Following almost a year of touring around Australia, Sydney five piece Bad Pony have put together their debut EP! Tomatrax caught up with Jarred Young from the band to ask a few questions.
How did the band form?
Sam & I started writing together while we were playing in another band. I was the drummer and wasn't very comfortable singing, but Sam encouraged me a lot. We recorded "Sucker" in 2012, sent it around via email and it ended up in the hands of a touring company who recruited us for a month long tour. We had only a few weeks to put a band together so chose our best muso mates with the intention of forming a band of multi-instrumentalists to play all the parts we had written. As time went by, we had a hard time holding down drummers. We didn't want to slow down and not rehearse so Sam started playing kick drum to keep time and I put down my guitar and went back to drums and slowly added more percussive elements. It was a long process but we've had this drummer-less set up for about a year and a half now and it's so much more challenging and exciting than a traditional band format.
Where did the name Bad Pony come from?
This is how my hilariously smug father recalls it:
Sam was looking in a magazine and picked out two words: "angry" and "pony" and texted me (Jarred) the potential band name. I read Sam's text aloud (as most people do when they receive a text.....) and Dad suggested "how about 'Bad Pony'?" In truth, my dad just inserted himself into the lackluster story of how the name came about.
You've just released your debut EP, what's it like to have it out?
It's a big relief. It's been a long time in the making and we avoided putting out our music for so long because of line up changes and the set up change. It's exciting finally having our music out in the world!
Was it hard to pick what made it onto the EP?
We've been constantly recording for the last couple of years so we do have a stockpile of songs. We chose these songs as they're a tip of the hat to where we've come from as a band and where we're going. We try to write genre-free and I think this EP reflects that. It feels like there's cohesion in it's lack there of.
What made you pick Limbo as the title track?
We actually named the EP before the song. We named the EP limbo as the lyrical themes reflect uncertainty in one way or another. Also the moods of the songs can reflect either 'Limbo': the super fun party game or 'Limbo': the feeling of being caught between two places. It seems to sum up the diversity of the tracks quite nicely.
Where was the video for 'White Russian' recorded?
The White Russian video was a pretty fun project. It's just a big piss take. There's a website called fiverr where people list services they're willing to provide for $5. There's some pretty weird shit on there so I chose the most out there listings and got footage from all around the world. We then spliced some footage of ourselves being idiots in there too. We had a good time but next time round I think we'll have a bigger budget to make something a bit better looking, and we'll actually get some footage of us playing!
What was the inspiration behind the EP's front cover?
A good friend of ours Caitlin Platt is the artist. We were going through her portfolio and the image really jumped out at us.
Each song on the EP covers various musical sounds over their duration, is it the band's intention to write songs that have so many musical twists and turns?
We try to keep genre out of the picture when we write to let us create freely and without confining ourselves to a certain sound. We have so many different individual tastes and preferences but we all gel quite well at the same time. We just want to create catchy pop music with little nuances that make it musically interesting.
When you start writing music do you have any idea what direction the song is going to take?
When we bring songs into the rehearsal space they almost can't end up how we wrote them initially. Having our strange percussion set up means that we have to re-arrange songs more than your traditional set up would. It's a really fun process though and we usually just keep throwing around ideas until something sticks and we're happy with the song as a whole.
Do you ever listen to your own music?
As self indulgent as it sounds, yes. I think you have to so you can critique it, improve it and eventually be happy with it!
What other music do you listen to?
My personal local picks at the moment are Swim Season, WHARVES, Halcyon Drive, Jakarta Criers, Evangeline & All Our Exes Live in Texas. We've had the pleasure of being able to play with some of them on this tour! My all time favourites would have to be Thrice, Michael Jackson, Local Natives & Manchester Orchestra.
Now that the EP is out what do you plan on doing next?
We're going to keep touring until the year is out and release a whole lot more music and play a bunch more shows next year. We love what we do and don't plan on slowing down anytime soon!
