Nintendo-core/alternative Horse the Band are musically different, impressively travelled, and are best known for doing things their own way. I have to confess, I was a little nervous about meeting and interviewing them!

Rock3: So how did you come up with the name of the band?
HTB: It was like ten years ago when we were at high school and no one remembers why we called it Horse. Then some lady sent us a law suit because her band was called horse, and we’d not even recorded anything, so we called it Horse The Band.

Rock3: Were you all at school together?
HTB: Some of us were but we met Nathan when I was working in an educational science store and we were both breaking stuff. We realised we had the same interests and that’s how he joined us.

Rock3: How do you come up with your songs?
HTB: We just like jam together or someone comes in with an idea. We jam on it and try it with different beats and that.

Rock3: What experiences inspire the music?
HTB: Mostly we’re on tour and it can be so boring and I think most the depressing lyrics come from that and the pressure of being in a band.

Rock3: You have a reputation for having fun on tour. Any stories you want to share?
HTB: We’re mostly just drunk and doing stupid things when we’re on tour. We were once mobbed in Mexico. People were pouring tequila in our mouths and taking photos. We were completely wasted and peed in a bottle. Nathan was really ill and we got the tour medic who diagnosed Nathan, I forget what he said but it was like really funny and really wrong. He grabbed a bottle of water and tried to get Nathan to drink it and Nathan realised it wasn’t water, jumped up and threw it swearing.

Rock3: The Earth tour was planned by yourselves; how satisfying was that?
HTB: It was really cool because we saw the world but we only just broke even and it was tough on everyone.

Rock3: So why did you choose to do Taste of Chaos?
HTB: It was for exposure but we thought it would be fun to come back over here because people didn’t really know us when we were here before and so it’s cool to come back and for people to know us better on the scene.

Rock3: Do you prefer to headline your own tours or playing on bills like TOC?
HTB: I like to headline but tours like this you’re playing to new people who’ve come to see another band and hear us too for the first time. The people that get it appreciate it and come to see us again. But I think touring like this would make us lazy because on the Earth tour we had to carry all our own stuff but on these tours it’s all done for us.

Rock3: Can we expect any surprises from your set tonight?
HTB: I don’t know, it depends how drunk we get!

Rock3: How do you keep it personal with your fan base?
HTB: It’s hard if they don’t have MySpace or the internet but they’ve heard our stuff on mp3s and come to our shows.

Rock3: Will you be recording again soon?
HTB: I don’t know because Dash is most probably leaving and he is like an awesome bass player and it would be really tough to get someone who is as good as him. But we still want to play music. You get spoilt because we love doing it and don’t want to get a regular job or do anything else. It’s completely not do-able. We’ll figure something out. Something creative.

Erik entertained me with several more tour stories, most of which I could not publish!




©Meriel Flavell 2008