Interview: HORSE the Band

Could you please introduce yourself for the readers at forthesound.com?
David Isen, guitarist for HORSE the band.

How exactly did the band come together?
I do know this, because I was there when it happened (laughs). Me and Erik [Engstrom], our keyboard player, were friends since we were like 10 years old, and we needed a hobby, and we started playing music together.  We were incompetent, and messing around, and slowly it grew over the course of many years, and neither of us have been in other bands before this.

How long have you been with HORSE the Band?
Well, we started in 1999, when we had our first show, so it’s been about 10 years since our first show, which is pretty strange, since I still think of myself as being in a new band.  I’m pretty old I guess.

What are some of your biggest influences?
My biggest influences? Fuck. Um.  I think I’m only influenced with a band for a month at a time, and I’ll think of ideas, but at the time I write another song, I think of something else, so I don’t really think it’s easy to trace my influences.  As a band as a whole, there’s nothing you can really be influenced by.  Otherwise, it’s nature, and movies, and life in general.

What was your role in the making of Desperate Living?
Um, well, it’s…Me and erik are the songwriters of the band, so this sound was more collaborative than other albums. We would think of ideas and record them on our own, and then we’d get together and just jam on little parts and talk about ideas for songs, and make demos. And uhh…you know.  Eventually they would turn into songs that we would bring into the rest of the band. But I think uh, there weren’t any songs that he and I wrote by ourselves.  Just collaborative ideas between he and I.  And our lyrics are written by our singer.

How long did it take to make Desperate Living?
Um. Well the writing process was a lot quicker and smoother than we’d ever done, but it was prolly uh, I mean I guess it took two and a half weeks to write stuff, starting with nothing.  Then the recording was a much more tedious process than ever before.  It took us like six weeks to record everything, and then three weeks to mix it all. Mixing was a really difficult thing, but in the end it all worked out, but it took a really long time.

What was the band’s worldwide tour like?
(laughs) It was such a long and varied experience, that it’s hard to describe it in any sort of manner.  I can’t say it was good, I can’t say it was bad, I can’t say it was miserable, and I can’t say it was amazing.  It was a mix of all those things.  We’d play to screaming fans one day, and then the next day we’d play to like 20 people who had no fucking clue who we were.  We’d be treated like royalty, we’d be treated like shit, but it was great.  It laid down a lot of inspiration for Desperate Living.

What is your favorite track off of Desperate Living?
Um, (thinks) I think I’m most proud of the song ‘Desperate Living’ itself because it was the most different on the album.  We tried a lot of new things, and new ideas that we weren’t really comfortable with, but that song we did it and pulled it off really well.  The lyrics also struck a chord with everyone in the band, and it’s probably everyone’s favorite song.  We actually wanted to use it for our first single, but then we just didn’t, but it’s still awesome.

Were you excited to see the release of this album on Vagrant Records?
Yeah.  It was uh, you know, me and Erik specifically, and Daniel, our drummer, really all of us, when we were getting into music, a lot of our favorite bands were on Vagrant when we were growing up.  We thought it would be pretty amazing to be on it, with bands such as The Get Up Kids, and Saves The Day.  We really love it, and at first they were “the emo label” like 10 years ago, but now they’re heading into new directions, and it’s pretty cool.

What are some of the craziest things that you’ve witnessed while being on tour?
Um, well.  Probably the craziest thing I’ve ever seen is captured entirely on video, on this like, DVD that we just got four days ago.  It’s from our Earth tour, when we were in the Ukraine, and we were there for 48 hours, in the highest highs and lowest lows.  It was just like partying so hard, followed by a day of complete misery and depression.  We had a guy following us filming the whole time, and we got a DVD made with that episode.  It’s called ‘We Flooded It and There’s Yoghurt Everywhere’. But there’s like four naked people everywhere trashing an apartment with yogurt, and taking a bath together and making like, eggs together, for no reason.  It was stupid, but really hilarious to watch.

How does it feel to be a part of a band that spawned a new genre, nintendocore?
I don’t know…I think there’s bands that have been inspired by us, notably the band playing above us now [note: at the time the interview was conducted, Arsonists Get All The Girls were on stage], but I wouldn’t say it’s so much a genre, as a few bands that kinda are inspired by us [play it].  It’s not big enough to be a genre yet. I think when we first came out, it was a totally fresh sound, blowing everybody’s minds, and that was our initial success.  It’s been about six years since our first album came out, and we can’t keep shocking people with the same sound, we need to progress and move on.  We want to progress onto our next album to keep people digging it.

Are there any plans for a new record anytime soon?
Oh, well.  It’s uh, hard to even say right now.  The last one just came out, and we haven’t written anything else since then, and it’s a way’s off for sure.  I think it will probably have a lot of differences than our new album, and our new bassist and drummer will have more impact on our sound, and some of us have gotten into programming for music on our computers, so I can’t really say anything for sure, except there’s a lot of different ways it could go from here.

Do you have anything else that you’d like to share?
Uhhhh…haha.  I don’t know. Where is this for again? Oh, that’s right, ForTheSound. (Laughs) I don’t know.  I don’t have much to say right now, but I had a rough day.  I went to a deli that had meals, except they didn’t have single servings, except burgers, but I didn’t want a burger, and instead I got an omelet meant for four people, and it was like ten pounds or something, and I ate the whole thing.  I’ve been really sluggish today ever since.  I need energy.  I think it’ll work out though.  Hopefully I’ll have the energy to play our set!