Biography

Toby Jepson
Rock Singer, songwriter, producer

Past

I began my career as a professional musician fronting UK Rock Band ‘Little Angels’

The band formed in 1986 at Sixth Form College in Scarborough, North Yorkshire. After touring consistently around the UK, producing our own mini album and eventually getting spotted by York based management company ‘Song management’ we started to gather national interest,  first appearing on Channel four programme ‘famous for 15 minutes’. This led to selling out shows around the country and to getting invited to open for bands such as Guns 'n' Roses, Tesla and Faith No More.  Due to our considerable live work we gathered a reputation as one of the most exciting British acts of the time. This eventually led to getting signed to Polydor records in May of 1988.



From there we enjoyed an unbroken run lasting seven years where we made 3 studio albums for Polydor records, the final album ‘JAM’ entering the British charts at No. 1. We also achieved  10 top forty hit singles including ‘Too Much Too Young’ featuring Bryan Adams and ‘Womankind’ which was the bands biggest hit achieving number 12. We had hit records all over the world and toured comprehensively across the globe with many of the worlds biggest bands including Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, Bryan Adams, Van Halen and ZZ Top. The Band eventually split after playing a final sold out show at the Royal Albert hall in July 1994.

I then made a self produced solo record with Sony, ‘IGNORANCE IS BLISS’, which emerged in 1995. After touring as a solo artist for a year, I took a break from the record industry turning instead to the film business. I began as an extra on Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, graduating quickly to a team leader which in turn led to me working on movies such as ‘Sleepy Hollow’ and ‘Angela’s Ashes’ amongst others. I  became a ‘stand in’ for Christopher Lambert on the last Highlander film and then spent a year working for DreamWorks SKG on the ‘Band of Brothers’ world war 2 epic series, as a utility stand in and also on the camera team as a video assist assistant.

I signed a new publishing deal in the winter of 1999 with a European company PIAS and set about working on a solo project eventually emerging with a new touring band. I recorded my first new material in 2001 and released an EP called; REFRESH

Upon moving back to the north east of England I became one of the principle architects of the BEACHED festival that started out as a small community event showcasing local bands and artists on a stage set up on the sea walls of south bay beach in Scarborough. Over the course of the four years I was involved, we grew the event beyond expectations attracting upwards of 10000 people over a weekend and programming a whole host of national and international performers from every genre of the music world. Successes include headlining The Libertines, Thunder, Roachford and The Bluetones and also a huge array of up and coming artists including an early version of the Kaiser Chiefs.

It was at this point my working relationship with Bruce McKenzie and Townsend records began. At first it was a basic arrangement involving the mechanics of selling my records and merchandise on line. It then evolved into a partnership that has blossomed into Bruce becoming my manager.

I released an album of rarities and ‘B-sides’ called ‘TWISTED RHAPSODIES’ in 2005 and then went on to develop a series of EP’s under the name of ‘GUITAR, BASS and DRUMS’. The package is to contain 3  CD’s, each containing 5 songs and released separately. The first two were release 6 months apart, the third is still to be finished due to other projects interrupting the process.

Now.

Aside from continuing to tour as a solo artist, I was recently asked to tour with British act FASTWAY, the band that guitarist ‘Fast’ Eddie Clarke (of MOTORHEAD fame) put together in the mid 80’s. They were reforming to play a number of festivals. The band consisted of drummer  Steve Strange, bassist John McManus, myself and Eddie Clarke. We spent most of 2007 touring festivals including Download, Sweden rocks, Hyde Park Calling, Grasspop and Loudpark in Japan.

Fastway recently finished touring and I have now become the vocalist for Scottish rock act GUN who were very successful in the mid- late 90’s. The band started the reformation and new line up by playing  a number of benefit shows Nordorff Robins and also commercial shows including an appearance on the main stage at T In The Park.  During Dec 2008, GUN played two shows for the Academy group at the shepherds Bush Empire and the Academy in Glasgow as part of Classic Rock magazines ‘Classic album’ series. The band continued to perform throughout 2009/2010 and released a critically acclaimed mini-album entitled ‘POPKILLER’. In July 2010, I left GUN to pursue other projects and to complete the third disc for my ‘Guitar, Bass and Drums’



I have plans to form and front a new band around the beginning of 2011 with a long term plan of making records and touring in the long term.

The more things change....

Apart from the performing aspect of my career, I own and operate a state of the art pro-tools studio and have begun working with other artists and performers in the capacity as song writer and producer. I am currently developing music with Eddie Clarke for his solo record, also legendary UK metal act SAXON and have recently begun working with Simon Ellis (Spice Girls, Britney Speers).  I have also worked with Jamie Harding from Marion and Dance artist Eric Pritz amongst others.

Perhaps most notably I produced the debut album for Macclesfield band ‘The Virginmarys’ the record was mixed by Mike Fraser.