Soulful Heavy Rock Dirge Merchants ..Horseneck Interview is up
1. This the 1st time I got to hear the mighty Horseneck on album. Give my readers at brief history of the band if you will.
So I, Anthony, play in Will Haven. At the time I started Horseneck, Will Haven wasn't doing very much. I started writing some songs and called my bass player friend Lennon and a drummer friend Matt to help me get it going. Started off a bit more rough and I didn't put a lot of thought into the songs. It was just going to be a fun side band to Will Haven. Well fast forward a couple years. I added a second guitar player Lance. And a new drummer Jess (who also plays drums in Chelsea Wolfe). We decided that we actually had some potential and wanted to take the band more serious. We started taking our time in the writing process and focusing more on the band and how we sounded. Then we recorded this full length album Heavy Trip.
2. The artwork for " Heavy trip " is very interesting to say the least . How does this play to the theme and story of the album?
Lance did all the art work. We all had some input into the design but he put it all together. We decided early on that we wanted a 70's vibe to the artwork and a female image. We definitely took a 70's vibe in the writing process as well. Jokingly someone said "this album takes you on a journey". So we can up with the cosmos idea and then the girl image. It kinda has a psychedelic feel to it. And I really love that stuff.
3. I wanted to talk about the video for " Michael Caine " as well I love the Animal costumes. How did the video come about and would you ever perform in those amazing customes live?
In the spirit of DIY we were loaned a Camera from a friend. We started messing with it to see how it worked and decided we should shoot a video while we have it. We were toying with the idea of wearing mascot style costumes for a photo shoot once but we never did it. So we rented the animal costumes and started filming. We thought that we didn't need a story line and we didn't need continuity if we were dressed up as animals running around drinking in different bars. But after we shot everything we found we did have a little bit of a story line. It showed itself to us while we were editing. We have never played live in those suits. We turned them back in once we were done renting them. We probably should have bought them haha.
4. In 4 simple words how would you explain the band to someone that has never heard Horseneck?
Heavy rock and roll.
5. I see this album " Heavy Trip" is total D.I.Y. was this by choice or did you not want to have to wait for a label to release it?
So we started the recording process without any label or support. After we finish the record I gave it out to some friends in the industry. They all seemed to love it and they passed it on to labels and we got some good responses and some good input. Instead of waiting for someone to make an offer we just decided to release it ourselves. We've all been in bands long enough to know how the system works. We are self managed. We make all our own decisions. We can do whatever we want. Which is really nice. We hired our own PR for the release and so far things have been working out great! We are just in need of a proper booking agent. That's the only thing we lack in experience and it takes a lot of time to book tours. But other than that we like doing everything ourselves.
6. Being from some well known projects like Will Haven and Chelsea Wolfe . How has the underground music scene change over the last decade in your Eyes. Is all you need is good PR and Strong outlet to Digital media ( You Tube, Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Itunes, Amazon, Facebook and Twitter Etc)?
The music scene and industry has changed so much in the last decade. It is still evolving as I type this. This album was sort of an experiment in releasing albums on our own. Hiring our own PR company was the best move we ever made. As long as you have digital distribution to get the music out you can release stuff on your own. I'm not against signing to a label at all. We just didn't want to keep waiting and we wanted to see what we could do on our own. Who knows maybe we will start our own label. Lance recorded our record and is part owner of his own studio called the Dock here in Sacramento. I feel like given the platform of social media and digital avenues for people to release music it lets people make more music. That keeps the underground alive. People have a voice.
7. What is a live show for Horse neck how does it differ from the studio sessions you create?
Live shows are loud. We love being loud. We love tone and loud tone. Haha. The record has keys and background singers and horns and stuff layered in. Most of the time when we play we just play as a 4 piece. 2 guitars bass drums and vocals. Stripped down. Like the way we wrote the songs. When we got into the studio and we could hear the songs we decided to elaborate on them and add in all these other instruments. Which is awesome for us to give us options when we perform. If the song is good it will be good stripped down to the basics.
8. How does Image play a role in promotion and press with underground music in 2017? I seems to coming back to importance to some?
Image as a band isn't something we focus on much. Imagery is though. The artwork is important. But as for the band image we keep it simple. We do like to control our photos. We like to make all our photos a little strange. The last couple promo pics we had we actually shot ourselves and then edited them to make them look kinda fucked up and off.
9. If you could Collab and Tour with any Project or Artist who would it be and why?
Damn thats tough. We all like so much music. I feel like we could tour with Queens of the stone age, The Refused, Clutch, Red Fang, Stuff like that. I would like to collaborate with any of those bands. I would love to collaborate with just about any 70's rock bands. Actually we have talked about possible collaborating with this old 60's rhythm and blues rock and roll singer. I don't want to say who it is just in case it doesn't happen. We are alway open to collaborating with all kinds of people.
10. What music and books are impressing the band in Feb 2017?
I can only speak for myself here. haha. Ive been digging on the Brant Bjork album. Tao of the Devil. That album is super groovy. I love it. I like Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats. There are so many new bands out right now killing it.
11. If the members of Horseneck could be in a band currently active who would it be and why?
Again I can only speak for myself on this one. If your asking me if could play in another band that is currently active at the moment I would have to say maybe Queens of the stone age. Or maybe the Deftones. haha I don't know man.
12. If Horseneck could make a soundtrack for TV Show or Movies what would you like to do. As you music and vocals I think would really fit for some great ideas..
A soundtrack to a phycological thriller based in the 70's haha. Thats a tough question.
13. If you could make a suggestion to bands that are about to release their 1st material what would to tell them before they make that jump?
I would say be confident in what your releasing. Make sure as a band your happy with what your about to release. You never know how the public will take your music. But the only way to know is to make it and release it.
14. What is the music scene like in Northern Calif in 2017 is it still thriving or hard to find venues and proper scene?
The music scene in northern California has definitely gotten better over the last couple years. We need some more all ages clubs but I heard some people are working on that. We have some decent clubs and we have some really good promoters these days getting our city some really good shows. Shows all across the genres of music. We have this one club Starlite with this guy Chris from the band Chrch just killing it with the stoner/doom/psych metal shows. Then we have Ace of Spades which has more mainstream stuff but they are killing it as well.
15. Were do you see the future of Horseneck sound heading I love the mix of Hardcore, Soul, Noise rock and a Dirty Heavy rock almost Doom sound?
We actually have written a ton of new songs. I think we have like 5 or 6 songs we demo'd. Some of the songs are a bit darker maybe a bit more doom. But I think most of the stuff is similar. Sort of that rock and roll with hardcore and some soul influence as well. We don't want to wait forever to keep releasing new music. So any chance we get to write and record we take it.
16. Is there a reason to not have a proper website and just focus on Facebook and Bandcamp ?
We started making a website but we just kinda dropped it. I mean with social media now you don't really need a website. We have Facebook instagram twitter youtube and bandcamp. If your looking for us you can find any information on those pages. When I look up a band these days I rarely check their web page if they even have one. Most times if you check a bands website and you want to hear their songs or get more information it links you to one of their social media pages anyways.
17. Thank you for the time any closing thoughts here
Thanks so much for the support we really appreciate it.
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