RoadTrip (abbreviated as RT) were an English-Irish boy band formed in Slough, England, in 2015. As of January 2020, the group consisted of Andy Fowler, Rye Beaumont, Brooklyn Wyatt, Sonny Robertson, and Harper Dark. Mikey Cobban and Jack Duff were part of the original lineup, before leaving in May and December of 2019, respectively.
Through a span of five years, they released five extended EPs, one single, and went on nine headlining tours. In May 2020, the group was announced by two of its members that RoadTrip had split up.
2015-2016: Formation
The creation of the band was through a trial process, started by Blair Dreelan, who scouted them over social media platforms, or knew them from previous musical projects. Beginning unnamed, their fans got to choose. The first member of RoadTrip was Andy Fowler, shortly followed by Rye Beaumont. Their main YouTube channel ‘RoadTrip TV’ was created on July 29, 2015, where they began posting cover songs and vlogs, documenting the process in its early stages. Brooklyn Wyatt and Mikey Cobban began as trial members and joined the lineup officially in September and November. Beaumont knew Cobban from a previous band they were in, called State of Mind, which was how Cobban became introduced to RoadTrip.
In 2016, the band was invited on the European leg for the worldwide Magcon tour. They additionally sold out their first headlining tour, playing around the United Kingdom and Ireland in September. They were a four-piece for a year and a month before meeting Jack Duff at a show in Dublin, Ireland. Duff promptly left his job and travelled to England the next day, and joined the group in November, turning it into a British-Irish quintet as they embarked on their Christmas co-headlining tour, The Alstar Xmas Party.
2017-2018: Demo EPs and touring
The band went on their third headlining tour Miss Taken, and launched their vlogging channel, ‘RoadTrip Vlogs’, on March 22, 2017, which distinguished from their primary one for solely music. Their debut demo EP Miss Taken was released on April 13th, which climbed atop the pre-order charts on iTunes. Their second demo EP was released on October 17th, followed by multiple headlining and supporting tours, including one that made their American debut, for the Boys of Summer Tour.
The band’s first single, “Take This Home”, was released in July 2018, along with embarking on a headlining tour that began in October. In November they announced RoadTrip 2.0, where they moved houses and marked it as a new era for the band. The music video for the single was released on December 31st.
2019-2020: Lineup changes, White Label, and split
In March 2019, they attained one million subscribers on their main YouTube channel. In the last week of April, Cobban left the band for various reasons, including one being for family, his departure announced publicly in May. Sonny Robertson came in on trial, joining the lineup on June 14, 2019. He knew Fowler before, both being in Overload and competing on the 11th season of The X Factor together. RoadTrip released their third EP Dynamite, with its acoustic version released in September that superseded the original and knocked Taylor Swift’s album Lover from the top of the pre-order chart. Together the five went on The Hero Tour that began in October and concluded in mid-November, introducing their new song “Hero”.
On December 8, 2019, Duff announced his departure, feeling that it was his time to go solo. Harper Dark, who was an opening act for two of RoadTrip’s tours, became a trialist and on January 1, 2020, was announced to be the newest member. In February, the band released their fifth EP, which comprise of the three tracks “Me and You”―its music video being released five days earlier―”Understand”, and “Hero”. On March 1st, they headlined their concert One Night Only at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, and in May were planned to co-headline the Young Stars on Tour 2020 around Poland.
Eventually, on May 12th, Beaumont and Robertson announced the split of RoadTrip. It was discussed of the band’s struggles financially, along with lack of management. In December 2020, the video “The Real Reason RoadTrip Ended” was uploaded, where the four members: Beaumont, Robertson, Wyatt and Cobban, spoke about their personal experiences in the band and claims of their manager taking money from them and manipulating members with little regard for their health and well-being. They encouraged a stop to management exploiting artists, and Robertson has suggested they would take legal action, possibly for misrepresentation and fraud. All members are now pursuing a music career, Beaumont and Robertson still working together, and the rest going solo.
RoadTrip’s first two demo EPs, Miss Taken and Tokyo Hotel (2017) are classified under pop, containing elements of teen pop, dance-pop, and pop-rock. It is mainly guitar-driven and observed to be “stereotypical cheesy boy-band pop” (Fowler) regarding its sound and lyrics.
Their third EP Dynamite (2019) was a stepping stone into their own unique sound, experimenting with vocoder for “Flashing Lights” and still retaining elements of a boy band, songs being described as “anthemic” (“Dynamite” and “upbeat” (“Something About You”). Their fourth EP, an acoustic version of the previous one, have slower tracks, making it more mellow and vocal-focused.
Their fifth and final EP White Label (2020) was released on February 28, 2020, consisting of three songs. Regarding the extended play compared to their others, Fowler commented of “trying to branch out” from their usual sound, and less power pop. With “Understand” notably moving in a more mature direction in lyrics and sound for a boy band, the group had also collectively named it their favourite song off the EP.