TOODLES & THE HECTIC PITY Release New Single ‘The Enemies Of Happiness Are Not Napping!’
“Introspective, subtle yet engrossing songs” - When The Horn Blows
“One of our favourite recent discoveries” - For The Rabbits
“Toodles & The Hectic Pity are an utter delight” - Shout Louder
“Firecracker folk-punk” - Louder Than War
“Deeply personal and imaginative songwriting and unrelenting folk punk spirit” - Noizze
“A nice combination of west-country folk with a Bristolian ‘f*ck it’ attitude” - Punktastic
Bristol’s TOODLES & THE HECTIC PITY Release New Single ‘The Enemies Of Happiness Are Not Napping!’
Out Now via Specialist Subject Records
Stream and share -HERE
Listen on bandcamp - HERE
Folk-Punk/Emo Trio’s Debut Album Hold Onto Happiness With Both Hands Released 23rd June 2023
Preorder - HERE
May/Jul 2023 UK Headline Tour Dates + Festival Appearances On Sale Now
Tickets - https://linktr.ee/toodlesband
Bristol, UK folk-punk/emo trio Toodles & The Hectic Pity are delighted to reveal their new single ‘The Enemies of Happiness Are Not Napping!’ which is out now via Bristol independent champions Specialist Subject Records.
The track is the latest to be taken from their debut album Hold Onto Happiness With Both Hands which will be released on 23rd June 2023.
Commenting on the single, front man Callum McAllister says: “The working title of this song was ‘Shut Up & Kiss Me’. It almost hit the chopping block separate times because we all didn’t feel as though we could crack the ending, but we got there in the end! It’s in the liminal space between a venue and your own home and it’s about that kind of quiet anxious desperation of self-criticism that leads to an ‘Irish goodbye’ and self-enforced loneliness. It features cello by Ellis Morgan and trumpet from Danny Lester.”
To celebrate the release, the band have also just announced a special album release show on 27th July in Bristol at The Mount Without, with support from Exeter indie/shoegaze newcomers Soot Sprite and fellow Bristolian garage punks Cosmit.
Fresh from supporting PKEW PKEW PKEW in London last month, the trio will be playing shows with Live, Do Nothing in May 2023 including Marapalooza in Newcastle, and appearing at 2000 Trees in Cheltenham ahead of their own UK album tour dates in July 2023.
Affectionately known to their fans simply as Toodles, band members Callum, Max and Dom all met at secondary school in Gloucestershire and formed Toodles & the Hectic Pity in the political quagmire of the mid 2010s for one covers set at the original iteration of what would later become Inglefest, a small festival in the Cotswolds. The band subsequently released 3 EPs including The First EP (2016), Call In Sick (2017), and Ghosts, Guilt & Grandparents (2020), which was their first release through Specialist Subject.
Forthcoming debut album Hold Onto Happiness With Both Hands was recorded and produced by Phil Booth jr. at JT Soar, Nottingham in October 2022, with cello, percussion and backing vocals recorded at Woodbox, Bristol by Dom Mosley. The album was mixed by Robin Newman at Snug Recording Co., Nottingham and mastered by Ian Farmer and his cat, Onion, at The Metal Shop in Philadelphia, PA.
Lead single ‘Emotionally Unclean’ was released earlier this year to support from underground tastemakers at Noizze, Alt Corner, Shout Louder, Indie For Bunnies, Scene Point Blank, Breathing The Core and more, with radio spins from Steve Lamacq at BBC 6music, Amazing Radio, Phoenix FM, MMH Radio and more.
The band have played extensively in Bristol and around the country including the infamous Deadpunk Special, Till the Fest, Do it Together Fest, and shared stages with the likes of AJJ, Jeffrey Lewis, Microwave, Spanish Love Songs, Mikey Erg, Crywank, Fresh, Muncie Girls, Martha, and many more.
Further details and new music will be revealed over the coming months.
Debut album Hold Onto Happiness With Both Hands released 23rd June via Specialist Subject Records
Live Dates:
19TH MAY Santiago's, LEEDS *
20TH MAY Marrapalooza, NEWCASTLE *
21ST MAY JT Soar, NOTTINGHAM *
06TH JUL 2000 TREES
09TH JUL Just Dropped In, COVENTRY
12TH JUL Firebug, LEICESTER
13TH JUL The Butler, READING
14TH JUL Dulwich Football Club, LONDON
15TH JUL The Pipeline, BRIGHTON
16TH JUL The Hobbit, SOUTHAMPTON
27TH JUL The Mount Without, BRISTOL (album release w/ Soot Sprite + Cosmit)
01ST SEP Punx Picnic, PLYMOUTH
* w/ Live, Do Nothing
Toodles & the Hectic Pity are:
Callum McAllister - Vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar
Max Cole - Bass guitar, synth, organ,
Dom Mosley - Drums, percussion, synth, baritone guitar
With extra help from…
Danny Lester - Trumpet
Ellis Morgan - Cello
Erica Freas - Vocals
All artwork by Eloise McAllister
Toodles online:
https://toodlesandthehecticpity.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/toodlesband/
https://www.facebook.com/toodlesband/
https://twitter.com/ToodlesBand
More about Hold Onto Happiness…:
Described by the band as “at least half-way a break-up album”, where previous EP Ghosts… was an exercise in introspection and mostly set within one room, the album is set in “the outside world”. While it might start out life as a break-up album, Hold Onto Happiness… quickly becomes a record about personal transfiguration. “It seems to me kind of pointless to write a merely depressing song or a merely depressing album,” says vocalist Callum McAllister, “so most of these songs and the album as a whole attempt to take a journey that ends in positive resolution and catharsis.”
The title of the album is a quote from WE, a 1920s dystopian novel by the Russian writer Ygeveny Zamyatin which in a translation by Bernard Guilbert Gurney reads “THE ENEMIES OF HAPPINESS ARE NOT NAPPING. HOLD ONTO HAPPINESS WITH BOTH HANDS.”
“The context is not incredibly important,” explains McAllister, “but the quote comes from a newspaper. Every line of the novel is ripe for inspiration-poaching but these lines struck me because of something called the pleasure paradox; that directly seeking happiness isn’t the best way to achieve it. The title in the context of the record isn’t supposed to be an instruction, or any kind of political point, but to me it just evokes something about what it feels like to be alive.”
