Toni Halliday

Antoinette "Toni" Halliday (born 5 July 1964) is an English musician best known as the lead vocalist, lyricist, and occasional guitarist of the alternative rock band Curve, along with Dean Garcia.

She was also a member of the bands Photofitz, The Uncles, State of Play and Scylla.

Halliday released solo work as Toni Halliday and Chatelaine.

She collaborated with artists like Robert Plant, Recoil, The Future Sound of London, Leftfield, Paul van Dyk, Freaky Chakra, DJ? Acucrack, Headcase, The Killers, Acid Android, and Orbital.

Halliday has a contralto vocal range.

Halliday was born on 5 July 1964 in Parsons Green, London, and brought up in various locations across Europe, before eventually settling in Washington New Town, Tyne and Wear.

From 1978 to 1980, Halliday was the lead vocalist in a punk rock band named Photofitz (initially called The Incest), after which she left to start a solo career.

In 1980 a sixteen year old Toni Halliday recorded a collection of songs with Steve Thompson that weren't released until 2021.

Seven of these new wave songs were finally released as a part of the Iron Man Of Norton Box Set on all digital platforms in August 2021.

The first commercially released recording to feature Halliday was the single "The Smile and the Kiss" (1983) by the new wave band Bonk, on which she performed uncredited backing vocals.

The following year, Halliday's new band The Uncles released the single "What's the Use of Pretending", whereupon the singer returned to performing backing vocals for other artists, including the Robert Plant albums Shaken 'n' Stirred (1985), and Now and Zen (1988).

In 1985, Halliday and multi-instrumentalist Dean Garcia formed the band State of Play together with Garcia's wife Julie Fletcher and Eurythmics drummer Olle Romö.

The following year, State of Play released an LP on Virgin Records titled Balancing the Scales, a non-hit album that spawned two singles: "Natural Colour" and "Rock-a-bye Baby".

After the subsequent demise of State of Play, Halliday made another attempt at a solo career.

Her album Hearts and Handshakes (produced by Halliday with Alan Moulder) was released in 1989, a year after it was finished, and four singles were taken from it, "Weekday", "Love Attraction", "Time Turns Around", and "Woman in Mind".

Dean Garcia had played on Hearts and Handshakes, and the pair now collaborated to form Curve, with Halliday serving as lead singer.

Their partnership would last from 1990 to 2005.

Following the emergence of Curve in 1991, Halliday co-wrote and performed vocals on two songs ("Edge to Life" and "Bloodline") for the Recoil album Bloodline (1992).

The group's main releases are the studio albums Doppelgänger (1992), Cuckoo (1993), Come Clean (1998), Gift (2001), The New Adventures of Curve (2002), and the compilations Radio Sessions (1993), Open Day at the Hate Fest (2001), The Way of Curve (2004), Rare and Unreleased (2010).

She collaborated with The Future Sound of London for the song "Cerebral" from Lifeforms (1994), with Freaky Chakra for the song "Budded on Earth to Bloom in Heaven" from Lowdown Motivator (1994), and with Leftfield for their No. 18 UK hit "Original" from Leftism (1995).

She was also featured on "Original"'s music video.

In 1995, a year after the first, temporary dissolution of Curve, Halliday formed the band Scylla with Ricky Barber, Lindy Pocock, Fiona Lynsky and Julian Bown.

The group toured small clubs in the summer of 1995.

Scylla's only recording to have been officially released is the song "Helen's Face", which can be found on the Showgirls soundtrack of the Paul Verhoeven film of the same name.

Another Scylla song, "Get a Helmet", can be heard in the Gregg Araki film Nowhere.

Scylla recorded a 12-track demo with both Alan Moulder and Flood producing, but no album was released.

A bootleg of these demo tracks can be found on the internet.

Halliday also contributed additional vocals to Nine Inch Nails 1999 album The Fragile.

In 2002 Halliday recorded a number of songs with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra with plans to release an EP.

By the end of the sessions there were enough songs recorded for an album with a working title of "For Tomorrows Sorrows".

For unknown reasons the album remains unreleased with the exception of the title track which was unofficially uploaded onto the internet.

One other song titled "All Flesh Is Grass" was made available on a very rare CDR by the label.

Halliday also collaborated with Headcase, Bias, Acid Android and DJ? Acucrack.

In 2006, she was featured on the first The Killers Christmas track, "A Great Big Sled".

She contributed vocals to Orbital's soundtrack for the 2012 re-make of the film Pusher.

In April 2013 Halliday contributed vocals to a new track "Lost In The Noise", a collaboration with Huw Williams.

The track can be found on the compilation Ethereal Electro Pop on Altitude Music.

Another new Toni Halliday track for 2013 (co produced by Louise Dowd) called "Down In A Dark Place" can be heard in a trailer for the television programme The Vampire Dairies.

Along with "Down In A Dark Place" two other new songs "Nowhere To Hide" and "Now The Time Is Here" appeared.

Halliday's song "Nowhere To Hide" was officially used in Sochi Winter Olympics 2014 promotion and advertising.