Taxxi are a British rock band best known for the songs "I'm Leaving" and "Cocktail Queen", The band first came to prominence in the early 1980s with several AOR hit singles and heavy MTV airplay.
Scottish-born singer/guitarist David Cumming, keyboardist Colin Payne, and drummer Jeffrey Nead met in London in the late 1970s, Through an association with Kit Lambert (The Who) the band recorded demos and were eventually signed by Berkeley's Fantasy Records, Teamed with producer Phil Kaffel the band recorded three albums for the prestigious indie label, Filling out the trio's sound were session musicians including bassist Randy Jackson, keyboardist Tim Gorman (The Who), guitarists Marlon McClain and Danny Chauncey (.38 Special), saxophonist Steve Douglas and Journey drummer Steve Smith who lent a hand on tambourine on their second album, "States of Emergency", Moving labels in 1985, Taxxi recorded their 4th album "Expos " with Tom Dowd (Cream, Rod Stewart).
In 2001, "Chequered Past", a compilation CD was remastered with participation by the band and their original producer - released by Fantasy Records.
Singles such as "Girl (New York City)", "I'm Leaving", "Cocktail Queen", "Still In Love", "Forever" and "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter" saw the band get airplay in the US and Europe and a build up in their fanbase.
On tour, the band opened in concert for The Police, Triumph, Foreigner, Loverboy and the Motels, and released five music videos.
After the late Colin Payne left the band, the duo of Cumming/Nead continued to work on new material following the successful "Expos " release, This material would continue in the direction set out by Expose - more commercial 80's AOR with that Taxxi twist, That material would remain unreleased, Until now.
Following an approach by MRR's Andrew McNeice to the band in 2009, the guys dug back into their archives, and pulled out 11 lost gems that now make up the album "Traxx", The material was written and recorded from 1987-1988, To get these songs to the release stage, tapes first had to be baked in a controlled environment to recover the files, before being passed to engineer/producer Jeff Northrup in L.A, to remaster.
The result is a bright and rejuvenated set of songs that if released back in the day, would have been classed as Taxxi's best record to date, The songs speak for themselves and the performances are typical Taxxi - highly emotional, instantly catchy and perfectly crafted classic-style AOR.
