WHITEHORSE
JANUARY ARTIST FEATURE -
JANUARY ARTIST FEATURE -
Whitehorse, a name you’re bound to become extremely familiar with if you have a good ear for music. Born within the depths of Yorkshire, now dispersed across the country - the excitement and anticipation surrounding this band is brewing at a rapid rate.
A new project and a fresh start.
For Pass It On’s January Artist Feature, we spent the day with the band in a location of their choice. One that represents the womb in which their sound was conceived within; one that frames the backdrop of their style.
With a live, acoustic session of two unreleased tracks, an exclusive interview with frontman Thomas Haywood and a first look into the band, we present to you our featured artist of the month - Whitehorse.
There will be many people aware of you, but maybe not knowing of you. Who exactly are Whitehorse?
‘Well what is it you want to know?’ - laughing.
Take me from the start, where did it all begin?
‘Personally, I was in a place of not really knowing what was next or what could be next. But, at that time - wherever I was, whatever I was doing - it wasn’t really something to be thought about. But then, for whatever reason, coming out of Manchester and going back to Sheffield began to fill the cup up with new things and allowed me to revisit a lot of old, that had already been written and existed anyway. But I guess, for whatever reason, down to insecurity or just an apathy of not really wanting to do something anymore - that’s what this comes from, having that spark. Everything’s moved pretty quickly. It’s been quite explosive, things have lined up in quite an instinctive way - very intuitive and that couldn’t really be possible without having met the lads that are Whitehorse.’
‘Where I was at, I could’ve easily jumped on a stage with an acoustic guitar and played some songs and seen what that was like - ending up playing to forty people every night for the rest of however long I fancied doing it or whatever. But, I definitely didn’t want to do that. So, to then begin this, it was as important to me as it was to them - starting the band.
If we go back to the time between starting the band and your first gig at the Rose and Monkey, for the John Hall Foundation, let’s talk about that.
‘With the idea of the band, it’d been something we’d just talked about for a long time. We’d got a bit daft with us imaginations. We never really thought about actually doing it. But, then I got offered to do a gig for the John Hall Foundation - which is a charity founded in the name of a very close friend of mine, who passed away - and they asked if I wanted to play a few songs. And I thought “I’ve got loads of new stuff, I might as well start now” and the more I thought about it, the more I thought about wanting to do it with a backing band.’
‘So, I bounced the idea around to the boys, there wasn’t a hell of a lot of time to think about it, so we got in a room and I taught them songs I thought would work - and then there ended up being a lot more to it than I’d initially envisioned. That’s down to them really, we just all know what direction we want to go in and what we want. We had two weeks of rehearsal, gave it a go and we’ve not really seen any reason to stop.’
Do you think it helped, having the mindset of not expecting too much from it and just allowing things to happen?
‘The pressure was definitely off - pressure as in there was no pressure. I think that's why it was so easy to pursue as there was nothing attached to it like there was before. It was easy, you didn’t have to think about it too much. It was instinctive. The less you think about it, the easier it becomes. It was easy anyway, but when you recognise that - you have to go down the rabbit hole and see how far you can go with it, because those moments don’t come very often. You can spend a lot of time in what you call analysis paralysis, you can just be crippled with thinking what and where and how - why being the worst one. But for this there was none of that.
Talk to me a little bit about your writing process. Aside from one cover being ‘Heading For Heartbreak’ by the Amazing Snakeheads - the entirety of your sets have been new material.
‘Well, I’m not really one to write for a particular reason or project. It’s pretty sporadic. Bobby who I really got close with, when we were going through shit at the same time, really magnetised towards each other. We ended up spending a lot of time in a place in the countryside, where he was living at the time. We got together in this barn and began to put music to material I just had. I think it took him to actually say ‘this is really fucking good’ to actually then persue it. Like I said, I don’t really write for anything in particular - I just do it because you have to do it you know. It’s a form of self-therapy, if you know what I mean? It’s an exercise of the mind, you can’t sit down and say you want to write a song.’
‘And then the wheels have just been spinning faster and faster, as we got together, and now we’re going in to record a body of tunes. We’ve already written the next one just because of how fast that wheel is spinning and how well it's working. So we’ll most likely be recording two sets of work in one year, and hopefully get them out as quickly as possible.’
What about the images created within your writing? Talk to me a bit about those.
‘Well, a lot of the music comes from images - trying to capture a picture and sit it alongside whatever my thoughts are. It’s much easier to hear rather than explain, but that’s been a running theme throughout the lyrical side of things. From an observational point of view, you do get better at trying to match what you’re trying to capture musically and what you’re trying to capture lyrically. Eventually they do end up matching a lot easier together. It just feels that this is more natural, more pure. That’s where ideas of water and waves come into it I think, purity. I don’t try and think about it too much, I try to just trust the subconscious, my intuition. I guess you could say where your heart takes you. Instead of trying to write for something or someone - you’ve got to just write what’s inside of you. I think that’s why I’m taking so much pleasure out of what we’re doing, it’s just rolling off the tongue - like water.
‘I just see it a little differently to how it was for me before, compared to your classic record label shit. Write, record, sit on it, book your gigs, release it in drip drabs, have some sort of campaign towards it all… I don’t think we’re interested in that. We just want to do it because it feels right.’
Did you find this mechanism, this ‘well-oiled machine’ of the music industry that churns out albums and artists, can be detrimental to musicians like yourselves. Did you want to move away from that?
Right, it’s completely backwards for a creative process. There’s no cohesion, it doesn’t work. I appreciate and respect bands that can and will do that, with the discipline that is required of them. Keeping your mindset in one place, whilst moving on through your life. We’re ever changing as people, it’s human nature. So, to then try and carry that discipline through can be extremely difficult. I wouldn’t consider myself disciplined in any way shape or form. To be asked to be disciplined, well it doesn’t work like that (laughing). You are or you’re not.
Do you find moving away from that regimented structure, taking things at your own pace (as quick or as slow as that may be) is working better for you as a band?
‘I think it kind of says a lot about the whole ethos and philosophy. Try and keep it small, keep it simple - that becomes something which works. I think we’ve taken that ethos (consciously or subconsciously) to the music and to the way in which things are working within the band. We don’t really see much of each other in the rehearsal room, when we do we blast it out in a very short space of time. Bobby lives in Macclesfield, Nathan in London, James in Manchester and me (Thomas) and Johnny in Sheffield. By nature, it’s not going to work in a conventional ‘band set up’, but for that reason it keeps everything simple. It really works.
At the moment, there’s no reason for us to attempt to be something because we already are what we want to be. I don't want to jinx myself, but it kind of feels like this is going to be the easiest project I’ve worked on in a studio. Anything I’ve been involved with creatively has never felt as good as something like this. Perhaps, that’s because of the nature where things began. I did a lot of this on my own, where I feel most comfortable. It’s not going to be difficult. It keeps getting better and more interesting each time. I can’t help but think things are spinning in the right way.
Expected in the studio in the spring of 2025, we cannot wait to hear what is on the cards for Whitehorse this year. New music, live shows? The world is their oyster.