WITH a new album titled Valley of the Dolls in the offing, Brix Smith has a new all-female band and is ready to take on the world.

“It was something that was on my mind, cooking,” says the former guitarist with The Fall. “It didn’t actually have to be all-woman but it ended up being that way.”

Californian Brix famously married Fall frontman Mark E. Smith less than three months after they met. She joined the band in 1983, spending six years as guitarist, vocalist and songwriter.

Brix followed up with other projects like The Adult Net, Brix and the Extricated and even became the bass player in Courtney Love’s band Hole for about 24 hours.

Following a musical hiatus, she’s back with Valley of the Dolls, co-written with Youth from Killing Joke, and she has assembled the aforementioned all-female band.

“When I was still in The Extricated, Deb Googe (My Bloody Valentine) who is a phenomenal bass player came and played live and I thought ‘Oh my god I love the way this woman plays, I would so love to play in a band with her’.

“Even before that I had been talking to another girlfriend about forming a band.”

The opportunity came after recording Valley of the Dolls.

“I needed a live band to tour,” explains Brix – named after her teenage obsession with The Clash’s Guns of Brixton. “I called Deb first and she helped me put the band together.

“We got Vas Antoniadou (drums) and Ros Cairney (guitar), who are a duo, Deux Furieuses, from London. Deb had played me their stuff and I immediately wanted to play with them. They’re incredible.

“We met up and I loved them as human beings. I listened to their work and it was phenomenal, so we booked into a rehearsal room and it was absolutely magical.

“This is the most fun I have had playing in a band. They are very powerful, very professional and incredible to work with. They’ve got my back.

“It feels very different to when I play in a band with men, which was fabulous at the time. I was very inspired by The Runaways as a teenager. It was iconic, so many women players. It’s time to put my money where my mouth is.”

Brix and co are out on the road playing the new album, plus songs from her back catalogue, including tracks from Lost Angeles – her lost solo album recorded in the 1990s – and, of course, a few Fall songs which she co-wrote.

“I’ll decide which ones at rehearsals,” she says. “I was in The Extricated for five years and four of those boys were in that band, so it felt very familiar.

“Now I’m reinterpreting them with people that were never in The Fall, it’s really interesting. Certain aspects of the songs come out and I try to give it my own spin.”

She has plenty to choose from – take your pick from the likes of Totally Wired, Hip Priest, Cerebral Caustic, Light User Syndrome, L.A., Cruisers Creek, Hey! Luciani, Hit The North, Dead Beat Descendant, etc...

Brix Smith will play at the Boileroom in Guildford on Tuesday 18 October.