Rik Fox

Richard Suligowski (born December 28, 1955), better known today as Rik Fox, is an American heavy metal bassist.

He was active mainly during the 1970s and 1980s, in the New York City and Hollywood area rock and metal scenes.

Fox was born in Amityville, New York, on Long Island, and raised in the Polish neighborhood of Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

While in high school, Fox was interested in rock music and photography, choosing as his subjects, the flashy personalities of the New York glam scene of the early 1970s.

Among many other famous New York City bands performing on the city's club scene at such famous locales as Max's Kansas City and CBGB (clubs he would also later perform in with a group he joined during the height of the New York City club scene marking his professional debut on Halloween in 1975 at Max's, the Martian Rock Band), he also photographed early Kiss.

During this period, he dated a younger sister of original Kiss drummer Peter Criss.

Fox and Criss became friends and Fox witnessed the formation of legendary rock band Kiss from the very beginning, including the addition of lead guitarist Ace Frehley.

During his formative club band years, after establishing himself on the 'scene', with the Martian Rock Band and performing at the famed NYC club Max's Kansas City and CBGB, in 1976, Fox found himself joining a well-established New Jersey glam-heavy club band making the rounds named Virgin.

Virgin eventually became known as SIN upon Fox's suggested band name change.

From the band's biography: "SIN was originally formed in New York/New Jersey in 1976–77, coming out of the ashes of New Jersey club circuit bands VIRGIN and LUST, with the name SIN first being coined by bassist Rik Fox, bringing with him, drummer Basil Stanley (Stan Bassel from Long Island), joining Ian Criss and Keith (Vinny Matthews) Starz. In this line-up the band performed until 1978–79, when Criss left to join another band called Angelface. Fox retained the rights to the name SIN and, after moving to L.A. in 1982 to join Sister and name the heavy metal band W.A.S.P. After departing W.A.S.P., Fox networked around L.A. and eventually rehearsed for a short time with both Warlord and Hellion (although never recording or performing live with either band), eventually joining Steeler for one album and after leaving Steeler, with now-proven club-drawing power, reformed two Los Angeles versions of SIN once again."

Fox actually received more mileage from his time with Steeler after his tenure with W.A.S.P., and contends that Steeler "was one of the seminal cornerstones of the Hollywood rock scene in the early 1980s."

This laid the groundwork that was integral for many of the bands yet to follow, such as Poison and Guns N' Roses, just as the MTV era was being introduced to rock music fans.

At the time of the original membership change, after Fox's membership was confirmed, Steeler acquired the services of a young, up-an-coming Swedish guitar-whiz virtuoso named Yngwie J. Malmsteen, which gave the band some much-garnered attention, selling out venues and opening for the likes of Hughes/Thrall, Vandenberg, and Quiet Riot at a high point in their respective careers.

Unfortunately, Steeler changed their lineup several more times before calling it quits, with Ron Keel eventually forming KEEL under his surname Keel.

In addition to the 'classic' Steeler debut album, two more Steeler releases have surfaced over the years in the Steeler legacy: Steeler; Excited '83 (Perkins Palace, Pasadena, CA, USA, supporting Quiet Riot- a rare, excellent quality, live, collectors bootleg), and the Ron Keel released Metal Generation: The Steeler Anthology.

Rik Fox appears on all three albums.

After moving to Los Angeles, California, at the invitation of Blackie Lawless, and arriving on February 4, 1982, Fox played bass-guitar in several bands, including Steeler, Sin, and W.A.S.P..

Although the band was called Sister upon his arrival, relatively speaking, he was only associated with W.A.S.P. for four months, February 1982-the end of May 1982), and recorded a 'live' three-track cassette demo. He came up with the name "W.A.S.P.", (there were no periods in the band name at this time—which was validated in an interview by former W.A.S.P. guitarist Randy Piper). The idea is said to have occurred to him after he stepped on a wasp in the courtyard of the house where he lived with band leader Blackie Lawless. The story of W.A.S.P. is retold in the books Bang Your Head: The Rise and Fall of Heavy Metal by David Konow, and "W.A.S.P.; A Sting in the Tale" by Darren P. Upton, As stated, this is confirmed by W.A.S.P. guitarist Randy Piper at a time of Piper's height of drug and alcohol abuse, as well as in several online interviews with him. On the other hand, some who witnessed the formation of W.A.S.P. explain that Rik Fox participated in the band after drummer Tony Richards showed up in the scene; according to Richards, the name was not Circus Circus when he joined the band.

Fox contends that to his recollection, the band was named Sister when he joined.

Lawless has since begrudgingly confirmed that Rik Fox had indeed, been a band member but, 'only for a couple of rehearsals', which may not be entirely accurate, since Fox spent some 4 months rehearsing and writing with the band.

Fox is also shown in early band photographs taken by Don Adkins Jr. during the band's first photo session.

Causing a firestorm of controversy thirty years later after the fact, despite the grumblings by some die-hard W.A.S.P. fans desperately attempting to re-write a revisionist history of the band, it should be submitted for consideration that, since Fox created the bands' name while he was, in fact, an early co-founding band member, at that moment of the creation of it becoming the band now-known as W.A.S.P., technically speaking, no matter what happened to the band after Fox left, that historic point still qualifies him as an original founding member along with Lawless, Piper and Richards.

All this, has been verified and validated by former W.A.S.P. guitarist Chris Holmes who has stated he agrees to all of the information as being true.

Many unverified allegations usually follow band membership changes, and Fox was no stranger to that.

Both Lawless and Richards' narrative, allege that "Rik Fox couldn't do it in the band, his playing was just not right", so they "let him go in a very short period of time."

Which comes off as plausible, only because of Lawless's career being much stronger.

However, Fox's bass tracks, found on the now rare, collectible live, 'original' W.A.S.P. 3-track demo recorded at Pipers' studio tell a very different story; showing a very solid and melodic bass style by Fox and how much Lawless' narrative was apparently incorrectly misinforming the public.

Further, it should also be considered that since it is widely recognized that 'power associates itself with power', it is abundantly clear that if Fox had moved on to a larger successful career, that, thirty years later, nobody would bother attempting to dismiss or dispute his membership in W.A.S.P.; it would have obviously been openly acknowledged by Lawless.

Case in point; New York City guitarist Ivan Kral co-founded the band Blondie and left before the band's first album, similar to Fox's relation to W.A.S.P. Nobody contends or disputes that point, but for Fox's situation, such is the case of being denied membership or credit in the band's history.

Furthermore, the question has been put forth in many interviews: "What would W.A.S.P. have been called, if not for Fox's membership in that first original line-up and suggestion in the first place?"

After leaving W.A.S.P., Fox spent a short time rehearsing briefly with both Warlord and Hellion, and then joined the Ron Keel fronted band Steeler in 1983.

He'd put an ad in a Los Angeles music magazine looking for a gig and got a call from Keel himself.

Fox auditioned for Steeler and was offered the job, but before he'd accepted it, he was offered the bassist duties in the band Angel by keyboardist Greg Giuffria.

Fox had a bit of a dilemma, being tempted by Giuffria's offer since Angel was his 'dream band'.

After considering both offers, Fox decided to join the hot, up and coming Steeler.

Fox spent five months in Steeler, long enough to record the self-titled album and play some amazing gigs before being unceremoniously let go from the band.

This apparently happened to many musicians in L.A. at the time, known for its 'revolving door' with many players constantly switching membership in bands.

The decision to release Fox was apparently made by Keel and drummer Mark Edwards (who was responsible for informing Fox) for 'unspecified reasons', and caught Fox completely by surprise.

Considering that the band was gaining huge momentum and doing well, this move confused both Fox and the fans, with Steeler changing lineups twice more again within several months before finally becoming the band Keel.

According to Fox, Edwards has since spoken with him in 2009 and stated that he "regretted the way the dissolution of the album line-up occurred", further stating that "had that line-up been able to stay together, that a major label signing would definitely have been forthcoming, and the band would have moved to the next plateau of national and international success."