Formed of Callum McAllister (Vocals, Guitars), Max Cole (Bass, Synth, Organ) and Dom Mosley (Percussion, Synths), Toodles & The Hectic Pity – or simply Toodles to their fans – are one of those rare bands that effortlessly radiate charm, substance, emotion and warmth. Yes, whilst many an artist can be crowned with such superlatives, what separates Toodles from their contemporaries is just how authentic they are. As heard within their brilliant two EPs thus far – 2017’s Call In Sick and 2020’s Ghosts, Guilt & Grandparents, both released via Specialist Subject Records – the band tenderly and intricately amalgamate the vulnerability of folk, the urgency of emo and the intricacy of modern emo to narrate tales of love, loss and the pains of growing up in a sociopolitical quagmire of a culture infested with injustice and hate.
But, what make’s Toodles’ sound so authentic is how there’s no chemical genre fusions or calculated experimentation to be found within their sound; just authentic and deliciously home-cooked musical adventures plucked straight from the heart warmed with the love and kinship the members have for one another. With the band originally coming together to perform a one-off covers set for a secondary school event, Toodles’ output is infused with the kind of love that only a decades long friendship can provide. Whilst the two EPs play witness to this brilliantly, it’s their live show where such a connection becomes physical. Having recently performed alongside acts such as Pkew Pkew Pkew, Fresh, Johnny Foreigner, Spanish Love Songs and Martha – all bands that sit in that aforementioned oeuvre – these shows have seen Toodles emit the sense of love and charm that binds their craft in a fashion that’s positively tangible, ultimately allowing them become the collective physical embodiment of the community and musical intricacy that’s synonymous with their local Bristolian scene.
Now with their name firmly etched within the annuals of the South West musical scene, the band are now about to enter their next arc with their debut LP Hold Onto Happiness With Both Hands. Released June 23rd via Specialist Subject once more, the record is an instantly lovable collection of the traits that make this band so incredibly special. And with that in mind and the record’s release fast approaching, we got in touch with Callum to discuss the band, their sound, the record and why they’re hosting the album release show in an honest to God crypt.
For those new to Toodles & The Hectic Pity, how would you briefly describe the band?
“So Toodles is an emo/folk-punk band in the vein of AJJ, Moldy Peaches, Crywank, but I hope it is also different from all of those. In essence it’s an emo band, but we’re a three piece and I play an acoustic guitar (although the sound is very heavy thanks to quite a lot of pedals and other nonsense), but we try and bring as full of a sound as we possibly can, using the limitations of a three-piece as a starting point.
We started out a lot more solidly in the folk-punk corner, but as time went on we’ve gotten heavier and wonkier and, to me, Hold Onto Happiness With Both Hands is an emo record. I think the other two (Max and Dom) are now firmly saying that we’re not a folk punk band – but I think we’ve kept one of the defining elements of folk punk which is the sort of more epic, wordy, storytelling structure, big concepts, that kind of thing.
As for the three of us, we all met at secondary school and kinda fell into the band together by accident. It was the first original project for all three of us and has outlasted any of the other projects we’ve been in, I think because we’re such good friends. But I think that comes across in our music and our live shows, too – we’re quite in tune with each other and hopefully the loving vibe is infectious.”
Musically and topically, what are your primary inspirations?
“Topically I think it usually comes down to very broad themes that happen to be on my mind for long periods of time, and the making music part is a way of untangling them. Sometimes this is down to what I’m reading, too — the songs have lots of literary references in them. At least for this upcoming LP and the previous EP, all the songs are really all about the same thing. Like, even though sometimes images come in from abstract stuff, like horror and science fiction, the songs are all really about being a person and dealing with the fundamental stuff — happiness, love, navigating the world. The LP title for example is a reference to a book called WE, which sounds high-minded and abstract but actually that grounds it for me. It ties the whole thing together and then I think, ok so what does it mean to pursue happiness, to hold onto it.
Musically, the big one has always been The Mountain Goats. This is partly because they’re my favourite band, they’ve written, to me, some real masterpieces. But also sometimes you find a band that has such an unbelievably large and diverse oeuvre, it’s kinda impossible not to take inspiration from that? Because you can just one day hear a song of theirs and it’s like nothing you’ve ever heard by them before. Lots of bands will say this, but so often when you’re writing a song you’re starting by saying “I want to write a song that’s like X by So-And-So”. You’re not doing a rip off, it’s just a starting point, and it’s often based on the feeling of the song, too, rather than anything more concrete. So for example the opening track of our LP ‘Wake Up Cold’ is sorta an homage to ‘Wake Up New’ by The Mountain Goats. I don’t think it’s musically similar but the starting idea, which is waking up and realising you’re alone, is the same.
Other bands that really inspired this album are Great Grandpa, Delay, Good Luck, Slaughter Beach Dog, Katie Ellen, Mirah, Songs: Ohia, Camp Cope, Hop Along, Cayetana. Sitting here and thinking about what these bands have in common… I guess it’s the way they play with dynamics and momentum, they mix small details with kinda dark, evil, grand theatrics. But mostly they’re just extremely compelling artists.
Whilst I’m aware asking this question is a total faux pas, I really need to know; what’s the story behind your name?
“It’s ok! I had quite clear ideas about what it meant a few years ago, but the more I think about it the more I like the weird ambiguity. What really happened is that we were coming up with names, most of which were absolutely appallingly bad, and I was reading The Secret Agent at university and in either the introduction or the afterword, the phrase “Toodles, and the hectic pity” come up. The hectic pity in that context is referring to essentially a kind of chaotic empathy for others that is debilitating. Toodles is an unrelated side character to this.
This idea of empathy was quite compelling so in my mind, for a while, that was what the band name was about. But actually I’m way more into the idea of “Wow that’s a weird bunch of words, what does that mean?” and, like, people putting their own ideas onto it. Like the name is essentially meaningless (like most names are) and so it means what you want it to. Most people refer to us as Toodles, and I find that quite nice. It’s like a fun nickname and feels familiar and loving.
I’m certain having a really whacky name has closed some doors for us but it’s also definitely opened some. Our friends from the band Live, Do Nothing always say “novelty is the best policy”. And it does pay off sometimes. Folks have come to see us on a lineup before because we can’t help but stand out a bit on a lineup.”
You’re releasing your debut LP Hold Onto Happiness With Both Hands this month, how are you feeling about the release?
“Obviously we’re really excited. This is the first full length release any of us have done in any project, and it felt a long time coming. We’ve been talking about “the album” since our last EP came out in 2020 and at a lot of points it felt really out of reach. But to be honest, it came together so well and we’re really, really proud of it. Ten songs and there’s not one that I look at and think “oh that didn’t turn out how I wanted to”. I’m just hoping people like it. The LPs have arrived now, so we got to hold onto Hold Onto Happiness With Both Hands with both hands, ha! And it felt magnificent. It’s just so gratifying to make something.”
You’re also hosting the album release show in an actual crypt, how did that come about?
“Interestingly it’s not our first time in a crypt. Our previous EP launch in February 2020 was in another Crypt, the Crypt at St Paul’s Church in Southville, Bristol. It was a really special gig, and we were joined by Garden Centre and Cosmit. And then the world shut down and for a lot of the people who were there, that was the last pre-lockdown gig they went to! Which is upsetting but also kind of nuts.
Our thought then and our thought this time round was that we’d like to do a release show in a weird venue, basically. Our “home” venue is the Exchange in Bristol, which two of us worked at and we’ve played dozens of times, and so we could always do a gig there or at one of the other mid-sized venues in Bristol. But also, where’s the fun in that? So we were looking around for somewhere stranger to do it and funnily enough, there’s another crypt in Bristol that’s looking to do more shows, and has a bar in it, and has a nicer layout than the previous one. So like, why not? It’s with Soot Sprite and Cosmit this time. I’ll say it’s not hard to persuade other bands to come play a show in a crypt. The Mount Without is such an impressive building so we’re so glad to be doing it there. We’re also going to be having the folks who did backing vocals, trumpet and cello at the launch to do a few little cameos during our set, so the whole thing is going to feel very epic, I hope!”
Much like your last EP Ghosts, Guilt & Grandparents, the record is being released via Specialist Subject. What is it about the label that’s so special?
“To be honest, Specialist Subject Records were our dream label. Like, when we started out as a band that was our pie in the sky thing. They were probably the first label that we were ever into, I think possibly the first records I ever owned were Specialist records. And me and Max were members of their Season Ticket subscription. I think we discovered Specialist Subject via Great Cynics and then Shit Present, which are a band that really mean a lot to us and were big inspirations starting out. And that kind of kicked off our whole involvement in the DIY punk scene.
That started it off, I guess, but then they’ve just put out so many brilliant bands, and there’s a real feeling off permissiveness in the whole thing. Like you watch a band in that DIY scene and go “oh I could do this”. At the same time it feels like it’s a long way to go, so we never really thought we’d put out an album on vinyl, and certainly not with Specialist Subject. So it felt kinda unreal when they agreed to do the EP, even though by that point Andrew and Kay were our friends. It still felt a little bit like “Really?”
But besides that kind of Toodles origin story vein, they’re just genuinely a really special label. They only put out records they like, which is not true of all labels, plus everything is super transparent — which again, cannot be said of all labels. So in that sense it’s gratifying to work with them because you’re already starting off with “well these guys must like it!” Rather than, “These guys think they can make some bucks off of us” or whatever.”
The record see’s you brilliantly bridging and amalgamating emo and folk, was landing on this sound a conscious choice or did it occur naturally?
“Bit of both I guess! We’ve always been a big fan of doing big dynamic shifts, so doing some gentler, quieter bits with big heavy bits — it’s exactly what we like doing. I guess this LP really leans into that and it’s also coincided with us finding the guitar sound we wanted. The acoustic obviously pairs with folkiness, but we’ve really found exactly how to make the acoustic sound absolutely heinously loud and heavy too, ha! We were definitely heading in this direction from the previous EP, and when we realised this we wanted to keep leaning that way.
I mentioned earlier that Great Grandpa are an influence. Their record Four of Arrows is, to me, the perfect mix of folk and emo. It’s so evil and folky and so emo. It just absolutely nails it. So in a way I wanted to emulate that. But also, are emoness and folkiness such different moods? I don’t know, maybe not. They can both wear their emotions on their sleeves, they can both be kinda storyteller-ish.”
You’ve said something called the ‘pleasure-paradox’ was a major inspiration for this record. Could you describe what that is and how it fits into the concept of the record.
“So the album title Hold Onto Happiness With Both Hands comes from a book called WE by Yevgeny Zamyatin. The context isn’t majorly important, but that line struck me partly because it is written as a command and it is in all-caps in the book. If you hear someone say that phrase, you know, nicely, it sounds quite cathartic and sweet. But as a command it’s kinda weird, right? I was trying to think about what compelled me about it so much and I think it’s partly the pleasure paradox thing, or the paradox of hedonism, which I am going to summarise incredibly badly and, honestly, I’m not trying to be wanky or academic about anything! It’s just the idea that directly seeking happiness is the worst way to be happy. Like, if someone says “cheer up”, it never works, right? So when someone says “Hold onto happiness with both hands!” – what does that mean? Is it something you can do? If you focus so much on holding onto joy, will you succeed?
And so I guess what the subject the album is addressing, for me, is what it means to be happy and that journey. It’s not something you arrive at. But also, it’s something you know when you don’t have it. You know when you’re not happy and usually the way out is pretty opaque. So, a lot of what the album is about for me is reaching rock bottom, but in doing so, you discover where the bottom is, and so you can see the way back up. I didn’t really want to write something that was depressing, and so the sad songs in there are, for me, about hitting rock bottom but then seeing the way back up ahead of you.”
The record – and your music as a whole – feels incredibly cathartic. Was writing and creating the record a cathartic experience?
“Thank you! It’s a cathartic experience playing and writing and recording this stuff, for sure. I guess part of that is what I was talking about before, like I think we’re attempting to make something that’s affirming and takes a route with ups and downs but is ultimately positive.
Writing the record was initially quite a struggle. I find it quite easy to write a couple of songs but then you get to a point where you don’t know where to go next and it could in theory take forever. So what we did was actually just take a caravan and park it outside our practice space and we stayed there for a week and wrote every day, I’d say 9-5, but it was more like 11-7 or something. So a lot of the record got hashed out that way, in this kind of pressure cooker way. And then at least half the songs originated out of an annual “Song A Day” group that I’m in with some other songwriters, orchestrated by Erica Freas. It’s international and organised via the internet, and we just try and write a song a day (or whatever we personally decided we’re going to do, say 5 songs a week or something) and share them with each other. It’s intense and difficult but so rewarding, and some years I’ve taken very few songs away with me, but 2022 was extremely fruitful and I got a lot of the songs from the album out of it — ‘Pedestrian Baby pt 1 and 2’, ‘Religious Experience; on the Bristol-Bath Railway Path, ‘The Enemies of Happiness Are Not Napping!’
Songwriting can be a kind of lonely experience sometimes but doing stuff like this, having a community where you share your work and workshop it together, being in a band, that is such an enjoyable and rewarding experience – it’s kind of hard to describe. There’s no experience quite like it. One of the most cathartic parts was involving other musicians and creatives, too — Erica Freas really shaped a lot of these songs in tiny ways, and did backing vocals on a lot of the songs, and we had Ellis Morgan Burgess on cello and Danny Lester on trumpet, and then the producers and engineers, Phil Booth, Robin Newman, Ian Farmer. They all elevated the songs incomparably.
Also there’s just something ultimately cathartic about singing your heart out, really going for it. And we really do go for it on this record.”
One of the major themes of the record is self-development. What’s been your approach to self-development?
“What a question! Woof, I don’t know.
I don’t really like the term self-development, or self-help, or the many other ways of framing it like self betterment, because they sound very capitalist and part of this productivity cult that we have at the moment. I read this book by Jenny Odell a few years back called How to Do Nothing which is trying to point that out and question a lot of it. And it really rewired a lot of how I think about all of this. But I know what you’re referring to, I just kinda hate the idea that gamifying the self or ranking it against metrics of greatness according to what the wider world values.”
I guess the thing really is the idea of like the self or the soul being a sort of ship of theseus that is constantly using the material around it to change itself, and discarding the old stuff, until there comes a point where you go, oh when did I become someone else? It’s more about self-transformation than anything else.
Sometimes I feel like I’m good at it and sometimes I feel like I’m going backwards, but also it’s good to remember that forwards and backwards are again these kind of productivity ideas which aren’t useful – maybe it’s more about maintenance. Ideally, I journal, I read a lot, cook a lot. But it doesn’t always work out like that does it. In recent years the Tarot has been very useful to me as a way of probing your thoughts and bringing out ideas from the subconscious. But really it’s just a way of having a conversation, either with yourself or someone else. Communicating with other people clearly is weirdly one of the most difficult problems of being alive, but we’ve got crack away at it anyway, so any way to make that happen is good – like consuming someone’s art, or hanging out and playing a board game or reading their tarot, any way to make yourself known and to know others. We’re all so stuck in our own heads. And doing some good thinking time is always great. But also, human connection is surely the end point of all of it.”
Finally, what do you want people to take away from the record?
“I really want this to be a cathartic, life-affirming record for, like, at least a few people. The last thing we wanted was to just make a tear-jerker, you know. Like it’s really about how the bad shit really does end eventually. I really hope people like it and connect with it, but if you don’t that’s fine!”