Getting to Know… Wild Horse | Interview 🎤

In the 284^th Q&A in our Getting to Know… series, we get the inside scoop from East Sussex indie band, Wild Horse – yeehaw!

“W

e are not just an average ‘three white guys with guitars’ kind of band..” Well, I’m glad we established that quickly 🎙 Wild Horse! Expanding upon their response to our first burning question, the East Sussex indie band asserts, “Our sound incorporates everything from pop, funk, RnB, rock, jazz, soul, punk, dance, disco, house, hip hop, gospel, and much more.” Woo – eclecticism is where it’s at! Like our many other Getting to Know Q&As, we get the inside scoop on the collective’s genesis, goals, musical influences, and of course, current, and future musical endeavors. So, without further ado, let’s jump right into 🎤 Getting to Know… Wild Horse: Interview No. 284!

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For those who may not be familiar with you, what would you say makes Wild Horse distinct or unique? How do you rock the audience’s socks off?

🎤 There are a number of things that make us stand out from anything else going on in the music world right now. The first and most important thing is the sound of our music. We have an incredibly wide range of influences, and our music is a hub for them. We are not just an average “three white guys with guitars” kind of band. Our sound incorporates everything from pop, funk, RnB, rock, jazz, soul, punk, dance, disco, house, hip hop, gospel, and much more. The main goal of our music is to show how if you give us 3 minutes of your time, we can make your whole day better and we can get ourselves stuck in your head all day.

We also stand out with our live shows. No matter how big or small each show is, we always give our absolute most on stage as if we are performing at a sold-out stadium. The energy at our shows from both us and the crowd is unmatched, and we create a really fun atmosphere where people can just get lost in the music and themselves for however long it is we are on that stage. Come to a Wild Horse show and there is no way you leave feeling not entertained.

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Okay, let’s explore some juicy backstories. How did Wild Horse form and what were some of the goals or visions you had early on?

🎤 The band started when 🎙 Henry Baldwin (bass, guitar, keys, backing vocals) and 🎙 Ed Barnes (drums, backing vocals, guitar) met at an after-school music club and decided to have a jam. Henry was 14 at the time and Ed was 12. They decided they wanted to start a band and Henry asked his brother 🎙 Jack Baldwin (lead vocals, guitar, bass, keys) to join the band but he originally said no as he didn’t want to be in a band with his brother. After his mum convinced him, he went to a session. Jack was 11 at the time. The first song they played was a 25-minute version of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s 🎵 “Free Bird” and since then they knew they had something special and haven’t looked back since.

Our dreams back then were exactly the same as they are now. Spend the rest of our lives connecting with people all around the world through our music at shows and marking our spot in history amongst the greats. We want to be filling out stadiums and headlining major festivals. You name it, we want to do it.

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Let’s talk more about goals.  Have your goals or your perspectives changed since first starting out? What do your aspirations or goals look like now?

🎤 As mentioned earlier, our goals haven’t changed much. However, they have probably changed in the sense that before maybe we were trying too hard to be like our idols. Whereas now, we want to do stuff that nobody else has ever done before. We want to carve our own legacy which makes us stand out from anything else in music. Originality is really important to us, musically and stylistically. That’s why, even after 5 albums, you will struggle to find many Wild Horse songs that sound overly similar to each other as we hate covering old ground. We are constantly finding new ways to adapt and to keep things fresh, which is incredibly fun for us to do. It’s like that with our new single 🎵 “Joy Ride”, it sounds nothing like anything we have ever done before, with increased synths and electronic influences, but at the same time, it can only have been Wild Horse that could have made it sound the way it does.

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Everybody is influenced by somebody else. Whom would you consider some of your biggest musical influences and how are they influential?

🎤 We have so many so we couldn’t possibly name them all. But our musical influences include The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, David Bowie, Queen, Dr. Dre, Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, Arctic Monkeys, Pavarotti, The Who, Michael Jackson, Quincey Jones, Bruno Mars, and The Weeknd. The list could go on and on.

These artists are influential to us because their music is incredible and in many cases has stood the test of time. The things they were/are all able to achieve are extraordinary and we hope to do that and more.

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Ah, the fun stuff.  What’s your craziest tour story or the wackiest thing that’s happened during a performance?  Feel free to be creative.  

🎤 There have been a lot of strange and funny things that happen during or at performances over the years. One time we were playing a show and mid-song Ed’s drumming stopped so Jack and Henry turned to look, and they couldn’t see him. He had actually fallen through the stage. There was another one where Jack’s shoe fell off into the crowd. He never got it back and had to finish the show and walk around for the rest of the night with one shoe.

The one that always sticks with us though was a show we did in Paris when we were all around the ages of 12-14. We got to the venue to set up and sound check and we asked someone where the power sockets were. He pointed to a hole in the wall that had hundreds of cockroaches crawling out of it. Another thing about this venue we noticed when setting up was that there were lots of large cages scattered around. Us being so young at the time, we didn’t realize what this was for. When we came back later that night to perform, we very quickly realized that we were playing in a strip club!

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Up until this point in your career, what would you describe as your favorite song you’ve recorded or performed live? What makes that song special?

🎤 It’s difficult to say an absolute favourite song as they always change, especially when it comes to recording. But we have a few favourites to play live at the moment. Currently, Jack’s favourite song to play live is 🎵 “Coffee In the Morning”, from our album, 💿 When the Pool Is Occupied. Not only is it a crowd favourite that everyone sings along to, it’s a part in the current set where we slow things down and Jack jumps on the piano. He finds it to be a really nice way to get closer to the crowd.

Henry’s current favourite to play live is our new single 🎵 “Joy Ride”. It always goes down really well with the crowd whenever we play it, and the bass line is just so fun and groovy. Ed’s current favourite to play live is a new and currently unreleased song we sometimes throw in called 🎵 “Magpies.” To him, it sounds really badass and reminds him of some great blues artists we all love to listen to.

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Is there anything else awesome, cool, or left of center the world should know about you? Secret talents or surprising tidbits?

🎤 There aren’t too many secret talents. For all of us, music is our whole lives and practically the only thing we’re good at. However, Ed is really good at doing impressions although he doesn’t think he is. Jack does fancy himself as an actor and would like to give it a go one day, but as of yet, we can’t confirm if he has any talent for it! Henry has a keen eye for art and drawing.

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Closing out, what is Wild Horse currently working on, promoting that you can share with us or want us to know about? We love secrets, but there’s no pressure. 

🎤 We have always got things going on. The devil works hard but Wild Horse works harder. Our new single 🎵 “Joy Ride” has just been released and it is receiving an incredible amount of love and support. We already have another song ready to be released in a couple of months. We’re about to go into the studio to record some more new songs. We’re constantly writing. At this point, we have well over 1,000 songs in our locker. We hope to start planning a tour soon now that school and stuff like that are finally not stopping us from doing so. Lots of things to come, we aren’t going anywhere anytime soon!

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Follow Wild Horse: Instagram • Facebook • Twitter • Spotify • YouTube • Website

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Getting to Know Wild Horse: Interview No. 284 [📷: Alfred Derks from Pixabay, Brent Faulkner, Darkmoon_Art from Pixabay, The Musical Hype, Wild Horse]

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