Toad the Wet Sprocket
Toad the Wet Sprocket is an American alternative rock band formed in Santa Barbara, California, in 1986. The band at the time consisted of vocalist/guitarist Glen Phillips, guitarist Todd Nichols, bassist Dean Dinning, and drummer Randy Guss, who stopped touring in 2017 and left the band in 2020. Guss was replaced by drummer Josh Daubin, who had been supporting them as their drummer on recent tours. They had chart success in the 1990s with singles that included "Walk on the Ocean", "All I Want", "Something's Always Wrong", "Fall Down", and "Good Intentions".
Toad the Wet Sprocket
- Alternative rock
- folk rock
- pop rock
- jangle pop (early)
- 1986–1998
- 2002
- 2010–present
Columbia Records, Abe's Records
Glen Phillips
Todd Nichols
Dean Dinning
Josh Daubin
The band broke up in 1998 to pursue other projects; however, they began touring the United States again in 2006 for short-run tours each summer in small venues. In December 2010, the band announced their official reunion as a full-time working band and started writing songs for their first studio album of new material since their 1997 Columbia Records release, Coil.[1] Their most recent full-length album, Starting Now, was released on August 27, 2021.
History[edit]
Name origin[edit]
Toad the Wet Sprocket takes its name from a Monty Python comedy sketch called "Rock Notes",[2][3] in which a journalist delivers a nonsensical music news report:
Musical style[edit]
Toad the Wet Sprocket have been most consistently been labelled as alternative rock,[23][24][25] but their music has also been described as folk rock,[26] pop rock,[27] jangle pop,[28] and folk-pop.[23]
AllMusic writer Kelly McCarteny described Toad's early music as having a "jangle pop, garage band sound", and noted that their album Fear was a shift to "smart and catchy pop/rock songs".[29]
Associated acts[edit]
Glen Phillips' solo career[edit]
Immediately after the band's breakup in 1998, Phillips began his solo career, releasing five solo studio albums: Abulum (2000), Winter Pays For Summer (2005), and Mr. Lemons (2006), Coyote Sessions (2012), and Swallowed by the New (2016), along with two live albums, Live At Largo (2003), and Live at the Belly Up (2016).
Lapdog[edit]
In the late 1990s, Nichols and Dinning formed a new band called Lapdog. They recorded and released the studio album Near Tonight (2001), and toured minimally. After this, Dinning quit the band to split his time between recording and producing local music and pursuing his acting career. Guss joined Lapdog as their drummer. Again, Lapdog recorded and released an album, called Mayfly (2002). Nichols has since ended Lapdog and is focusing on writing songs along with Dinning in Nashville for country acts, and producing bands at his studio, Abe's, in Los Angeles. A Lapdog song, "See You Again", appears in revamped/revised form on Toad the Wet Sprocket's New Constellation album under the title "I'll Bet On You".
Current members
Former members
Touring members
Session substitutes
Toad the Wet Sprocket's songs have been used in the soundtracks of over a dozen movies and episodes of television series.[31]
