Toby Jepson

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Toby Jepson (born Toby Matthew Jepson, 9 October 1967, in Lincoln, England) is a singer, songwriter and was lead vocalist in the British rock band, the Little Angels between the years of 1984 and 1994.

Toby Jepson formed Mr Thrud with his school friend Mark Plunkett in Scarborough, and the band went on to become very popular in their local area. Eventually breaking out & achieving national success, Mr Thrud became Little Angels and went on to release 3 albums & tour the UK throughout the early 1990s.

The band had 12 Top 40 hits, including "Too Much, Too Young" and "Womankind" in 1993, and a number one album Jam in 1993). They toured with Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams and Van Halen, and performed their own headlining tours taking in venues such as Hammersmith Apollo and The Royal Albert Hall. They were arguably one of the most successful & popular British bands of their time.

When the band split (somewhat acrimoniously) in 1994, Jepson continued to write and produce music, his solo debut album was released in 1995 under the moniker "Toby & The Whole Truth", Ignorance Is Bliss, showed a different side to his songrwriting, and he embarked on a tour to support it. Sadly, this tour was cut short due to illness that developed into pneumonia, and this had an impact on sales of the album & his profile, which suffered greatly as a result.

Jepson spent a long while out of the spotlight, during which time he moved to Bristol and had his first child. He earned a living working as a supporting actor on various productions (including Steven Spielberg's "Band Of Brothers" amongst others) and busying himself with various projects - including writing & recording, although he was not releasing records at the time.

He returned to the public eye in late 2001 and announced a short club tour with a new band (but using his own name). He toured the UK through the start of 2002 to great response from his former Little Angels fanbase, and released the "Refresh EP" over the internet & at gigs to showcase the new material he had been working on. A re-issue of "Ignorance Is Bliss" was also made available at this time. As a premium membership feature of his website, he launched the "MP3 Club" in which subscribers would received exclusive recordings delivered straight to their inbox via email every month.

Jepson & his band continued writing & recording when they got off the road, toured again in 2002-2003. Around this time work commenced on Twisted Rhapsodies, a double disc collection of live material, demos and finished recordings. Before it's release, however, Jepson announced over his website that it was highly likely that this was to be his final output, as the venture was rapidly becoming unfeasible financially. He retired once again from the stage.

As of 2005, Toby's fortunes appear to have improved considerably, and he resurfaced again to tour with Thunder, and is currently hard at work on a new studio album as well as a rumoured DVD due for release in 2007.

Toby's MySpace profile receives 100's of hits a day. Feel free to visit and check out some music. www.myspace.com/tobyjepsonrocks