BAND OF HORSES
Interview by Logan Halley-Winsett
Images by Mary Catherine Penn

Most would think that the illustrious life of indie rock stardom would be a musician’s dream. However, Band of Horses’ Ben Bridwell seems to have some trepidation going headfirst into the world of indie glamour and still has nostalgia for the days of van tours and watching the landscape pass by. Not to say that he isn’t happy that Band of Horses success has come so quickly. His life as a musician is changed forever. Ben’s voice (like Neil Young’s with a thicker accent) and melodic, southern style riffs have permeated satellite radios and blogs for the past year and a half. The band originated in Seattle, where they were discovered by Sub Pop, on which they toured with a self-titled EP in 2005. The group’s acclaim really began after the release of their first full-length album, Everything All the Time, in March of 2006. In July of that year they played their single “Funeral” on The Late Show with David Letterman and from there on out it seemed like they went from vans to tour buses. They were soon selling out venues of 1500+ capacities and their tunes were featured on indie and mainstream radio as well as in numerous television shows, including One Tree Hill and The OC.
In the beginning of 2007, after touring the US and Europe, the three main members, Ben Bridwell (guitar and vocals), Rob Hampton (bass), and Creighton Barrett (drummer) left Seattle for Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina to be closer to their families. After this they spent much of their time in the studio recording their recently released sophomore album Cease to Begin. They recorded the new record in Asheville, North Carolina with former Archer’s of Loaf bassist Matt Gentling, and have since been touring to promote the album. This is how I came to speak with Ben Bridwell, with his infamous beard and a beer in hand, sitting on the back of an open U-Haul in the middle of downtown Raleigh, North Carolina. Ben was instantly friendly and inviting, with a humble air as if this was the first interview he had done.


Did you all have beards when you started?
Hmm, the beard question.
Is that the beard question?
I guess so. I had a beard forever, even before starting a band or whatever, but I shaved it off right before we did our first Letterman taping. I didn’t want to look like a dirtbag in front of my family that was watching and I immediately regretted the decision. I haven’t gone back since then. It’s almost scary now. To shave is terrifying.
You’re from South Carolina?
Yeah. I grew up there, I lived there until I was like 15 or 16 and then I moved out West and then just eventually moved back home.
Why did you go out West to begin with?
My mom lived there and I wanted to quit high school, and go out West just to do something different. I lived in Ermo, South Carolina my whole life and school wasn’t really doing it for me so moving to Seattle seemed like a good opportunity to see something new and follow a different path I suppose, which I did.

What brought on your initial affinity for music?
I grew up listening. My parents are big audiophiles and I grew up with a lot of music since I was a baby. And I have two older siblings. My older brother was one of the only people in town who actually listened to what I would consider rad music now. There was like a small community in Erma of granolas, or people that were thinking outside the box and not just listening to Garth Brooks and shit. I inherited a lot of music from my brother. That’s when I first heard Archers of Loaf and Pavement and Mudhoney and all those bands that really came to shape indie rock and, you know, grunge and all that shit.

Did you make it to Seattle in time for the grunge explosion?
It was too late. When I moved to Seattle it was the changing of the guard with Modest Mouse and 764 Hero and bands like Built to Spill playing around. I was listening to a lot of stuff off Up Records.

You have a pretty big tour bus. Are you used to traveling this way?
Kind of. I’m used to touring. Even before this band I was in bands that would tour in one van that was breaking down at all time, so I have a soft spot in my heart for those days. On this thing it’s not really that inspiring. There are too many things to distract you. Normally I’m the dude with the headphones on, just staring out the window – can’t sleep, can’t do shit except for just stare and shut up. It makes me miss the van tours because it’s a bit more inspiring to just watch the landscape go by. That’s where I get a lot of ideas for songs, just having enough time to sit and think. Here it’s like, ‘Oh the fucking Tom Petty six hour DVD is on,’ you know what I mean? Unfortunately it’s too interesting for me to think. It’s too comfortable. I would love to go back to a van tour, if anything for the sole purpose of inspiration.

How are you inspired now?
Shit man, it’s tough. The song inspirations I have right now, I guess they come from different places, but it can be anything, just being drunk and getting an idea in my head or something, listening to other music being inspired by other bands. God, it’s funny, it’s hard to say where it comes from. Usually, though, being on the road helps a lot. Even though I don’t write much on the road, just shutting up and thinking is good. When I’m home I have even more distractions. I just gotta try to channel it while I’m out, you know.

Now you guys have two albums worth of material, but when you first toured you only had -
Eight songs! Eight songs, because two of them are written by Matt who left the band. Two of those were his songs on the record, so we couldn’t do those. It just didn’t feel right to do his songs. So then we had to fill
it up with new songs that people obviously didn’t know, and covers. I was really relieved just to get the last record out just so we had a larger set list to work with.
That record, Everything All the Time, got really big really quickly. Did you anticipate that?
No. I mean, it would be impossible to anticipate the shit storm that luckily has come to us, or whatever. At the same time there was a lot of time between that album being done and its release date so I had plenty
of time to think about what was could happen. ‘Are we going to become as big as Iron & Wine? Is that possible?’ But I thought the album would do OK. I was proud of it and I thought it would do fine, but I never thought it would do this. I had no idea we’d be headlining places like this or going on Letterman and shit like that. You just can’t anticipate that.
What kinds of places do you prefer to play?
I tend to enjoy the small towns the best, the little dingy clubs where we’re playing for kids that like the music. I really like towns like Boise, Idaho where kids are just starved for good music. I love college towns, especially Southeastern towns like SEC country. I just relate more with the smaller towns. Big towns can be a bit claustrophobic. Too much expectation, too much hype. This is like perfect for us.
When you go to a small college town, do you do a little research before you get there to see what people are doing or thinking there?
Normally we don’t have that much time to do anything.
Usually we’re just walking around to find a place to throw a Frisbee and reading the weekly. That’s usually about as much as I get to know of the town. When we were doing van tours we would go to a hotel afterwards. Here you drive after your show is done, so you don’t even get the nighttime part of it. We used to get to go to bars afterwards but now it’s just come in, play and get the hell out, unfortunately.
If you weren’t doing this, what do you think you’d be up to?
I don’t have too many skills to be doing much else. I suppose I could be bartending like I was doing before, or I was in the social service field taking care of disabled people, mentally handicapped people and stuff like that and I enjoyed that job. I was a bit burnt out on it near the end but luckily this band picked up right at the right time and got me out of it. I don’t know, I would probably do a bit of both.
What are you into these days? Tom Petty documentaries?
No, no, it was just that he just came out with that new documentary so we just watched that today. God, what am I listening to? I just got the new Cass McCombs. I’m a big fan of his stuff. I really like the new Neil Young a lot, The Chrome Dreams. I got the new Shooter Jennings which I haven’t really listened to that much. I had my computer stolen on the last tour so I’ve had to go back and buy a bunch of stuff I had – George Jones, Merle Haggard, all my Wailings collection was gone. I had to replenish them slowly. I’m on the road listening to a lot of country and classic rock. I’ve never really been a Chicago fan, but I’m trying to explore the Chicago scene a lot. I never listened to the Beatles as a kid. My parents were Rolling Stones people. I never heard the Beatles. It’s been like a slow cooker for me and now I’m like full on. Every record I have to own and dissect. So I guess if anything, it’s weird to be 29 years old and just discovering the Beatles. Better late than never though.

How did your computer get stolen?
It was stolen and lost. It was Fourth of July. We had a day off. One of my favorite bars is Thunderbird Lounge, in Redding, CA. We just got hosed and for some reason I went back in for one more drink and I had my bag with me that had all my things; my passport, my computer, my iPod, lyrics for the album, fucking everything. I set it down and left it and then a couple days later, I figured it would turn up somewhere. Like maybe I set it down and someone from the hotel would find it, but the I got a ransom call from some person asking for what my password was and I was like ‘Who is this?’ and then, click. It’s out there somewhere. Someone’s got a whole bunch of Wailing Jennings on a laptop.
Damn, that’s rough.
It’s all right. I got a new passport new computer, new iPod, new Zune.