Little Angels Release “Hero”, Their First New Music In 32 Years, Ahead Of Big Bad & Back EP

Scarborough hard rockers Little Angels have released their first new music in 32 years. New single “Hero (That Was Then, This Is Now)” is out now, and it is the first taste of the Big Bad & Back EP, due for release on Friday 6 November 2026.

The single is available to stream and download here, with an accompanying lyric video on YouTube. The EP can be pre-saved now, and CD and vinyl formats are available to pre-order from the band’s official store from today, 28 September.

The release arrives just ahead of the band’s Big Bad & Back tour this November, an ultra-rare run of dates featuring the classic Little Angels line-up of vocalist Toby Jepson, guitarist Bruce Dickinson, keyboard player Jim Dickinson, bassist Mark Plunkett and drummer Mark Richardson.

New music was never part of the plan. “This was never in the plan,” the band admit. But once the tour was announced and tickets started flying out, everything seemed to fall into place, and that momentum led them back into the studio for the first time since 1994.

“We would never make a new record unless we felt we still had something to say… and it turns out we do,” they explain. “Toby started writing new ideas and while we were rehearsing the set for the tour, we started to jam around this new material, and it just felt great.”

When it came to recording, Little Angels wanted to recapture the feeling of making rock records back in the day. That meant getting into a room together and playing live, capturing the true spirit of the band and the songs in the moment.

After reuniting and rehearsing in their hometown of Scarborough, the band headed to Chapel Studios in Lincolnshire, where they spent what they describe as a very hot but magical week tracking the new songs.

The recordings then crossed the Atlantic to Vancouver, a city with a special place in the band’s story. Little Angels mixed their number one album Jam at the city’s legendary Little Mountain Studios, where Bon Jovi recorded Slippery When Wet and Aerosmith recorded and mixed Permanent Vacation and Pump.

Little Mountain Studios is sadly no longer there, but Mike Fraser, who recorded and mixed those Aerosmith records, is, and the band felt he was the perfect choice to mix the EP. “We encouraged him to evoke the spirit of those great records that he mixed back in the day,” they say.

Toby Jepson says the biggest challenge was working out what the band should be singing about now. “Lyrically the challenge was always going to be, how do you take what Little Angels represented back then and bring it into the modern world with guys that are now in their mid 50s?”

“We discussed what the past meant to us and the penny dropped. This wasn’t about youth anymore, of course not, it’s about reflecting on where we had come from, and the kind of people we are now and all of a sudden, it made sense – this is about returning home.”

The Big Bad & Back EP features five brand new songs, opening with “All For One” and including current single “Hero (That Was Then, This Is Now)”. The full track listing is:

1. All For One
2. Hero (That Was Then, This Is Now)
3. Small Town Boys
4. You Want Love
5. Raised To The Ground

The Big Bad & Back tour runs to 16 dates, opening at Opium in Dublin on Monday 9 November and heading to Belfast before moving across the UK. It finishes with two London shows, at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire on 28 November and the O2 Forum Kentish Town on 29 November.

Demand has been strong, with shows in Manchester, Leeds, Nottingham, Wolverhampton and at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire already sold out. The full list of Little Angels tour dates is:

Monday 9 November – Dublin – Opium
Tuesday 10 November – Belfast – Limelight
Thursday 12 November – Glasgow – O2 Academy
Friday 13 November – Manchester – O2 Ritz (Sold Out)
Saturday 14 November – Leeds – O2 Academy (Sold Out)
Monday 16 November – Norwich – UEA
Tuesday 17 November – Newcastle – O2 City Hall
Thursday 19 November – Oxford – O2 Academy
Friday 20 November – Nottingham – Rock City (Sold Out)
Saturday 21 November – Wolverhampton – KK’s Steel Mill (Sold Out)
Monday 23 November – Cardiff – Depot
Tuesday 24 November – Liverpool – O2 Academy
Thursday 26 November – Bristol – O2 Academy
Friday 27 November – Bournemouth – O2 Academy
Saturday 28 November – London – O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire (Sold Out)
Sunday 29 November – London – O2 Forum Kentish Town

It will be the first time Little Angels have toured since 2012, when they followed a triumphant return at Download Festival with a run of shows. Those dates came 18 years after the band’s sold-out farewell gig at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 1994.

Formed nearly 40 years ago in Scarborough, Little Angels emerged from the ashes of the NWOBHM movement to become one of the defining UK hard rock bands of the late ’80s and early ’90s. It was an era shaped by Kerrang!, Metal Hammer, RAW Magazine and The Friday Rock Show, and lived out in the queues at Shades Records, sweaty nights at the Marquee Club and packed rock clubs across the country.

Over the course of their career, the band built a fiercely loyal fanbase, scoring 11 UK Top 40 singles and four hit albums, including Jam, which reached number one in 1993. As well as their own sold-out headline tours, they shared stages with Van Halen, Guns N’ Roses, Faith No More, ZZ Top, Aerosmith, Bryan Adams and Bon Jovi.

For more information on the new music and the tour, visit littleangelsofficial.com.