Vixen’s Roxy Petrucci Recalls Drumming Until Her Hands Bled

• Roxy Petrucci worked hard drumming her way through the ’80s and beyond
• The rocker, who was in both Vixen and Madam X, looks back at the struggles of female musicians in the new documentary Nöthin’ But a Good Time: The Uncensored Story of ‘80s Hair Metal
• Petrucci recalls the backhanded compliments of her male peers

Roxy Petrucci knew her talents on the drums were unlike any other — male or female.

The Vixen drummer appears in the documentary series, Nöthin’ But a Good Time: The Uncensored Story of ’80s Hair Metal. In it, she recalls the challenges that women faced while trying to make it big in the hair meal era.

“I wanted to play so hard that my hands would bleed, and they did. I would get blood on my snare all the time. I just thought the harder I hit, the more they were going to take me seriously,” Petrucci shares of going up against all-male bands of the era. “And the record companies just shied away like, ‘We already have a girl band.’ ”

“They would say some stupid s—,” she adds, recalling a night at the Rainbow Ballroom with Motörhead lead singer Lemmy Kilmister, in which a musician who she declined to identify approached her.

“He says, ‘You know, you’re really good for a girl.’ ” she recalls, saying she wasn’t sure how to reply to the “backhanded compliment” and instead settled on a “thank you.”

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“He walked away and then Lemmy says to me, ‘You know, the next time someone says that to you, just say suck my d—,’ ” advice she’d go on to take later.

Speaking of Vixen’s fans, she notes, “We had plenty of guys that came around too, and they were more shy than anything.”

“Groupie girls are more aggressive, the guys weren’t like that. They were like, ‘Can I have your autograph? Can I have a hug?’ ” she shares.

During her time in Madam X, she remembers a moment when a fan “laid it out on the stage” — gesturing down below — and her bandmate and sister, Maxine Petrucci, “put her foot on it and she just smashed it.”

Laughing, she adds, “He loved it. He was into it.”

Nöthin’ But a Good Time: The Uncensored Story of ’80s Hair Metal is now streaming on Paramount+.