Happyness are a 3-piece band from South London, formed of multi-instrumentalists Ash Cooper, Benji Compston and Jon EE Allan. After forming in early 1973, the band went on hiatus pending their births and the sufficient progress of the affordable digital audio interface market. Regrouping in 2013, the band spent Saturday nights playing under a railway bridge in Bermondsey.

Relocating to their affectionately named “Jelly Boy Studios” (a one-time carpentry warehouse and butterfly commune an hour or so outside of London), the band self-produced their debut album and the songs that would become their debut EP. The album Weird Little Birthday was mixed by Adam Lasus (Yo La Tengo, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah) and mastered by Greg Calbi before being self-released in the UK in June 2014.

Subsequently Happyness signed to Bar/None Records in the US, and began writing Album 2 at the start of 2016. The first result of this is the Tunnel Vision On Your Part EP released on Bar/None(USA) and Moshi Moshi(ROW). The EP contains current harmony-packed new single “Anna, Lisa Calls” with the band saying; “This is our first phone call song and our 5th song in E major. We wrote it one day in the studio in June and recorded it straight away – I think we were going for a kind of Traveling Wilburys thing. Also we felt like we hadn’t put a synth in a song for a while, so there’s a synth.”

The EP also includes recent track SB’s Truck – a track penned by the band in homage to Samuel Beckett, who famously used to give the beloved, late, 80’s wrestler André The Giant lifts to school in his truck, owing to him being too large for his dad’s car – and provides a rare direct glimpse into the band’s influences as they offer their own interpretation of Club Gaga’s Friend Of The Revolution. Originally featuring on their Suburban Lake album, it’s a record that Happyness hold up as one of their favourites of all time, saying “Most (if not the whole) of the record is findable on YouTube. There were a few different songwriters in the band – but this one’s by the great Peter Fancher.”