Phill Honey spent 4 years as the driving force behind local instrumental rock titans The Rock of Travolta, supporting the likes of Rocket From The Crypt, Seafood and Radiohead (at their South Park gig infront of 45,000 people) as well as releasing critically acclaimed records such as ‘Uluru’ which earnt across the board praise from all the usual suspects – NME (8/10) , Q (4/5), Kerrang! (4/5).
The Rock were also championed by Steve Lamacq, John Peel (who they recorded a session for) and John Kennedy at XFM, and ended up with a publishing deal from the legendary Rough Trade.
Lee Christian has spent the previous three years confusing the fans of 80’s Match Box Disaster, The Datsuns, and Jetplane Landing as lead singer with local sleaze misfits Smilex as they blew their better know contempories off stage, quickly becoming the most exciting live act in town. Releasing Smilex singles on his own QuickFix Recordings label, as well as releasing records from the likes of Youth Movie Soundtrack Strategies and The Half Rabbits, Lee somehow found the time to produce and present Oxford longest running radio show dedicated to local music – The Fortnightly Fix – on Passion FM.
Then Phill decided something. He wanted to play tunes that people could sing to. At the same time Lee decided he wanted to play tunes that – shock, horror – peope could DANCE to! So their electro-funk side project boywithatoy was born.
The first collaboration between Phill and Lee became known as ‘The Killer Species’ and featured on a compilation album compiled by Ann Shenton (Add N to X) called The Electronic Bible along side the likes of Relaxed Muscle (Jarvis Cocker), Pat Riot (Cabaret Voltaire), Large Number (Add N to X) and National Bandit (All Seeing I).
As well as receving rave reviews in Drowned In Sound and two demo of the month awards in local music magazine Nightshift, that same publication also made boywithatoy’s ‘The Killer Species’ number 6 in their Top 20 songs of the 2004.