Wayward Sons

Unashamedly drawing from '70s hard rock and glam while folding in touches of '80s hair metal, Wayward Sons deliver a British rock sound propelled by thick or skyward guitars, vocals brimming with arena-scale swagger, and intermittent sweeps of expansive keyboards. Their first album, Ghosts of Yet to Come, arrived with considerable force in 2017, and the same larger-than-life approach marked the follow-up, The Truth Ain't What It Used to Be, two years later.

The band’s story began in 2016 when Frontiers, an Italian label, asked Toby Jepson—already known from Little Angels, Gun, and Toby & the Whole Truth—to make a solo album. Jepson, who had built his reputation through band work in the '80s and '90s, hesitated at the idea of going it alone. Frontiers kept pressing, so he slowly began assembling musicians. He first contacted bassist Nic Wastell, previously of Chrome Molly; the two had worked together when Jepson produced an album for the group and they had shared several tours. Wastell agreed at once, and guitarist Sam Wood came aboard from another Jepson-produced act, Treason Kings. Drummer Phil Martini entered the picture after Jepson saw him backing Joe Elliott of Def Leppard in the Down 'n' Outz at London’s High Voltage Festival and convinced him to join the new project. Jepson also brought in his longtime songwriting partner and multi-instrumentalist Dave Kemp to handle keyboards.

Once the lineup was complete, Jepson chose the name Wayward Sons, taken from a lyric in the Little Angels song “Kicking Up the Dust.” Recording for the debut began in winter 2016, and Ghosts of Yet to Come appeared the next year. Following successful runs through the United Kingdom and Europe, the band returned to the studio for The Truth Ain't What It Used to Be in 2019. The lyrical concerns of that record carried over into their third release, Even up the Score, issued in 2021.