An Interview with Hold Your Horse Is…
Hold Your Horse Is, Buffalo, Cardiff, March 26, 2010…
There’s a particular reason why it’s taken a little while for me to post this interview that I did with Hold Your Horse Is back in March. As well as being completely swamped with work experience and exams, there was also a minor problem in the fact that the band accidently told me that Big Scary Monsters was releasing their next EP, something that wasn’t official at the time. It still hasn’t been formally announced, but the band were featured at BSM’s showcase at The Great Escape last weekend, and they are taking part in the BSM 5-a-side later this month, so with Kev’s permission the interview’s finally up.
Taking their name from Hella‘s 2002 album title, Hold Your Horse Is are a three-piece from the general Surrey area. With ex-Reuben bassist Jon Pearce as their manager, and two self-released EPs under their belts, Hold Your Horse Is have garnered quite a following since they formed in 2008. A random conversation on Twitter led to this interview taking place at Buffalo a few hours before their show with Crooked Mountain, Crooked Sea. After a few minutes trying to differentiate the boys in HYHI from the boys in CMCS, then battling with my dictaphone and a collective Mighty Boosh ‘talkbox’ quotathon later, the interview finally got underway…
Right, so for anyone who might not know, can you tell me a bit about the band and its history?
Robin: Well, me and Chris were both playing in different bands who played together quite a lot and we both kind of thought about stealing the other person to create a new band, so we did. And then we realised that we needed a bassist so we asked James to play with us, and he did so that’s how it happened…
Chris: Didn’t you just text him like “Join our band?” It’s quite sweet really…
James: We need to think of a better story really, this one sucks!
So were you all friends before then, like from school?
Robin: No, we just knew each other from being in different bands.
Chris: We’re from quite a good area for bands…. Essentially we all live near Guildford, but we’re actually from Fleet, Frimley and Camberley so… It’s like the whole Reuben and Meet Me In St Louis scene.
James: But we’re at university now, so we’re all spread out a bit, over London and Brighton. We make some crazy triangle!
So how did you get involved with Big Scary Monsters, as you were featured on the ’10 Collection last month?
James: I emailed Kev ages ago and he didn’t get back to us for months and months and then one day he just started liking us.
Robin: Kev wrote a little blog on us saying that everyone should listen to us which was quite nice of him. And then we met him at a couple of gigs, like we played at Rapturefest…
Chris: Terribly…
Robin… Yeah, really badly… but he was there to check us out and then we were on the BSM ’09 Autumn Collection and then we were put on the ’10 Collection this year.
So you’ve self-released two EPs. What’s the process like and why did you make that decision?
Chris: It was just easier…
Robin: Yeah, it was easier. We didn’t just want to be hanging on to recordings trying to figure out a way to get them distributed when we could just do it ourselves.
Chris: There’s not really any such thing as a record deal anymore. There’s like 360 deals where they’ll take a cut of everything you earn, and then that’s just not worth it and it kills the band, so you might as well just do it yourself. Or with people that you feel you can actually trust and someone you know would do it well, like Kev. We know that he’s gonna do a good job.
So, are you going to sign with him to do anything in the future?
Robin: We haven’t announced it yet, but he’s gonna put out our next EP. We’ve been recording new tracks for a while. It’s gonna be like a fairly long EP, like about five or six tracks.
So are they all new tracks, or are there going to be a few that you’ve done before?
Robin: There’s the one that’s on the ’10 Collection, ‘Mackerel Jason’, but that was a demo, so we’ve polished it up a lot and made it sound a lot better.
Do you get anyone else in to help record, or is it just you?
Robin: No, it’s just us.
Chris: We use a lot of other people’s stuff though.
Robin: We borrow stuff because we tend to break things quite a lot.
You’ve shared the stage with quite a lot of my favourite bands, such as Tubelord and Blakfish. Who’s been your favourite band to play with?
Chris: Tubelord…
Robin: Tubelord were cool, they were really nice guys.
Chris: I didn’t know anything about them, and then we played with them and I was just like wow, they’re awesome.
Robin: I think collectively our favourite bands to play with are probably the guys we’re on tour with now Crooked Mountain, Crooked Sea, and a band called Jealous Again from our local area. Their shows are the most fun you’ll ever have…
James: Totally ridiculous though.
Chris They’re like a comedy show with rock and roll music.
Robin: And then there’s also Stagecoach, we’re playing with them in London, and they’re just awesome.
Have you got a favourite venue to play at all?
Robin: Yeah, the Westend Centre in Aldershot.
Chris: It’s gotta be!
James: It’s such a horrible place, but it’s so great!
Robin: It’s a great space, and the sound is brilliant, it’s got a great reputation. We did a good Christmas gig there, where we did a tag team event with people from other bands swapping into our band and doing covers. It was mad, but they were really into it.
What sort of covers were you playing, Christmas themed ones?
Robin: No, there weren’t any Christmas ones actually, more like Andrew WK and Limp Bizkit!
James: Ha, it was the most ridiculous karaoke…
Chris: There was some Nirvana and Weezer…
Robin: Blondie…
James: Fleetwood Mac…
Robin: It was the best fun I’ve ever had!
I’ve heard that some of your gigs can get quite chaotic… have you got any interesting stories or accidents you’d like to share?
Robin: Recently we played in Canterbury and I was a little bit drunk and I played really hard. At the end of the set I was lying on the floor with my guitar and then I kind of ended up with loads of drums on top of me…
Chris: It was me…
Robin: Yeah, I kind of promoted it, and then you helped me out. So I was basically underneath a pile of drums and then that meant that my guitar was slowly being pulled up and it got caught around me and then I couldn’t breath… I thought it was curtains!
So, tell me a bit about your plans for a Horses only tour…
Chris: It’s like the unaccomplishable dream. It probably won’t ever happen.
Robin: Yeah, we approached a couple of bands and they got back to us saying that they thought it was a stupid idea!
Chris: Check this out… we thought that it would be an awesome idea, so we emailed a load of bands with the word horse in, they all emailed back saying no that’s a rubbish idea, and then Huw Stephens played a horse themed section on his radio show! And we were on it!
Robin: But we really wanna do a tour with Stagecoach and call it the Horse & Coaches tour. Cos we love those guys.
So what are the band’s plans for the rest of the year?
Robin: We’re gonna keep things ticking over with the new EP, do a lot of touring, especially in the summer. But we’ll probably try and have June and July off…
Chris: To give us some time to write some new stuff and finish the EP…
Robin: Get massive… And play some festivals. We’re playing Off The Cuff in Birmingham, which will be pretty rad as there were quite a lot of good bands who played there last year.
Chris: Buy a boat…
James: And actually get a degree!
All photographs either taken by me, Matt Williams or used with the band's permission...
