Dead Pony in Conversation with FAULT Magazine
Dead Pony
Dead Pony are the Scottish rock quartet formerly known as Crystal. The Glaswegian indie group have kept critics’ sky-high predictions simmering for a while now, but the upcoming release of their debut album, IGNORE THIS, means they’re just about ready to boil over. With musical talent to burn, it’s no surprise the group initially struggled to find a specific outlet for their undoubted collective energy. After winning a competition to support Paolo Nutini back in 2016, Dead Pony’s style has since moved away from gentler, play-it-safe indie rock melodies to full-throttle, grunge-infused headbangers. While lead vocalist Anna Shields readily namechecks The Prodigy, you could just as easily take a pinch of Nirvana, Death From Above 1979, The Distillers and Le Tigre and have the basis of a Dead Pony recipe.
Ahead of the release of IGNORE THIS, we spoke to Anna from Dead Pony about honing a signature style, how to handle hype, and more…
FAULT: You guys have been gigging for a while now but this is your first album release. None of the tracks off the ‘War Boys’ EP have made it onto IGNORE THIS. Do you feel like everything you’ve done in the past has been building up to this release? Or has it been more a case of wiping the slate clean and taking a completely fresh approach?
Dead Pony (Anna): Everything we have done up until now has really shaped who we are as a band. I think its impossible to fully wipe the slate clean because we still love our older songs and so do our fans and they are so fun to play live. The new music we are releasing now however, feels like a new era for Dead Pony. We are really excited about this new music we’re bringing out and it just feels so authentically us.
Talk us through your writing and recording process. It sounds like Blair comes up with the initial structure, then Anna builds off that. Is that fair to say? Who takes the lead with recording and production?
For most of our songs Blair will write the guitar, structure and a rough vocal melody and send it to me and then I will come up with a concept for the story and build the lyrics from there. Sometimes however, I will write a song starting with the chords and structure then the lyrics and I’ll send it to Blair and he will help me with writing a riff and the guitar/drum/bass parts. It really is a collaborative experience between myself and Blair and I think we work well to each other’s strengths and weaknesses. The things that I am not as good at doing, Blair is good at and vice versa. We compliment each others skills well.
Which do you prefer: recording or performing live?
I enjoy doing both but I must admit, nothing compares to that feeling of coming off stage and being high on pure adrenaline. I enjoy the recording process because I really get to showcase my technical ability as a vocalist and I have been working with an amazing vocal coach this past year to really fine tune my instrument. Performing live though is what I live for. I love to sing live and move my body. I find the energy and the response from the crowd just utterly mind blowing.
You’ve spoken about feeling a bit pigeonholed and/or pushed into a particular direction in the past. Do you feel like you weren’t allowed/supposed to act in particular way when you started out? Are you getting to a place now where you can be more authentic?
In a way, yes. However, I feel like the people that pigeon holed us the most was us. When we started out we looked at what everyone else was doing and what was “cool” and thought that we needed to be doing that too. Over the past year though, we have been really exploring a sound that we enjoy and a sound that we find cool which turns out to be more of a modern, alternative rock sound or as we like to call it – Nu Rock. It just took us some time to realise that the coolest thing you can do in this life is be truly authentic to yourself.
What’s the most undervalued aspect of your music?
I think one thing that can be really overlooked is the fact that we do all of the production ourselves. Blair is such an incredibly talented producer and for everything that we’ve released over the past few years has been totally self produced. For the new material, we have had someone else mix it which has brought a totally unique perspective to the sound, but other than that, we do absolutely everything ourselves.
Who would you most like to collaborate with and why?
That’s a tough one. Personally, I think it would have to be The Prodigy. We take heaps of inspiration from them – from their live performance, their energy and their sound. I think a Dead Pony x The Prodigy collab would sound absolutely massive and I think we could create something really cool together.
If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
In the back of my mind I’ve always thought that I would just do something really ordinary like become a teacher or a baker or a vet. I used to say a zookeeper because I adore animals but performance is something that I crave and when I’m not making music I just feel totally lost. I’ve been surrounded by music to some extent for my whole life and music has never not been a part of it, so I find it really difficult to imagine my life where music wouldn’t be in it.
How important is the visual aspect of the music industry to you? By which I mean everything that comes with performing live, styling, logos and branding, merch etc etc… Is that stuff that comes naturally to you or do you have to put a lot of effort into it?
Before we really found our sound as a band, I think we had to put a lot more effort into our visual aesthetics because we really didn’t know exactly who we wanted to be. But I think that now we’re making music that feels more authentic to us, it just comes naturally. I don’t think we need to put a lot of thought into what we do, because we just do that feels right. I think there’s nothing worse than someone who tries super hard to be perceived as cool. Because they might look cool, but trying to look cool is in itself incredibly uncool.
You’ve had a lot of hype over the past few years – lots of positive press, endorsements, and you’ve won an award along the way. You played a few festivals in the summer, sold out your first UK tour in the autumn, and you’ve just spoken about this album “…being so good that people had to pay attention.” Do you feel any pressure around the expectation that comes with a bigger profile?
A little bit. But I think this is what we have always wanted to be doing and the pressure and expectations are what keep us thriving. We have lots to aim for and we are constantly striving and pushing for the next thing. I don’t think I’ll be satisfied until we have total world domination.
What is your FAULT?
Sometimes I get a bit caught up on the details and I find it hard to let go of small things that I might have done wrong. For instance, if I sung a part of one of our songs slightly wrong or made a mistake onstage. These things happen, but I find that I think about it for days and I need to have more for a ‘fuck it’ attitude and just let go a bit more.
IGNORE THIS, the debut album by Dead Pony, is out on 5th April