TLOBF Interview :: Race Horses

Cut from the same psych-pop cloth as fellow Welsh brethren’s Super Furry Animals and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Race Horses are the proud owners of one of 2010′s most entertaining pop records so far. Jon Bauckham caught up with Dylan Hughes and Meilyr Jones prior to a recent show in Bristol to talk pop culture, growing up in Aberystwyth and plans for the future.

How long have you been known as ‘Race Horses’? You were ‘Radio Luxembourg’ up until fairly recently, right?
Dylan Hughes: About a year ago I think. We had some legal difficulties with the name, but we also acquired new drummer so it just felt natural to change it anyway.

Meilyr Jones: Yeah, we had a new squad coming through. I think ‘Race Horses’ sounds quite energetic and enthusiastic, but I think we also really liked the gambling connotations of the name… all being mean poker players of course!

‘Radio Luxembourg’ has associations with ‘60s pop culture. Is that something that particularly fits your image now?
M: Maybe not so much anymore. I think more recently, since making the album [Goodbye Falkenburg] we’ve got not so much more interested in making modern music but less interested in looking back and having one single view of music. It’s just so varied these days; we’re more willing to be adventurous with how we approach the writing process.

Although the album was only released last month, you’ve actually been together for quite a while now haven’t you?
D: We formed after a load of different bands at school split up and came together. I guess we’ve been a band since about 2005, but the line-up has changed a few times since.

M: It’s weird, because most bands go through a ‘teething process’. They don’t tend to record much, play some shit gigs, go through one or two line-ups and then do well or whatever. With us, we always wanted to put records out and not necessarily do many gigs.

What was it like working with David Wrench on the album?
D: It was really, really cool! He’s not just a great producer but a life mentor as well!

M: I think he’s influenced and changed the way we approach making music. I remember him playing us loads of really good modern records, as well as loads of weird sixties and seventies stuff. He gave us a whole musical education. In fact, I think that some of my favourite records of all time were probably first heard when Dave or Euros played them to us…

Because of course, you’ve worked with Euros Childs as well! What was it like working with him? It must have been quite an honour…
M: We got hold of him through a mutual friend. I think initially he just helped us on something really small, like a track for some sort of school bands release.

Wow!
M: Yeah, it was fantastic. He would just always surprise us with stuff, which was great because we were at the stage we needed to learn the rules of making music before we began to chuck things around more. He was amazing. We’re still really good friends with him.

What was it like being a young band starting out in Aberystwyth? Was there a local scene to speak of?
D: There are just two high schools in Aberystwyth and there weren’t a lot of gigs, but for some reason we would have a massive following when we did play. We really love the town and we go back whenever we can. There wasn’t so much a ‘scene’, there would just be loads of alternative-looking ‘emo’ kids around… I still don’t really know what that means , but when we were about seventeen we looked horrendous. We were dressing up like we were stuck in the sixties or seventies with really long hair and flares… I don’t know what we were doing really.

Well you certainly claim to have a pretty wide range of influences, for example: Os Mutantes, Clifford T. Ward and erm, Schoenberg?
M: It’s weird… we’ve always listened to records on our own and come together to talk about them. I’m not trying to make it sound like a weird spiritual thing, but you do go away after talking and playing together and mould this version during the time apart. For example, I’ll be listening to Bowie and then write a song, but it won’t be a Bowie rip-off, just something different – a mixture. We just listen to shit-loads of different stuff all the time really.

Quite a difference to those emo kids then…
M: I think doing ‘different’ things from a young age, like singing in school choirs and listening to prog whilst still being aware of current music makes a real difference. Dave playing strange records in the studio helps too!

How did the deal with Fantastic Plastic come about?
D: They were very encouraging and just really loved the album. To be honest, they were probably the only people we really knew in the music business.

You had quite a lot of success solely in Wales as Radio Luxembourg. With a great deal of your songs in Welsh, do you see yourselves as Welsh language ambassadors?
D: No, I think other people have done it more so than us. It’s weird, because it really depends on whom you’re associated with, like Super Furry Animals. It’s all about how people cover things and reference us.

I suppose being Welsh and singing in Welsh, comparisons to Furries and Gorky’s are going to be inevitable. How do you feel about that?
M: Gorky’s and Furries are the two best bands of nineties. Fact. In that sense it’s good.

D: But it’s annoying when people start thinking our sound is a Welsh thing. That’s when it gets a bit of a problem. I suppose when you’re reading any kind of review you need to be told what the band sounds like, because they can’t just say, “Wow, this Race Horses album doesn’t sound like anything you’ve ever heard!”

M: When you are able to compare a band to themselves it’s a lot easier. If they release a second record, you can just compare it to the debut. However, with a debut record you have no context to put it in, so people will just give a list of random influences that people are going to ‘get’. So hopefully our next record will be really Dexy’s!

You’ve had some pretty decent reviews for Goodbye Falkenburg. Has the response been what you expected?
D: Well, there’s good and bad reviews which is always something that you expect really, but at the same time, you do really want people to enjoy the record.

M: Although we’ve been so excited about it, we do have these sudden moments of realisation. About four or five months ago I was thinking “I’d love to do a tour back-to-back with a really good band in good venues and do some interviews” but then I think when you do get really busy and bogged down with these sorts of arrangements, all the cool things just really skip past and you get to the next level of being critical of yourselves. If we got a 7/10 in the NME then we’d be really excited, but in another way we’d be saying, “Why the fuck’s it not got a 9?” It’s not because we genuinely think it deserves a higher rating, but because the more excited you get, the higher expectations you have.

D: We were really worried that people weren’t going to ‘get’ the record, because not only does it have a lot of contrast on it, there’s also this massive fun element. A lot of times when we’d be listening back in the studio we’d just burst out laughing. For example, we’d add in extra harmonies just so it would sound stupidly Queen or Sparks. If someone was to say that something we recorded sounded like Queen when they became unpopular, we’d keep it!

M: I think with the more fun tracks, people have been more judgemental and serious, like they’re listening to a Joy Division record or searching for some sort of art mentality behind it. They’ll just ask, “What is the purpose of this?” when they’re confronted with forty seconds of pig noises

D: But are we making a big political statement? No!

M: I’ve been getting texts from friends I haven’t spoken to in ages who have bought the album, really loved it but have also said they enjoyed tracks like ‘Discopig’ because it made them laugh. There’s an industry cynicism that feels slightly scathing, because I think there can be a bit of snobbery when it comes to entertainment in music. We don’t really think of the audience when making records and I think there’s an element of not taking ourselves too seriously.

D: But you can also say something serious in music without saying it in a really earnest way.

The album title… is that a reference to The Flying Dutchman?
M: Yeah it kind of is and isn’t. I think with most bands, the first album is always titled in a way that really says, “Here we are, look at us” . But I think that this record has quite a mature feeling to it, so in naming the album ‘Goodbye Falkenburg’, it’s like we’re saying goodbye to an era. We’re quite an old band in a way. It is about the legend, but Falkenburg was also a ship that was bombed during the Second World War, and I’ve actually been reading some of the captain’s diaries. From that, we developed this weird after-concept. I got quite heavily into sea imagery when thinking about it afterwards.

Because that’s a theme that runs through the album isn’t it?
D: Yeah, we even had this idea of the album coming from the voice of a sailor on his deathbed in 1967, just after the release of Sergeant Pepper, pretty much saying, “Don’t worry about that, this is my story!” We didn’t think of that when we actually made it, it was only when we looked at it afterwards that it made sense.

M: To me, it’s weird listening to the album now because it seems as if it’s in a vault of its own. It doesn’t sound like a modern album, but it doesn’t sound like a sixties album. It’s really odd. I really like it, but it’s almost like we didn’t make it because it’s so varied.

What are your plans for this year?
D: We’re touring in March, just trying to play as much as possible. For the first time, we’re actually playing regular gigs. We’ve always just been a weekend band, playing perhaps one show a week, maybe four or five a month. With a bit of luck we’ll also be doing SXSW! There have been some festivals that we’ve always wanted to play where we’ve just wondered “How many years will it be until we can play that?” but now suddenly, we’ve begun to realise that we might actually be on the cards. It’s weird!

M: We’ll also have an album ready, definitely recorded, by the end of the year as well!