We’re glad to announce that London, United Kingdom-based rock band Todger have released a new single, entitled “Ancient Rome.”
Todger are Christian (vocals), Jack (guitars), Hugh (bass), and Bart (drums). The band was formed in 2002, when Christian, Hugh, and Jack met at Birmingham Uni, and they’ve been best of friends and bandmates ever since. Bart then joined in 2012, and they had more new best friends.
Todger are influenced by all forms of classic 70s-90s rock, metal, stoner and prog–including bands such as Guns N’ Roses, Whitesnake, Deep Purple, Thin Lizzy, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Boston, and Fleetwood Mac, as well as more modern(ish) bands like Clutch, Monster Magnet, Devin Townsend and Church Of The Cosmic Skull. They’re also fascinated by the absurd, esoteric bits of history, science, data and the weird world around them; and Todger draw lyrically from Christian’s incessant Wikipedia wormholing as well as the dark humour, geeky playful tone of bands like They Might Be Giants, Ween, Frank Zappa, Warren Zevon, Roky Erickson, Presidents Of The United States and Nick Cave.
Over 19 years, Todger have played virtually every small venue across Birmingham, London and the South East, as well as big venues like the Clapham Grand and the main stage at Birmingham Arts Fest, and countless basement shows on the world famous Denmark Street, London. Their latest single, “Ancient Rome,” was recorded, mixed and mastered by Christian in his home studio, The Cynic’s Folly, in late 2019.
“Ancient Rome” is the first track from their upcoming album, SEAS OF OLD, due later this summer 2021. SEAS OF OLD was the band’s first attempt at a completely home-made studio album and formed part of a year-long journey learning sound engineering, mixing, mastering and an unholy amount of Youtube tutorial videos. But just as Todger were ready to release their album, the COVID pandemic struck. The band spent the lockdown learning video editing, website building and figuring out how social media works; and the video for “Ancient Rome” was all performed remotely through Summer 2020, with Todger calling up all their friends, family and fans, begging them to dress up in togas and film themselves rocking out to the song in their various lockdown locations. You can check out Todger’s music video for “Ancient Rome” here:
In addition to creating the “Ancient Rome” music video, Todger also created a whole bunch of other music videos, behind-the-scenes stories, historically accurate fact sheets and additional artwork for every single song on the upcoming album–all of which they are sharing with mailing list subscribers as part of the voyage to the SEAS OF OLD album (in addition to a free download of the album). It’s a bit like an online digital gatefold or special edition box set, except it’s free; and you can check it out at www.todgerrocks.com.
Explaining the inspiration behind their new single, the band writes, “This was the first song we wrote for the new album, SEAS OF OLD. We’d just finished our last album, ARBITERS OF BLAME, which was all a bit proggy and complex, and we just wanted to write a big dumb rock song, with a catchy chorus…
The lyrics are loosely structured around the rise and fall of Rome, riffing on half remembered myths, hearsay and quotes. It’s deliberately inaccurate and tongue-in-cheek, partly inspired by Wikipedia wormholing and a bit of a poke at the popular misconception that things were ‘better in the old days.’”
And for first-time listeners who are unfamiliar with Todger’s sound, the band writes, “70-90s classic rock and stoner rock are our staples musically, we were all a bit young to appreciate it the first time round… We want folks to have fun listening to our music, we do this for shits and giggles not fame and fortune!
Lyrically we are particularly inspired by bands such as They Might Be Giants and Warren Zevon that use science or historical events as a basis to explore the world in a darkly humorous way.
“Ancient Rome” begins with a driving guitar riff, which is complemented nicely by the precise attack of the drums and thundering bass. The commanding vocals harmonize with the instruments quite well throughout the track and trade off nicely during the choruses, while fiery guitar solos add a metal edge to the track’s rock sound. “Ancient Rome” is quite an enjoyable listen throughout, showcasing Todger’s creative songwriting and superb musicianship; and I would highly recommend this track to fans of classic-, stoner-, and hard rock alike.
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