Back in the day when the U.K. was rocking and following the lead of the U.S. Hard Rock revival at the end of the 80’s there were a few contenders of real world class who immediately stood out alongside their far more publicised transatlantic contemporaries. For me the best of those were Little Angels and Thunder. They were both bands that had the songs, the stagecraft and the sheer force of will to conquer the world. Listening to those bands today the fact that they were not huge in the U.S. comes down to two things for me: parochialism and label support. Far less substantial bands made it big due to the luck of geography. In the U.K. both bands were huge: charting when so many Hard Rock bands couldn’t and adored by fans wherever they played. Between 1987 and 1992 I must have seen Little Angels and Thunder more than a dozen times as well as other favourites like The Quireboys and The Dogs D’Amour. But the late 80’s was a great time for live music in the U.K. as every week it seemed you could get out and see local acts or visitors from the Sunset Strip.
I was only playing ‘Jam’ – Little Angels number one U.K. album, the other day. Topping the mainstream charts was some feat in the late 80’s and early 90’s for a Hard Rock band and was only matched by the likes of Def Leppard, Iron Maiden and Bon Jovi (Thunder came close with ‘Laughing on Judgement Day’ which hit number 2, and Guns ‘n’ Roses ‘Appetite for Destruction’ only ever peaked at number 5) But ‘Jam’ topped the charts in 1993! – Hard Rock topping the U.K. charts AFTER Grunge! It’s was huge!
It was great therefore to get a call telling me that Toby Jepson was in Australia on holiday and would I like to speak to him? Of course I would!
Mark: Hey Toby!
Toby: Hi Mark how are you?
Mark: I’m good thanks, It’s great to hear you I must admit though the last time I saw you on stage would have been in 1992 back in the U.K.
Toby: Goodness me! A long, long time ago! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs)
Toby: Only the 30-odd years then!
Mark: So there’s quite a bit we have to talk about!
Toby: Yes, me and my wife are travelling for six months. We decided to get out of the U.K. for a while and do a bit of travel. You know, get reinspired, fill the old reservoir with new experiences. It’s been great so far, we’ve been in Australia for nearly two months now and have nearly two weeks left before we finally end up in Adeliade. But it’s been amazing and then we go from here to New Zealand and eventually get home sometime in the Spring.
Mark: That strangely reminds me of the trip I did back after I saw you in 1992, we travelled round Asia, landed in Australia and ended up not going back. So you never know what might happen!
Toby: (Laughs)
Mark: I must admit to have been following your carer since those early days, Things have changed a lot since 1992 but you’ve always had a lot going on no more so than now I guess, with the radio show, the new Wayward Sons albums, of which we had two last year. Not to mention finding time for a sneaky six month world tour. Wayward Sons is sounding great.
Toby: Yes it’s a labour of love for me and still is. I think for someone like me being in Little Angels a successful U.K. Rock band I sort of came out of that not really knowing what to do. So I spent a few years trying a few things out, doing some solo material and working with various people. Then I eventually fell into a couple of projects where essentially I was singing other people’s music. I worked for Wendy Dio and did the Dio Disciples thing and I spent a lot of time working with Fast Eddie Clark in a new version of Fastway. And I kind of got to the end of all that and thought, “You know what I’m not really creating my own stuff.” I’m not authoring this stuff, I’m just basically… as wonderful as it is, I’m singing other people’s songs. So I kind of had a desire to get back and do something, but I didn’t quite know what. And so it took a while to work it out and actually to be fair to the label (Frontiers) they came knocking on my door and said “Look we’d like to help.” So it was a situation that was unusual because ordinarily bands are chasing a record deal whereas those guys wanted to give me one. But that was great because it meant I could make the music I wanted to make without a label breathing down my neck. And it’s been great, we’ve made three records since 2015 and I’m very proud of them all. But there’s no two ways about it the International Rock Guitar business has collapsed around our ears and is nowhere near the way that we used to know it, so it’s increasingly difficult to get your head above the parapet these days, even for someone like me who has a bit of a name and a track history. But teh way I feel about it Mark, is that you’ve just gotta make your music, just put it out there and just hope for the best. And that’s not any different from the way I used to feel about Little Angels. Noone has a right to a career no one has a right to be anywhere: you have to prove yourself. You have to be good enough, you have to write good songs and the whole thing has to have an authenticity to it – to make it tick. And I do think that Wayward Sons, as far as I’m concerned, ticks al those boxes. But it really comes down then, economic drivers, and we’ve had Covid in the way, which has been a huge problem for everybody, it might be a tired old excuse, but it’s the truth. And so I think a lot of the reason why I’m doing this trip is to take a breath really and to get my head into a different space and to evaluate it from a distance and get reinspired and then hopefully go back to the U.K. with a fresh look at everything. And you know I’ve just taken on a new manager, my manager Adam Parsons managed some huge acts – Black Star Riders, Saxon, and lots of other people. He’s a great guy and he’s managing me personally now. So you know we’ve got a plan going forward for the next few years and we’re just going to see how that works out.
Mark: Well that sounds fantastic. You have had an interesting career to date. It was a very vibrant scene in teh late 80’s we all had our bands that we’d grown up with as kids but there were a few names that emerged at the end f teh decade that were the great hopes of British Rock. Little Angels were certainly one of teh most prominent with a number one album and a string of top 20 singles. For me there was so much talent but chart wise Little Angels, Thunder and maybe Skin who had some charting singles too. But then like all movements things change and in came Grunge. And then came the ‘wilderness’ years that you spent acting?
Toby: Well you say acting, but it was really glorified ‘standing about’ (laughs)
Mark: (laughs)
Toby: Amongst everything else I’ve ever done I always had a very vibrant interest in the film industry. Even in the Little Angels days I scripted or helped script a lot of our videos. I was always very interested in the production of those. Indeed before I got into the band my intent was always to go to film school and to study to become a cinematographer. That was always my desire and then to ultimately move into directing. So I’ve always had a huge interest in that and so in those wilderness years when it was very difficult to make any headway as a musician, even though I was continuing as a musician. I found myself working in films. I worked on Gladiator and I’ve just been discussing Australian fil, I’m a big fan of Australian Cinema. Some great filmmakers and great films. SO I ended up working on Gladiator with Russell Crowe of course – I was always a big fan of Romper Stomper his breakout film. So that was great, but it was an ancillary role really – I started out as an extra and ended up as a stand-in working on the Band of Brothers TV Series. So I spent a few years in that industry and indeed now, where I am right now I just formed a very small independent film company that I’m working on with a number of other people and we’re just going to make small independent thrillers for the streaming market and hopefully for theatrical releases. But more than anything else, it’s a bit like the music industry there’s lots of great talent out there but not an awful lot of ways of finding your way in. It’s a very saturated market, so we’re looking to develop young talent as well as produce our own work as well. I think he thing is with me is that I’ve never really rested on my laurels, I don’t believe anyone should be entitled to anything, what you should be doing is inspiring yourself and feeling compelled and passionate about the arts. And I have that passion for the Arts in general – I love painting, I read a lot and I love movies and I think all these things are connected. It’s all about demonstrating and exhibiting yourself through whatever medium. So to me it all joins up.
Mark: I absolutely agree with you, I come from an arts background and always enjoy the visual arts as well as music obviously and talking about music is a huge passion. I actually remember the day I bought ‘Don’t Prey For Me’ from a record store not too far away from Rock City called Way Ahead Records, sadly of course long since gone and it’s still an album that I can come back to. I loved the three that Little Angels put out and they have aged particularly well. How do you look back on those records now? Especially with the 30th anniversary of ‘Jam’ this year?
Toby: Oh I know Mark, it’s crazy. I look back with great… I struggle to say ‘pride’ exactly, but I don’t know there was something about the energy at that time. We all grew up together, and that’s the thing that really gets me every time when I stop to think about it. Me and Mark, you know the bass player, we have known each other since we were 8 years old. We went to junior school together, we went through secondary school together and we ended up at 6th form college where we met the rest of the guys in the band. We were all from Scarborough this tiny little, no name town in the North East of England. And to take that band into a record deal with a major record label Polydor and then to take that band around the globe and to end up with a number one record in the U.K. and ten top 40 singles, success across Europe, success in Japan… Some success in North America, not a lot but a little bit, it’s extraordinary for us, I mean I don’t know what a Rock Star is, I never really believed in that whole concept, I think it’s a load of rubbish really. But what is important is that the music connects to the fans and the audience. The only thing that matters is what teh music gives the people that listen to it. I think the one thing that The Little Angels did have, and still maintains actually weirdly, as years go by things seem to get even more rose-tinted, is that I do think we were authentic. I do think we came from a place of total truth. We didn’t try to be anything that we weren’t – we weren’t dragged up from the streets, we were middle class boys brough up in a small, white town, and we tried our hardest to be as ‘international’ as we could be. But the reality is we came from a tiny little town in the North of England. (Laughs) So we could only really sing about the things that were important to us and one of those was escaping that town and trying to take on the world! And I think there’s a universal message in that struggle and the feeling of having stars in your eyes. I even mention that in teh song ‘Young Gods’ I wrote that lyric specifically to talk about the aspirations you have when you’re young to take on the world and see the world. And even though these are things are very broad ideas an ideologies the fact of the matter is everybody feels those things. And I think we tapped a vein at that point and certainly captured the zeitgeist of the moment I think. There was that moment when Rock was back – with Bon Jovi and Def Leppard taking on the world and they really had taken on the world. And we were part of a movement of music that for the first time in 20 years had broken the charts. You know we were a band that was on Radion One all the time in the U.K. which was unheard of three or four years before because it was all dance music and no one cared about guitar music. So it was quite a time, and it was quite layered, a lot of stuff was going on artistically and economically in the country that allowed that to happen. So I look on it with great fondness and I’m really glad that people still listen to the records because we really meant every word that we said, even though it might not be everyone’s cup of tea.
Mark: And you toured with some wonderful bands as well: Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Bryan Adams, and they all seem to have treated you reasonable nicely?
Toby: Oh they really did, I mean I have absolutely no bad memories of that stuff. Jon Bon Jovi was a huge fan of the band – he effectively invited us on that tour. The Van Halen guys – we were one of the very few bands ever to play with Van Halen in Europe, because they only ever visited Europe two or three times. We got on with the famously – Eddie was an enormous inspiration to us – he was in our dressing room more time than he was in his own so we got to spend a lot of time with Eddie and he was always at the side of the stage watching us. It was just incredible to see your hero, someone who you grew up with and they are so cool. I always tell this story – when ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’ became a hit and broke British radio wide open for guitar rock to return, I remember we were rehearsing in a Scout Hut in Hunmanby which is tiny little village just outside of Scarborough. And it had been announced, we had heard the record, we had heard the rumblings of what Bon Jovi were, I had got into them myself when I heard ‘Runaway’ from the first record, I loved that. I remember we stopped our rehearsal to watch Bon Jovi perform on Top of the Pops on a black and white TV in the rehearsal room. And I remember us all saying to each other ‘Oh my God – we’ve got to be as good as that!?’ And then to end up on tour with them in Europe on the ‘Keep The Faith’ Tour and to get to be very good friends with Jon and have him praising our band – it was just extraordinary stuff! Like literally what dreams are made of.
Mark: Indeed it was. Looking backwards a little further was there always a feeling that music would be a part of your life or did something happen to make you realise that? When did you know? Was there a lightbulb moment for you?
Toby: Yeah I think there was – I was always a show off as a kid, and I don’t know where that comes from but that might be part of it. But I remember seeing Freddie Mercury perform ‘We Are the Champions’ on Top of the Pops. And I remember thinking to myself as a little boy “Who is that? How does that happen? I she an alien?” I remember being totally and utterly mesmerized by this strange creature that somehow touched my soul. And even though I didn’t know what that meant, that’s what it felt like. So I think there was that, that definitely inspired me and there was also, and I think this was the really big thing, and I have to lay praise on my Dad really for this, because he was a huge music fan and he had a fantastically eclectic record collection. We didn’t have TV in our house when we were little kids, all it was about was my Dad’s record collection and playing his favourite records – and that was everything from Cat Stevens, The Eagles, Queen, a lot of Elton John, Don Williams, and a lot of Soul music – he loved Soul like Joe Tex and Aretha Franklin. So I would wake up on any given morning getting ready for school and Aretha would be blasting out of the kitchen at full pelt while we were getting ready with my Mum singing at the top of her voice. So we were always surrounded by this joyous feeling of music in the house. And I think that very naturally transmuted to me as a person, becoming involved with it. I quickly picked up the guitar even though I’ve never been able to play it particularly well – I learnt enough to be able to string a few chords together and I never really got any further than that. I did it to write songs. So really I never thought it was a question of whether I was going to do it or not, it was when I was going to do it. I mean I did want to go to film college and learn how to be a film maker – that was my big thing, but Rock and Roll just got into my soul a lot quicker than that did as a teenager – It was just one of those things. I was putting bands together and looking for musicians to play with when I was 12! It might sound daft but that was the truth.
Mark: One of the original names for the band was Thrud or Mr. Thrud? Was it a Kerrang character? I know the name from somewhere.
Toby: No, what it was – we were 6th Form students, and I was really serious about wanting to be in a band. And I’d met Bruce Dickinson the guitarist who is absolutely brilliant – I’ve never seen anyone play guitar like him. I thought I was OK at guitar till I saw him play and I just withered in his presence. So we were just kicking around in sixth form and they were all very serious about getting their A-Levels and I was just there because I had to be – mum and Dad told me I had to go! (laughs) Really I was just building up a friendship group of like-minded people who liked Iron Maiden and liked Queen and so on. So we put the band together really on a whim, and we did it for a competition – a thig called the TSB Rock School. And there was nothing really serious about it to start with, we just did it for fun. And we were looking for a name and we were in the common room and there was a Dungeons and Dragons magazine on the table and I picked it up and there was a character in there called Thrud The Barbarian. So we all thought “Great we’ll call it that then!” I think it actually said in the cartoon “Oh here comes Mr. Thrud” and we used it because it was so stupid no one was ever going to like it and we liked the fact that no one would like it! And that was about as complicated as it got! But we won the competition though! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs) and then immediately had to change the name if only for copyright reasons!
Toby: Well I guess so. We won our heat, we didn’t win the national, but we won our local heat and even though it wasn’t meant to be I guess that was an inspiring moment really. We all looked at each other after this rapturous response that we got, I remember it was at the Wakefield Rooftop Gardens.
Mark: I remember that place!
Toby: It’s sadly long gone, I think it’s a carpark now. But we played that show and at the end of it there were 3000 teenagers chanting our name and we all just looked at each other and thought “Hang on maybe we really could do this? Maybe this could be something?” And from then on everything changed and the course of our lives changed completely. because we took it very seriously from then on.
Mark: Do you get the feeling that Rock music is coming back. Every few years little things seem to happen but since the pandemic I relay get the strong feeling that there’s more of a groundswell out there especially in Europe where the Rap and Pop whitewash isn’t so all pervasive?
Toby: I do get hopeful. Here’s my controversial answer to that: Rock has never gone away – I’ve heard people pronounce the death of guitar music every ten years and it’s never stopped – in fact it prolificates – people love it more and more. There’s a couple of things to mention – I don’t care how people listen to music – I’m not interested in the streaming debate and going back to the age of vinyl. I would love if we could all queue up in the rain, order our records by Postal Order, and walk across fields in the mud and the rain like I did, to pick up the latest Dio album. Ad then listen to it every day and that was all I could do as there were no other outlets. Now that is a wonderfully nostalgic thing, but the reality is that the World has moved on. We have a great deal more acceptance, that’s the first thing, a great deal more variety, there’s a massive amount of outlets now, and that gives everyone a chance to have a go.
Mark: But that is surely part of the issue that the advances bring?
Toby: Yes, therein lies the rub, because there is a white noise problem out there at the moment.
Mark: Exactly.
Toby: Now there’s too much music! And let’s be honest there’s a lot of terrible music out there! Because anyone can do it. Now I would say that’s a two-edged sword. The reality is anyone should be able to do it, and anyone should be able to do it. But just because they can doesn’t mean it will be any good. So what we have now is the problem that there aren’t any gatekeepers anymore. There used to be gatekeepers and they were the Record Labels and they were the promoters and they were the agents and those people no longer have the same jurisdiction – it’s now a free-for-all and therein lies the problem. But my answer in general is that great music will always find its way out. There will be a band sat in a bedroom or in a garage somewhere in the UK , or America or in Sweden or in Australia, in Tasmania, it could be anywhere. And they will be making the music of tomorrow right now. It doesn’t change. And Bruce Dickinson is a good example of this – Bruce runs a music College and whenever we talk about this stuff he says “Tobe, you know what? Every single kid that comes into my college” and there’s thousands of them every year from the age of 16 onwards “they all want to play Classic Rock. They all want to play guitar like, God rest his soul, Jeff Beck, or Eric Clapton or Eddie Van Halen.” They’re not wanting to play guitar like the bloke who plays in Slipknot, they want to play like their Dad’s hero because they’ve listened to those records and realised how fantastic they are. So the challenge isn’t that. The challenge is allowing those kids to develop, giving them the tools, allowing them to be themselves and hoping somebody is going to be inspired and focused. Really the more it changes the ore it stays the same. The greatest Rock and Roll musicians and the greatest song-writers of all time are unique, authentic, focused people who desire to say thing slightly different to the rest of us, and have a way of doing that. Now that isn’t something that comes around very often, but it just used to get found bit easier back in the day because those people were the most dogmatic, most determined and most heralded people and were found because the system was very archaic. So I believe it is just how it was and there will be a resurgence when the time is right, but it won’t be how we expect it.
Mark: I love the trudging across fields image, but back in the day we did have to put a lot of effort into the finding, buying of new music even before the ritual of listening.
Toby: Without a doubt.
Mark: The thing I find interesting though when I talk to kids these days they are buying vinyl for probably pretty much the same reasons as I bought vinyl.
Toby: Totally right, and I think the thing is that it’s not what you think it is. There will always be Pop music, there will always be the quick fix. There will always be that need to have the instant gratification. And of course we are all doing that every single day of Facebook and on Twitter and all the other social media platforms, TikTok blah, blah, blah – all of these things exist to sate the appetite of the modern world. But the reality is there are a lot of people out there that are very discerning. lots of kids who are infinitely more informed than I ever was as a kid, who have understood the music and delved right into it. I always remember my youngest daughter, she’s 20 now but I remember when she was about 13, 14 years old she came down from her bedroom one day and said “Dad do you like Black Sabbath?” and I said “Do I like Black Sabbath? They’re my favourite Rock Band” I had never pushed on my children my musical tastes ever, I really hadn’t: and she said “Oh well I think my favourite album is Sabotage. And I like the early records like the Paranoid album,” And I was like… Speechless, I couldn’t believe it, it was like a revelation. And then she said “I love them, I love when Ronnie joined and they did Heaven and Hell.” She knew absolutely everything, and I hadn’t told her anything, she’d found it herself. She’d gone onto Spotify she’d found the record, she’d listened to it and then I of course went out and bought her all the albums on CD so she could have them at home. So this was something she did herself, there was no pushing.
Mark: That must have been a very proud moment.
Toby: (laughs)
Mark: Before we go as a first time visitor to The Rockpit we have to ask you our signature questions. The first is: If You could have been a ‘fly on the wall’ for the creation of any great album at any point in the history of Rock and Roll what would you loved to have seen being made? To watch that magic happen?
Toby: Wow that’s a very, very big question to ask but would say it would have to be two records. I would love to have been there for the making of ‘A Night at the Opera’ by Queen. I’ve worked at the two major studios they worked at – the one in Wales and the one in London so I know the places that they did them at, But the other one would be ‘Hunky Dory’ by David Bowie, which I think for me, and people may be surprised to hear this, but I think it’s the greatest record ever made. I absolutely love ‘Hunky Dory’ – it’s a talisman for me that record, there’s something incredibly important in that record and I simply don’t know how David Bowie was able to compose those songs. They are literally perfect as far as I am concerned. So to see that process would have been something really special.
Mark: That period of Bowie from ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’ just before and ‘Ziggy’ just after was magic. And ‘Changes’ has always been my favourite Bowie song. I think Mick Ronson came in for ‘Hunky Dory’ which was interesting for a piano led record, but he did some great string arrangements. I’m a fan!
Toby: (laughs) You know your Bowie.
Mark: I know the classics. And we’ll leave the easiest question of the night for last – “What is the meaning of life?”
Toby: Well for me the meaning of life is to leave something positive, and that’s it. I think we are here for a very short fleeting time and I am not a religious man, I donlt believe in reincarnation, or deities, Gods or anything. I believe that we are here for a very short and precious amount of time and we should leave something positive behind us. And leave love – love is the most important thing in the world and even though that sounds like a very trite, almost mawkish answer and everyone says it, it is the absolute truth as I get older, especially as I’ve had children. The reality is to love and be loved is he most important thing, and to leave something positive behind and not something negative – that’s all that matters.
Mark: I think you’re right. I’ve been asking people that for 14 years now and that’s close to what it comes down to I think.
Toby: (laughs)
Mark: Thank you for being so generous with your time Toby, it’s been an absolutely pleasure to speak with you. I hope you enjoy the rest of your travels, there are some wonderful places around Australia, it’s a shame we wont get to catch up I think I’m in Adelaide just before you get there.
Toby: Well we’re actually going to see Faster Pussycat in Adeleide on 27th I think.
Mark: Well we should probably go and say hi together then.
Toby: You’ll be there as well?
Mark: That’s the reason I shall be travelling east.
Toby: Oh magic, we will see you there then! We’ll try and hook up, it will be nice to meet you face to face. It’s a small world, one of our production managers works with them now.
Mark: I’m hoping to catch up with Chip from Enuff Z’Nuff.
Toby: I play Enuff Z’Nuff on my show in the UK all the time. They’re a fantastic band so I’m looking forward to seeing them. Thanks mate, take care. Thank you.
Mark: Take care, safe travels.
Mark and Toby at Glamfest in Adelaide
