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	Interview with Torso Horse (page 3)
	Pete: Coming back to the actual creation of the music, can you tell us a little bit about your working routine, how you practise, individually, personally, collectively, how do you do it? Steve: Individually, for me, because I have a day job which is not to do with the band, when I get in from work, it's usually do what has to be done, then pick up the guitar and listen to quite a varied selection of music, and either play along with the CD or a drum track or just to myself. And make sure that I've got it down so that when we practise together ... Pete: You're ready. Steve: ... we're doing something constructive. And then when we get together as a three, that's when it happens creatively. Pete: And you start developing on that, presumably. Steve: Yeah. And that's something that's endless. Adam: I find personally with me, I get big bursts of creativity. As Steve and James will both be finding, at the moment I've had a bit of a burst where I've written a lot of riffs and things. It never really happens for me where you're constantly writing, but when you do you always get a thousand ideas at once and never quite know what to do with every one, and you have to take a step back and say, "Right, where am I going to put this? Where am I going to put that?" And then you come to the practice room and say, "Right, let's try this and see how that works." In my general practice routine, I'll pick up the guitar and I'll just play whatever I feel like at the time. I never really take a straight routine, because it's never really been what I've personally felt comfortable doing. I feel more comfortable picking it up and saying, "Right, today I feel like doing this," whether it's writing or just practising the songs that we're playing every day. Elain: You do a bit of teaching as well, though, which helps. Adam: Yeah. Teaching is an excellent way to go about things, because I find myself having to learn things that I maybe wouldn't have learnt myself if I wasn't showing them to somebody else. Which I've found has been very helpful. Because when I was getting taught guitar personally, I had one guitar teacher who then left and moved to Scotland, and I spent two years without a guitar teacher, and picked up all the bad habits you could ever imagine. And then my next teacher came to me and straightened out all my bad habits, but I think in a way I was kind of stunted with what I was doing by the fact that I went for two years without a teacher. And I felt personally that I was doing great, but then you get your next guitar teacher and he goes, "Right, you need to sort that out, and you need to sort that out, and you need to sort that out." And for that reason, I've always felt that it's quite important with my lessons to try and push myself while I'm pushing anybody that I'm teaching. Pete: What sort of age range are you teaching? Adam: At the moment, I'm teaching a guy who's I think seventeen now? Either seventeen or eighteen, he's in the sixth form at school, anyway. And he's come on in leaps and bounds, he's a real natural. It's been a pleasure teaching him, really. I was teaching somebody who was very young, unfortunately his arms weren't quite long enough to reach the top of the guitar neck, so he kind of disappeared into the wilderness and I never found out quite what happened to him. (laughs) But he used to drag his friends up to band practice, and he seemed more interested in showing them what was going on with Torso Horse. But I know what it was like to be that age, because when I started playing guitar, that was very much the age that I was at, where you've got so many different things going on. But one thing that I will say about playing guitar for me was that when I was at that age where you had all the different things going on, I went through so many phases, and guitar was the one thing that I actually took on and stuck at. Pete: Do you go through routines like scales and all of that? Adam: Yeah, I've started playing my scales a hell of a lot. There was a while there where I didn't, really, because you can sometimes get wrapped up in ... Pete: You're riffing and things. Adam: Yeah, well not just that, but you can almost get a bit wrapped up in the lifestyle and working on what your next achievement is, and you have to come back to your roots sometimes and go back to that. I've never really dabbled in soloing at all, and just recently I've played around a bit with that, which I never think that I'll be doing a real lot of because it's not really what we're about. But it has been nice and it's stretched me to start working on some fast solos and things. I've started incorporating that into riff-writing and things, so you've got some bits in there that ... it's always nice to play a bit of something where people go, "Wow, how are you doing that?" (laughs) Elaine: James the drummer, he rehearses his drums for about two hours every day, doesn't he. He puts the headphones on and puts some music on, and he obviously has very understanding neighbours. But when the band get together, you tend to practise for a day at a time, don't you? Like marathon band rehearsals, where they go through the set several times. Pete: Because you all live fairly close together, don't you, in a sense? Steve: Yeah, within a radius, Bridlington being the middle, James comes from Hull side, me from Pickering. Pete: Twenty-five, thirty mile radius or something like that. Adam: I think it's good though, because there's a certain level of appreciation, bringing it all together. Steve: I think that the thing is that when we do meet up, there's an understanding that, right, let's not mess about. Adam: It's work time, isn't it. Pete: You're not there to discuss the weather. Adam: You leave practising like you've been through a boxing match. Pete: We've touched a little bit on this already, but I think that a lot of what you've got to say is real helpful to bands who are at a much earlier stage than you are. Steve: Yeah. The other thing I'd like to add maybe for anybody who is starting out on guitar as far as scales go, is that it's helpful to understand, but it's not the be-all and end-all. If somebody's enjoying the sound they're getting from the guitar, then what the hell. The scales will unfold as you go on if you keep an interest. That might be helpful. Pete: Just going back to the more business side of things, I think that you've explained that you've had great support via Tony K, Native, better distribution companies and so on. You mentioned a fairly major chain before we started this recording who recently got involved. How's that worked out? Adam: Well, with the MVC connection, they've basically decided to do a full-scale out of the UK, which means they'll be stocking every store with a number of albums. Which is very good for us, because it means people are able to, in pretty much all the major cities in the UK, walk in and look in record stores and pick it up. Pete: Will they draw attention to that, or will you draw attention to that? Adam: I think it'll be a joint effort, we think. Because it's obviously in their best interests to make a point. Elain: We got the call today to say that they love the album. Adam: But they're also very pleased, because the last album sold ... apparently, all the shops that they stocked with the old album sold out and had to re-order, which worked very much in our favour. Pete: And that's national, isn't it? Adam: Yeah. Pete: Tell us a bit about your favourite gigs so far. Where have you had your best laughs, whatever, or the most notable or memorable, maybe for better reasons, I don't know. Elaine: Cleethorpes is always a wonderful gig, we always get a few hundred turn out to that one, a very enthusiastic crowd. The first time we played Cleethorpes we doubled our mailing list, for instance. Adam: They've just got the music scene completely to a tee there. Everybody's very supportive and very appreciative of the music scene, which is a hard thing to come by. Plenty of nightclubs sell a lot of tickets on the night, they'll bring a few in, even like a thousand people a night in. Gig support for a lot of people doesn't go very well. We're very lucky in that instance, because there always seems to be somebody turn out for our gigs. But I know a lot of people who don't have that pleasure, and it is a real struggle is the live music scene. It's getting better, I think, but that's a different conversation altogether. Yeah, Cleethorpes is very good, they're also supportive out of the gigs with the street team and things like that, you can always send them flyers and they'll distribute flyers. Pete: You've got your infrastructure there already, it's pretty substantial. Elaine: We recently played the Sheffield Corporation. We were the support band with Acy Slade from the Murder Dolls, his new band. Mainly it was people who turned out to see Acy Slade's new band. But they were a perfect crowd for us, and we got as good a response, if not better. Luckily the record company turned out to that gig, and they saw all the crowd running up to the band and hugging them, getting autographs, buying merchandise, and it was really good, the record company said, because there was a name in the room, and yet people were as interested in my band as they were in the main band. We kept a lot of people from that who joined up to the mailing list and keep in constant touch with us now. Adam: I think all the gigs have had something unique to offer, haven't they, whether it's been strange or whether it's been just very exciting. Elaine: We decided it was time to play London, and the record company were going to keep us out of London for now, but we decided that the time was right. And it was a good thing to do, because Total Rock Radio asked for guest list places at the gig, and they came down, and loved it, and offered us a Total Rock sponsored tour and all this sort of thing. And since then we've been on the show, done interviews, and we get lots of airplay there now, so it was a good move for us to do that. And it's time for us to go back again really, isn't it. Steve: It does feel a little bit, to me anyway, a little bit alien. I enjoyed it, but I think the Sheffield gig was my favourite one, just because it happened. There wasn't an expectation to it. Whereas the London one was more like, we're going to do a job, and make our mark, in a way. Which is good, but I don't think it's good for every northern band to think they have to go and do that journey for nothing. Pete: Just by the by, I read a real interesting comment in a thing called Audience Magazine which is a fairly recent thing, from a guy who's fairly young, but he's got a pretty prominent fast as a promoter, and he was saying just that. He said, "Don't play London unless you're from London. There's no point." And I think there's a lot to be said for that. Elain: That was our way of thinking for a long time. Adam: There's one big advantage to London, and that's where industry are. So it's good for getting industry to gigs. So really that's the biggest part ... Pete: Does it work, though? Adam: Well, it did for us. I wouldn't say it would work for everybody though. I think it's something that we had to do for that point in time, because there was a lot of people like Total Rock Radio hearing a lot about us, but didn't really know anything about us. It's always good to go and meet these people. Steve: I think anybody who's interested should go and try it. Adam: It's certainly not the be-all and end-all, because it's the fan base that's important. Steve: Yeah. And as far as feeling satisfied with everybody enjoying what you've done and everything, it doesn't matter how far you're going necessarily, whether you're going twenty miles down the road, or two hundred. It's not like a pot of gold. Elain: I think it is time to go back there now though, because a lot of the people who have signed up to our mailing list as a result of seeing the video on the telly, it's remarkable how many of them are from what we'd class as London - by that I'm talking about Essex ... Pete: Home Counties. Elain: Yeah. But I think we're now getting people who travel to gigs. We're playing Manchester for instance, and a lot of people that aren't from Manchester are going to that gig. And it's like there are certain places where people turn out, they go to see Slipknot in Manchester, so they're coming to see us in Manchester. And the same thing would happen in London from all the surrounding areas. Adam: I think that very much proves the point that we're making, that now it is a case of going two hundred miles to play to a crowd that want to see us. Steve: Yeah, I think travelling is good, in getting out to different places, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to. It depends what your goals are, I suppose. Adam: But on the travelling side of things, I think we've really had a good run of it, and it's certainly been interesting with some of the places that we've seen, and especially some of the people we've met. We've met some real characters, haven't we? Steve: Yeah, long may it continue. Elaine: Recently we've played in a town in the middle of the Welsh mountains, didn't you? Adam: Yeah, that was extremely ... (laughs) it was really nice actually, everybody round there was extremely friendly. Like scarily friendly. What you're not used to in everyday life. And there was one guy who offered to play synth in our band, wasn't there? Who was aptly named Crazy Will. Elain: That came about as a result of getting airplay on a Welsh radio station from the same town. And I just happened to be searching the internet one day, and I found a list of links to different radio stations that would play your stuff. And they were all American apart from this one. So I got in touch with this one, and it turned out it was in Wales. They started playing the songs, they started streaming the video, and then after that they invited us to play this festival. And so we already had a following when we arrived there, as a result of the radio. Pete: The Goth thing that you've done before of course, people come in from all over the country to that one, the Whitby Goth thing. Elain: They come from abroad as well to that. Pete: Europe, yeah. Adam: I think that the most interesting comment that came from the Whitby Goth Weekend, there was a review and I think it was actually a Norwegian magazine or something like that. They printed something and the guy said, "This type of music is normally the type of music that I'll travel thousands of miles to avoid". But then he went on to say how amazed he was by the band and how much he enjoyed the performance, and I think that's something very special on face value. Elain: At the end of the review, he said, "If I were a record company, I'd be seriously thinking about slapping a lavish contract under Torso Horse's noses," didn't he? So from a beginning like that where he said he'd normally travel many miles to avoid it, it was a really good response. Adam: I think that was what really impressed him, it was something that he normally wouldn't give a chance, but having heard it, I think it meant something very special to him, because he was saying, "I'm hearing this type of music that I don't like, and I feel like somebody should be saying, give this band a chance." Pete: Is all of your touring organised yourselves, do you use agents at all? Elaine: No, we could do with an agent now actually, it's getting to that. We're doing so many jobs ourselves that it would be nice if somebody would take some of the workload off us. But again, until that happens, it's just something that we have to get on and do ourselves. Pete: Do you think you could find a specialist music industry agent, quotation marks, that would understand your music and work hard for you, or do you think that it's more likely to be, I don't know, a friend or a fan who would become an agent? Elain: It's funny you should say that, because on the way here we were just talking about one of the London street teamers who's absolutely fantastic on the telephone and very persuasive, not afraid to haggle, whether that's because he's from London and you go down Camden Market and never pay full price for anything, sort of thing. But we were just saying how good he would be at that job. So perhaps that would be the way to do it. Pete: It's something in discussion ...? Elaine: Yeah. Pete: What do you want to achieve as a band? What's the future for the band? Steve: In a way, I'd like not to know. But that's such an evasive answer, isn't it? Pete: Well no, it's a good one, but go on. Steve: It would be excellent if I could earn a living from doing something that I really enjoy doing, and travel to different places, which puts a spin on what I was just saying about not having to travel, but that's up to the individual. Yeah, I'd love to see places and do it, and not have to do ... Adam: Manual work (laughs) Steve: No, it's not that, but it would be really nice if there was a way of getting a sustainable income from it. That's my situation. Pete: Sure. Adam? Adam: I think for me, I've put my all into this so I'd like to see it go all the way. Exactly what Steve said, and I think it's all just down to appreciation. One thing I do look forward to is the day where there's not too much anticipation before gigs, with them organising themselves in a way. I think what I look forward to with the live work is to walk out there, and be able to concentrate on being a band and going out there, instead of saying, "Well, how do you think tonight will go?" and all those kind of things. I've to go back to what Steve said at the start, you'd almost like not to know and for it to be a surprise, because you wouldn't do if it you knew what you were getting at the end of it, because you're working towards a goal, and you never really know exactly what that goal is. Steve: I think the thing is, I think we're already proving that from a local level you can achieve things that even a year ago, myself, I would have thought, no way. It proves that if you put the hard work in, then things are possible. Pete: And your heart. Steve: And your heart. The heart side of it is the point that you carry on doing it whatever, and it doesn't matter. If it stays just as it is, that's cool. Pete: I have to ask you this, but ... what advice to other bands or musicians would you give? Adam: Don't listen to everything you hear, or even don't listen to what people say about you. Because there's a lot of people in the music industry that want to play people down. It's something that I think the music industry almost does to filter out people. To make sure that only the people who are very serious about it get somewhere. I think there's naturally this thing for bands at a very low level that when you try and break through, you get people purposely trying to bring them down, to put them in their place. So for a start, don't listen to criticism. Especially not from ... on a local level, you can sometimes find that you do get criticism from other bands and things like that when you start doing something a bit different. If you believe in what you're doing, don't listen to what anybody else tells you. If you think it's good, and you think you've got a shot at it, then take your shot. It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. Steve: Yeah. I would say from my angle, if it's something that is your heart's desire, that you want to do, don't forget why you started with it, and don't take it too seriously. Elain: It's very hard work, and opportunities don't just happen. You've got to make them happen. And you've got to constantly ... Every time you move on to the next level, where you think you're going to be satisfied, you find yourself just hungry for something more than that. And so it's constantly uphill, all the way. And you have to keep working at it, because people don't put opportunities in your way. You have to go and seek them out. Pete: All right. In conclusion, what questions would you ask of yourselves, what have I missed? If you were in my position, what would you be asking of yourselves? Adam: That is quite a difficult question, actually. Elain: Do you want to talk anything about the image? Adam: Yeah, I suppose that's a question that a lot of people ask, and it's strange that you haven't. It's almost quite nice that you haven't, because it's something that constantly gets questioned in the wrong way, because I think people sometimes get the wrong idea about it. And the whole image of the band with the wearing the face paint and things, it's not about anything apart from expression. Especially coming from the roots where I come from, where at school I was bullied for being different and things, for me the image is very much about saying, "This is the most extreme that we can do. If you didn't like that, then how do you like this?" It's got nothing to do with any comedy value or anything like that, or anything strange, it's simply about individuality. Elain: Being allowed to be different. Adam: I think it helps a lot of our fan base out, because it shows that you can be who you want to be to any extreme, and it's still all right. Steve: Well, it is kind of a theatre at the end of the day, isn't it? It goes beyond what your fingers are doing and what your voice is doing and the rest. And I think that on a level even before you've begun to get on to stage, some people will come up to you and say, "You've made the effort to put all of that on your face. To look interesting as well as sounding good." Pete: The point is that individuality is self-expression, as well as collective expression, is what you're saying without putting into words. Adam: Yeah. Steve: And I think another point of view is that if I'm actually standing up there and playing, it was something that was quite extraordinary to me to begin with, coming from the rockabilly background. But then when I got used to it, it's like a different persona when you get on to a stage and play. When you're like that, it's ... Adam: It's because it's like a battle outfit, isn't it? Steve: Yeah, there's a sense of freedom to it somehow, taking on another role. So that's good. Adam: I think that everything that we go through, whether it's from parties that we hold or anything, it's always been a very anything-goes atmosphere, because it's a point of release. You're being who you want to be, you're being your own person, it can make for some very interesting times. But it's really good fun, and I think that in truth it's, everybody's, from a suit-wearing businessman to a schoolteacher's, dream is to just be able to say one day, "Well, fuck it. I'm just going to do whatever I want to do." Obviously as long as you're not hurting anybody else doing it, it's nice to be able to let go for that time. Pete: Yeah. You've demonstrated that. Adam: So I think that's all I can offer on that one. It's a very simple answer, it's about individuality. Pete: Anything else? Steve: I think we've about covered everything. Adam: Yeah, I feel like we've covered it. Pete: Thank you very much. Let's have another pint ........
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