Horse Thief: “There's a way to talk about love and a way to talk about depression and not make it sound cheesy”

- Photo by Doug Schwarz

Cameron Neal is a tad outside the box of the contemporary American music scene. Despite being in his early twenties, his mind is stuck somewhere between 1970 and ’72.

He’s got a modern take on life and realises he’s in an indie band in 2013, but musically Jerry Garcia is still alive and Neil Young wasn’t yet the target of ‘Sweet Home Alabama’. Perhaps it’s fitting, then, that Best Fit recently held a phone conversation with Neal, the lead singer and guitarist for Oklahoma’s Horse Thief. After all, Best Fit ain’t about today’s American Top 40.

And, as it turns out, Neal isn’t either. “That’s one of my biggest problems with Top 40 – it’s all about the same thing,” he states. “There’s a way to talk about love and a way to talk about depression and not make it sound cheesy. You can make it sound real where somebody listening to it can actually feel an emotion and feel connected to you in some way. If you’re not writing about emotions, or you’re not writing about something that people can connect to, I don’t understand how people could connect to your music.”

Feeling a connection to music is one of the two keys to understanding Horse Thief. Like any songwriter striving to create some sort of lasting impact, Neal understands having an emotional relationship with songs is why you listen to music in the first place – even if it means having a bond with Taylor Swift. “Music is music,” he says, “and if someone connects to songs, then they should listen to them. I hope people feel the same way about us.”

As to whether Taylor Swift (as a microcosm of commercialized music) is something he’d consider ‘bad music,’ he replies, “My definition of bad music? I mean, I don’t necessarily know if there is. To my taste, there is bad music, but that’s with everyone. But I can appreciate what they’re doing, their hard work, their art. And if there’s an emotional impact that’s being caused by it, then there is true inspiration that’s making them do it. But I don’t think it’s bad music necessarily.” So, while Neal doesn’t exactly find a great source of solace in Billboard-ready composition, he does at least appreciate its value to others. That is to say, at a minimum he’s open to differing interpretations of life.

Which brings us to the other key to understanding Horse Thief: interpretation. Let’s start with the band’s name. “When we went up to Colorado to write and record [Grow Deep, Grow Wild], we pulled out this big map of all these local hiking trails and we went through all these different names,” recalls Neal. “Horse Thief was one of the names that we saw first, and it kind of just stuck and beat everything else out.” When asked what the name means, he answers, “It kinda puts an image into your head. The name sounds like a country/western band, but I think it’s beyond that as far as the music goes.”

Going beyond expectations (and interpretations) is what seems to make Neal tick. He states early on that he wants Oklahoma to be known for more than the stereotypical image of and cowboy boots and tumbleweeds. Not only that, Neal believes Oklahoma to be the next big music scene: “That’s what’s growing. There aren’t a million bands playing (here), and the bands that are playing are all friends with each other. It doesn’t matter what type of music it is. We’re supporting what everyone is doing as far as art.”

You might notice that when Neal speaks of Oklahoma, it’s almost pure adoration – much like the way you’d talk about a loving mother. Which is noteworthy given that the three original members of Horse Thief aren’t from the Sooner State, but from Texas. Formed under the Tellavators, the band played for three years in the area before deciding to make the move to Oklahoma in order to attend the Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma(ACM@UCO). The band, then a trio, was lucky enough to be able to move together to the same place. When the band left Texas, they also left their name. “We were young when we named ourselves the Tellavators, and I don’t think that’s what we all wanted to stick with,” Neal reflects. Thus, Horse Thief was (re)born – so much so that if you them ask where the band is from, they will respond with Oklahoma. I then ask if Neal considers Oklahoma to be the band’s home now. He replies, “Yes, I think so. At first, when we moved up there, we didn’t know what to expect. In the few years we’ve lived here, Oklahoma’s kind of adopted us.”

Adoption is a good word for the band, not only with regard to their home, but in their sound, as well. The band themselves state that they play “psychedelic folk rock.” The adoption part comes in when you begin to spot influences that aren’t exactly current. The two most obvious influences are Neil Young and American Beauty-era Grateful Dead. Says Neal, “I definitely grew up in a very ‘hippy’ atmosphere. It’s just a natural influence. I mean, I was into that before I was even born, in the womb. So, as my life progressed, I really understood it and latched onto it because it felt like me. And I hope we can bring a modern-day version of that.”

It’s clear from the interview, as well as performance footage, that Neal is speaking about the band beyond the recording studio. In fact, Neal believes HT are truly in their element on stage. “hat’s one of the main things we’re focusing on: trying to capture the way we do it live and get the same emotion people are feeling at our shows,” he offers. “That’s how we all feel – we all just wanna be on the road 250 days of the year. That’s what we’re shooting for right now.”

Photo by Doug Schwarz

But there’s more to it than just enjoying the thrill of being on the road. There’s also a different ambiance live, not only because it’s in-person but also because interpretation of the songs changes slightly. “You make a record and you play that record live – people don’t want to hear it that way,” Neal explains. “They wanna hear something a little bit different, and that’s why they come to see you live. There are so many bands I go see and I’m like, ‘If I wanted to pay $15 to come see you, I woulda just turned your record up louder.’” He chuckles at his own joke for a moment, then continues. “If someone paid $15 for the record and then paid $15 for the show, I wanna give ‘em another experience to take home with them The difference is the atmosphere that you’re adding. If you’re not feeling your own music, people can tell that in a live setting. The more you’re willing to put into a live show, the more people are willing to let go.”

This is, of course, to say nothing of the fact that a career-oriented band like Horse Thief needs the road to survive financially – a reality that Neal recognizes all too well. Indeed, he readily acknowledges that Horse Thief won’t make enough money to pay bills from record sales, both because of the current attitude towards rock music in America, and because most indie bands “aren’t making money off records.” Instead, Neal argues that even the biggest indie bands are only “making good money from playing festivals, being on the road and from merchandise.” He believes that Horse Thief face the same situation, but he looks at it with optimism: “We’ll play where anyone wants us to play. We just want to be able to do this as a living. If we have to do it by playing on the road, that’s great.”

After all, it’s that we-belong-on-the-road mentality that landed them a release deal with Bella Union. Bella Union boss Simon Raymonde caught Horse Thief’s set at SXSW last year, took them on the road and then offered them a deal to release their forthcoming EP, as well as a full-length in the future. Landing a deal with the London-based record company is only the beginning for Horse Thief’s European excursions, though. After they release their EP this spring, which is essentially a reworking of Grow Deep, the band plans to tour Europe this coming fall, then put out a full-length early next year and tour Europe again. They might even try to fit a U.S. tour in there, as well.

If you happen to catch Horse Thief live, hopefully they will have better luck with the police in foreign lands than they do at home. In the U.S., Horse Thief have a reputation for being shut down by the cops. “We actually just got shut down twice in Austin . It’s so random,” Neal comments. “And when it happens in Oklahoma, it’s always when we’re playing ‘Warrior,’ which is a song about Oklahoma.” If you don’t quite understand how a band that plays ‘70s folk rock could be a target for the authorities, Neal’s right there with you: “I don’t know, maybe it’s the circumstances, maybe it’s the people at the house parties. It just always seems to happen. And I think our live show is a little bit more aggressive than the record is. That’s something that we’re working for the next album – trying to capture the intensity of the live show.”

Grow Deep, Grow Wild is available now through Bella Union.