Toploader

From: Eastbourne, Brighton and London

Profile: With their long-awaited third album Only Human, the biggest band to ever come out of Eastbourne are back and have provided The Guide with our 201st Download Of The Week. The four-piece scored massive international success with their million-selling debut album Onka’s Big Moka in 2000 and its 2002 follow-up Magic Hotel. After an extended hiatus in 2003, the band got back together at guitarist Dan Hipgrave’s stag night for his second marriage (to presenter Lynsey Horn), and announced their reunion with a special show at Eastbourne bandstand.

“Eastbourne is a very tranquil place, which means you get plenty of time to get into hobbies like playing music,” says Brighton-born Hipgrave, who formed the band with singer and recent Popstar To Operastar finalist Joseph Washbourn in Eastbourne in 1997. “We really feel sorry for bands who grow up in big cities. They get easily pressured by the scene around them, whereas in Eastbourne we had room to breathe. “When we turned up in London, we realised we were quite different. I don’t think we’d have had the success we had if we’d come from anywhere else.”

The band became successful in what Hipgrave describes as a transition period in the music scene. “A lot of bands that were big in the 1990s were coming to an end,” he says. “It was a time when people didn’t really know what the next scene was going to be. It’s easier to be successful in those periods, when you don’t have to live up to the expectations of other bands. We were allowed to do our own thing.”

Their biggest hits came from their feelgood cover of King Harvest’s Dancing In The Moonlight, as well as the self-penned top five hits Achilles Heel and Just Hold On, backed by a hectic touring schedule which once saw them top the bill at a 2001 German festival over Coldplay.

“It seems weird, when the success was happening you didn’t know it,” says Hipgrave. “It’s only when you stop and look back you realise how big it was.” The 2003 break came partly due to exhaustion. “I think we imploded,” says Hipgrave. “We did everything too quickly. One of the worst mistakes we ever made was not giving ourselves a break between the first and second albums. “We had toured the first record for three years but only gave ourselves a week off before we started on the second. We needed some time away from each other and the music industry.”

The current line-up features original bassist and drummer Rob Green and Matt Knight, as well as Hipgrave and Washbourn, who found they fell back into their original roles pretty quickly. “We went from talking about the old days to being in a rehearsal room making new music,” says Hipgrave. “In our heyday we were touring globally and lost touch with where we were from. When we realised we wanted to come back, we decided to make the first proper show in our hometown for charity. “We turned the bandstand into a mini arena gig which was quite fun.”

New album Only Human, on the Underdogs Music label, sees them return to their signature feelgood pop-rock sound. The album was released last month. “We wanted to make music that we were 100% happy with,” says Hipgrave. “We didn’t want to do anything pushed upon us or that we weren’t comfortable with. We didn’t want to get too hung up on commerciality. “It’s taken us 14 years to work it out but when you’re a musician your sole purpose is to make music. When you’re young, you’re blinded to that.”

The band is returning to Eastbourne in October, which is still Washbourn’s home, and hopes to build stronger links with the town’s music scene. “We are possibly going to run a competition to get the best Eastbourne band to play on the bill in front of 1,500 people,” says Hipgrave. “We want to give something back to local musicians.”

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Only Human album available from: www.amazon.co.uk/Only-Human-Toploader/dp/B004SGK278 or itunes.apple.com/gb/album/only-human/id429675150