Posted on June 30, 2010 - by Mark Zonda

From Beatles to Horses

Race Horses: yet another wonder from Wales mixing up brilliant cool psychedelia with beat, colliding Syd Barret with Franz Ferdinand like they were Oblivion Dust pretending to be The Dukes of Stratosfear. “Goodbye Falkenberg”, their debut album coming with a proper psychic cover, was welcomed by the indie tribe as a Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci resurrection. Still listening to their previous “Man in my mind” EP I hope they’ll persist on keep on goin’ on a more “blurred” direction. Anyway, here they are for a scary interview.

Mark Zonda: Race Horses, how your band was born and what music has to do with horses anyway?

Alun Gaffey: In a 7 year period during the 80s, 4 different women gave birth to 4 boys. Those boys ended up meeting and forming a band. 2 years later they put an album out called Goodbye Falkenberg. Music has EVERYTHING to do with horses!

Dylan Huges: Well,it goes like this… Me and Meilyr were in a school band together and Gaff, who was at uni in Aberystwyth, joined. After our ex-drumer left, Gwion joined about a year and a half ago and we were finally ‘Race Horses’. Meilyr came up with the name and i think we felt it sort of captured the energy and the excitement of the band! We did consult some horses and they thought it was a good name as well!

Mark Zonda: Whispers and horses, what’s the deal with that? What do they have to whisper anyway?

Dylan Huges: I’m not too sure. They’re probably whispering about the economy and spending cuts… stuff like that.

Mark Zonda: Did you made “Cake” for “Tax Men”?

Alun Gaffey: No but I get what you mean.

Dylan Huges: It was mainly a song for tax payers!

Mark Zonda: Why in your opinion so many years has passed and nobody was more succesful in doin’ good music other than Beatles?

Dylan Huges: There’s been plenty of good music i think since the Fab 4 stopped, although not as successful. I’m not too sure why, probably because they just wrote great melodies and were pioneers in the studio. For a more detailed answer read “Shout” by Phillip Norman!

Alun Gaffey: No one has written better songs than Paul McCartney wrote. Technology may have changed but a good melody beats everything.

Mark Zonda: A-ah! So you admitt that McCartney was better than Lennon! Who’s the James Paul in the band?

Alun Gaffey: Definitely, although Lennon was great too. Just wikipedia’d “James Paul”. You’re either referring to James Paul the American conductor who is currently the music director and conductor of The Shedd Institute’s Oregon Festival of American Music (OFAM). Or you COULD be referring to “James Paul McCartney” of Paul McCartney fame. Either way, I think Mei is definitely the James Paul of the band.

Mark Zonda: “Last Boat to Dover” is such a joyful track, combining Blur, Kinks, Of Montreal and whatever makes pop music worst of having lived our lives. The arrangement is so complex, yet catchy. How things worked in studio? Who are the men behind the consolle?

Alun Gaffey: The men behind the console during the making of that behemoth were Frank Naughton, engineer, and Dave Wrench, mixing. We all went to Frank’s place in Cardiff to record B-sides for the Man In My Mind EP, did that particular one using a range of decent synths, home made fuzz pedals, organs, etc. The end product is what you hear on the vinyl record.

Dylan Huges: Last Boat to Dover really came together in an afternoon in the studio. Like most of our songs, we never really try to overplay them live or anything before recording just let them develop out of spontanious ideas and experiments at the time. The basic songs was written and worked out the night before around Mei’s piano, then in the studio there was a home-made fuzz overdrive lying around a that helped kick things off. Gaff met a violin player the night before in a bar, so we just phoned her and she came down to the studio and layerd the strings for the chorus.
We tend to bounce ideas between the four of us in the studio and go with ideas that work well together on a track.

Mark Zonda: Is the violin player now married with any of you?

Dylan Huges: No she’s not – she left in a taxi a we haven’t spoken since!

Mark Zonda: Oh! Such a shame! Disappeared in mysterious Cardiff! Talking ’bout which… The city got definitely popular because of Captain Jack. Do Race Horses love Science Fiction?

Alun Gaffey: Another job for Wikipedia. Captain Jack… Hmmm… You’re probably referring to Torchwood and not Pirates of the Carribean. I wouldn’t say that Race Horses as a band are massively into Science Fiction. We’re more into the works of Steve Coogan, Armando Ianucci, Chris Morris, Charlie Brooker, etc. Clever comedy, basically.

Mark Zonda: You’re doing an impressive number of shows around Albion this summer. Is that a symptom that you’re band is goin’ reallly succesful and you’re music is goin’ to be top of the pop?

Dylan Huges: I hope so! it’s also a symptom of getting a good live agent!

Alun Gaffey: Whatever happens, it promises to be a really fun summer. Playing such festivals as Latitude, Wakestock, Bestival. I’d better fix my tent pole, one of the joints cracked last summer so I need a new one.

Mark Zonda: Why not Indietracks?

Alun Gaffey: Another job for the internet, this time Google. “Indie Tracks”, oh right it’s a festival in the Midlands. Looks great. Don’t know why we’re not playing it sorry. Oh we do have two festivals on that same weekend. Gwyl y Ffin which is in Mold on the 24th, and on the 25th we’re playing Gwyl Gardd Goll which is in Y Faenol, Bangor, where the
Radio 1 Big Weekend was recently held. See you there.

Race Horses – “Daughter nowhere”

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