Tom Cridland was encouraged to make his own music by a childhood obsession with The Beatles and the career of his friend, Nigel Olsson, Elton John's legendary drummer. Like Nigel, Tom started by learning drums by ear. He then began writing songs and got encouraged to sing them himself by Kenji Suzuki of Simply Red. He then taught himself the piano. When he started writing songs in 2019 he prolifically recorded over 100 of them in just a couple of months and immediately followed these sessions by playing a gig all 48 contiguous US states. This caught the attention of the legendary Grammy nominated "Philadelphia Soul" group, The Stylistics, who invited him to play with them at 19 concerts in the UK in October and November 2021.
The Tomicks is the eponymous debut album by the band that Tom formed with his great friend and keyboardist, Nick Whitehead. Representing both Tom's first attempt at songwriting, together with Nick, on eight of the ten songs he was encouraged to sing lead vocals by Kenji Suzuki of Simply Red, who assisted Tom and Nick with cutting demos and also played both guitars and bass on all of the tracks. Tom's girlfriend, business partner and the manager of The Tomicks, Deborah Marx, sings lead vocals on "Hit or Miss" and "You're My Man". Inspired by his friend Nigel Olsson, Tom plays drums on the whole album, despite having never played them before, a feat he would repeat on the next two albums, Jailbound Fool and Corporate Psychopath. This LP was made at The Village Studios in Los Angeles, California in early 2017 and released a year later in February 2018. Tom played his first ever concerts as part of the promotional schedule for the album, including shows at The Troubadour in London.
