing on family life

14-12-2022

Former STEEL PANTHER bassist Travis Haley (a.k.a. Lexxi Foxx) has revealed in a new interview with Border City Rock Talk that he is “putting a pause” on his music career while focusing on his family life. The latest development comes more than a year since it was announced that Haley was joining HOLLYWOOD GODS N’ MONSTERS, the new band featuring Travis‘s longtime friend and television celebrity from MTV‘s “Pimp My Ride”Diggity Dave.

Speaking about his decision to step away from music for a while, Haley said: “If it wasn’t for these guys in HOLLYWOOD GODS N’ MONSTERS, I probably would have still been on break. Unfortunately, there was a lot of things that were on my plate that I didn’t see happening when we initially got this thing going; there was a lot of hiccups. But for the most part, right now I can say those hiccups are… I’m thankful for them. I have a little baby girl now, and I relocated, and I moved just outside Chicago, kind of just to get out of that whole area and kind of just start anew with the family. And obviously I had to put a pause on music. And not being in the band that I was previously in, STEEL PANTHER, I don’t know what I would have done. I’m glad that I got out when I got out, and then things happened the way they did, because being on tour right now… It’s tough enough to catch up with these guys on gigs, but I can’t imagine being on tour… I’m just thankful enough that I’m able to get this time with my family and obviously to take care of myself, stay healthy and raise a beautiful family, a beautiful baby girl.”

He added: “So that’s where I’m at right now. And it does suck that I can’t be there for a lot of the gigs, but in the meantime I’m thankful to have my extended family that’s given me this time off. I’m thankful for their understanding.”

When STEEL PANTHER first announced Lexxi‘s exit in July 2021, the band jokingly said that Foxx “started his side business, ‘Sexy Lexxi’s Prettiest Pets,’ to bring in money for Botox during the lockdown.” After realizing that “his love for making pets pretty was greater than his love for being pretty himself,” he chose “to hang up his mirror and focus on his newfound passion: making ugly dogs pretty,” the group wrote in a statement.

Back in December 2018, Lexxi sat out a STEEL PANTHER tour after being admitted to “sex rehab.” The real reason for his absence was never officially disclosed.

Three months ago, STEEL PANTHER singer Michael Starr told the “Everblack” podcast that he was still in regular contact with Lexxi. “I just talked to him today,” Michael said. “He’s doing good, man. He did exactly what he wanted to do. He started a family. He’s living in Chicago. Him and his wife just had a baby. So Lexxi Foxx is not gay. I thought he was gay this whole time. It’s so weird.”

Starr continued: “The party never stops. Just because he’s not on tour doesn’t mean he’s fucking having a good time. And we miss him. I fucking miss him. And we still stay in touch and talk. We talk just about every other day — just stay in touch with one another. I mean, we were together for 27 years, 26 years, and we know each other’s moms and dads and all of our cousins. We know everything about one another. So it’s been really, really sad not having him in the band, but I understand why he’s doing what he’s doing. And he was one of the smart guys — he saved up all his money. Not me — I’m still living at my mom’s. Let’s go.”

In September, STEEL PANTHER announced the addition of Spyder as the band’s new bassist.

After performing for over two decades with his former band, Haley had amicably decided to move on and do something a little different in the space of music and bass playing alike.

Diggity Dave explains: “It’s not like he ever thought he wasn’t challenged by the copious amount of talent that resided within STEEL PANTHER; it’s just that he wanted to explore different kinds of music and was intrigued by some of the music I was sending him.”

Diggity Dave has been doing television since the early 2000s but came from the world of music. Diggity was signed to Warner Brothers Records in the mid-1990s with a band he fronted named SHAKE THE FAITH which featured Tommy Thayer (KISS) on guitar, Brian Jennings on guitar (who went on to play with TVT recording artists CLOSURE) and drummer Danny Parker (who went on to co-found Warner Brothers recording artist BEAUTIFUL CREATURES). After a decade of being on MTVDiggity went on to star in countless other TV shows, including “Battleground Earth” with longtime friend Tommy Lee (MÖTLEY CRÜE) and famed rapper Ludacris.

TravisDiggityBrianDanny and their female singer 7even (Kris Aragon) have known one another for 20 years before collaborating on this magnipotent, musical, mishmash.

Travis says: “I am very proud of what I’ve accomplished with my other band. Nothing can take away the memories and the camaraderie that existed for all those years, but I just felt it was time for something new. When I heard this music, I knew this was the group of friends and the music I wanted to collaborate on.”

Because DiggityBrian and Danny had all played in a previous band together and had been best of friends with Haley for more than half their lives, the opportunity to form a new band was simply too compelling not to do so. Diggity confesses that the challenge was what kind of music they would construct. “Once we figured it out, we then set out to find the missing pieces that would propel the sonic and sound needed to round out this parade of hooligans,” he says. “We knew we were in need of two types of talent. A rapper extraordinaire that could dismantle any genre of music and reconstruct it into his own image, and a female singer that could terrorize through the throat but tingle the testicles. We managed to find the perfect purveyors of punched out panic.”

HOLLYWOOD GODS N’ MONSTERS has enlisted a rapper named Hype (a.k.a. H.M.K.) who is a phenom in the world of not just rap but also as a vocalist. Hype, who just released a single titled “Money & Power”, was already a bullet on the rise in the musical scene when he was brought into the fold with HGNMHype says: “I knew this was a great opportunity to represent legends past and present from all genres of music, while also transforming music for a new generation. It was a no-brainer to team up with these rockstars and ‘Define My Hype’ to the world.”

Rounding it out was a female singer who goes by the name 7even (also known as Kris Aragon). Travis says 7even was vital for the overall sound of the band because the music demanded not just a female presence, but a female who could occupy a musical space that was jumping from pop, punk, rock, rap, and country.

HOLLYWOOD GODS N’ MONSTERS‘ music is what some might call “mashup” but they get agitated when people throw them in that category. HGNM is a new hybrid of musical forms, one that has not been explored, but is sure to ignite a million copy bands once they “blow up the area” and introduce the world to “smashup” music. The band explains it as a blender of styles, sounds, artists, genres, and attitudes.

Travis says: “This generation, the one before it, and the one that’s following are ripe for a band like us. It’s about losing yourself in the music, about dancing, about feeling alive. That’s why the DJ scene has conquered music — because people wanna go to a show and identify and recognize the songs they’re ingesting. They just wanna be enveloped in the music they know, their friends know, and hell… even their parents know.”

Diggity closes by saying: “We are not a cover band. This is original stuff we’re creating, and it’s a living, breathing history of music. We equate it to what DJs are doing, but in the form of a full band smashing together the songs every generation has grown up with. What other band is mixing the ’70s band CHIC with QUEENAEROSMITHSUGARHILL GANGBLONDIE and DMX? And that’s just one song by us. Also, kids wanna see rock stars again… larger-than-life entities on stage that mirror the atmosphere. Think of us as a bigass American jukebox… where all the records in it have melted together… except when you press B5…you get that plus B6, B7, B8 and the track you thought you knew is now a stitched-up Frankenstein jam that makes you shake your ass harder than ever.”

Social media