Toad was formed in 1970 by guitarist Vittorio ‘Vic’ Vergeat, bassist

Toad was formed in 1970 by guitarist Vittorio ‘Vic’ Vergeat, bassist Werner Fröhlich and drummer Cosimo Lampis. Vergeat had been in the British space rock group Hawkwind briefly. Fröhlich and Lampis had left European psychedelic rock band Brainticket after the recording of their first album, Cottonwoodhill . Toad wrote and recorded material for their self-titled album in late 1970, and released the record in 1971, along with “Stay!”, a single that did fairly well and made a great deal of headway in the Swiss charts – a feat that no other hard rock band had accomplished. The album was mixed by British producer Martin Birch (who also produced for Deep Purple , Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath ). It featured singer Benjamin “Beni” Jaeger, who left the band once it was finished. As the album was being released in 1971, Swiss Television filmed Toad performing at the Montreux Jazz Festival, but the footage has been lost.