📢 LITTLE ANGELS FANS: Audiobook CD Narrated By Toby Jepson. Featuring Stories Behind The Albums:
'Don't Prey For Me', 'Young Gods', and 'JAM'.
Includes FREE instant digital download + A4 Poster.
Not available on Spotify etc.
CD Tracklist:
1. Introduction
2. Beginnings
3. The Spirit Of Youth
4. Scarborough Rock - The Road To A Record Deal
5. Debut And Breakthrough
6. That Difficult Second Album
7. City Halls And Duty Calls
8. The Boy In The Gorilla Suit
9. In A Jam
10. All Roads Lead To Somewhere
"In the process of writing the first volume of my Sticks and Stones lyric book stories entitled ‘My life in words’, I realised - in a sudden and somewhat fierce bolt of energy, how much words have meant to me throughout my life. That epiphany was made more potent by the fact that I have suffered with learning how to read and write from the first day I went to school. Being a dyslexic who chose to be a lyricist has had its challenges and certainly, with regard to reading and writing as a creative and immersive experience, I am almost entirely self taught.
In a way, I think that is why I love words and their meanings so much. I had to find out their worth myself without the demands of the school room and thus, the power of finally achieving a level of literacy meant so much to me - in fact I’d go so far as to say it is my greatest personal achievement - words have power and understanding how to wield them even more so.
I love the way words can be manipulated and ordered to bring dimension to how we explain life and our experience of it. From twenty seven letters an infinite amount of ways to express and explore ourselves opens up, something that is quite incredible when one stops to think about it.
Becoming a lyricist came as a byproduct of being a useless instrumentalist and so, needing something else to fill my rapidly expanding desire to demonstrate myself creatively, I grabbed hold of songwriting as a means to that end. Oddly, however, in the beginning I wasn’t aware of how much the words would mean - I was young and largely interested in nothing more than getting in-front of an audience and making myself heard. Some called it arrogance, others confidence, I at the time didn’t think to call it anything - I had only my instincts to go on and they said ‘sing’ so I did. Now, with the benefit of hindsight I realise that impulse was driven by blind optimism but also (if I’m honest) a fear that if I couldn’t play the guitar, I would have to make the very best of what I had available. I never meant anyone any harm or felt a need to explain myself, I knew I would never attain the heights of my heroes Freddie Mercury, Ronnie Dio and David Bowie - how could I? They were aliens possessed of superhuman powers, all I had was an itch that compelled me blindly (at first) towards an unknown light - much like a moth to the flame. One thing for certain is that I actually never really cared what anyone thought, I simply believed my destiny lay somewhere between the stage lighting and the dream of writing the best songs I could.
The journey of discovering that I subsequently embarked upon was filled with words that cascaded through my head and ultimately became so demanding that they needed to come out. But it was a gradual climb, a process of learning that I still love - as is often said ‘everyday is a school day’ and as if to qualify this, I do feel the need to write something everyday, if I don’t, I feel agitated, incomplete somehow. Writing the book became a need to finally put a comprehensive account of ‘why’ and ‘how’ many of my songs came into being. That writing period made me realise how important the journey into being a writer is - it literally fills me up, makes me feel whole.
This new audio volume - a talking book if you will - is the next stage of discovery in that journey. To speak words is to bring them to life, to give dimension to the process. Words sound great, some more than others of course, but it’s the combinations that make all the difference. What has astounded me whilst going through the recording process of this collection is how much the spoken word can add to the story - you quite literally make words into physical things and the effect is really quite amazing.
I read somewhere recently that human beings have no natural need for words and language, we are beasts of the field in our purest form and so only need to make guttural noises really (I've made a career of it), it is purely through evolution that we have developed vocal folds and the brain power to sift and arrange language. The need evolved largely as a way of warning each other of danger but also to announce our feelings through the sounds that resonate in our very beings. I think singers know this more than most because of the buzz - quite literally in our sinuses and chest cavity - we get when singing.
This I can fully get behind, the human voice is something so special, so unique to us all that it should be celebrated as no two voices are the same, they are as unique as our fingerprints.
I hope you enjoy listening to this CD as much as I did recording it. You may notice a slight quiver or two occasionally- those aren’t mistakes, just me reliving every moment of this wondrous journey I’m still taking with language and the art of organising it.
Thank you
Tobe x"