INTERVIEW | GLASGOW’S DEAD PONY CHALLENGE ‘IGNORE THIS’ WITH INAUGURAL RELEASE

THE GENRE DEFYING ‘NU-ROCK’ BAND REFUSE TO BE PIGEON HOLED WITH 16 TRACK DEBUT

Dead Pony have been a staple within the local Glasgow scene for many years now. Releasing a host or ear worming singles before 2022’s debut EP War Boys, Dead Pony have thrown themselves into their craft and it’s paying off. With the new release of their debut album ‘IGNORE THIS‘ (05/04), the Glasgow band dare anybody to do just that. They are here – no longer fighting for – but demanding your attention. It’s quite simply impossible to ignore Dead Pony any longer.

Ahead of the impending debut album release, Dead Pony’s Anna Shields and Blair Crichton joined Northern Exposure to chat about the journey so far.

An adventurous approach to a debut album, ‘IGNORE THIS‘ is 16 fresh to the ear tracks. Beginning the writing process back in the New Year of 2023, the Glasgow based quartet – Anna (vocals), Blair (guitar), Liam (bass) and Euan (drums) took to a secluded writing studio in the back and beyond to get working on what would become their debut album.

Blair “Coming into the album we had loads of songs we had written and never had got in to record them. There was always a kind of hold back like, ‘don’t do it now’ or ‘wait and do it then’. But we were chomping – or champing? whatever the word is – but like champing at the bit to actually just get in and do a big project. We didn’t have a label for an album but we just like knew something will come along for this.”

And of course, it did. Releasing on LAB/Seeker Records this month, the album was written, recorded and produced by the members of Dead Pony. For fans of the Glasgow band however, this may not be what you were expecting from their album debut. In fact, it’s so much more.

DEAD PONY | BIRMINGHAM O2 Academy (Hannah Simpson/Northern Exposure)

From the opening 1 minute 16 second intro ‘the antagonist is ignorance’ Dead Pony firmly establish that they refuse to be pigeon holed. With a Latino inspired salsa rhythms, the rug is pulled even further when the very masculine vocals of Blair kick in.

Blair “To us, that felt like the perfect way to open the album. It was like with a total, you know, throw them down a kind of rabbit hole that they didn’t expect.”

Anna “We always say that the band is like if Nelly Furtado was the lead singer and Limp Bizkit. The first song reminds me of like a sexy Justin Timberlake or Pharrell Williams kind of song”.

Despite the initial shock of the opener, the next song brings listeners right back to familiar territory with title track ‘IGNORE THIS‘. Fitting it perfectly to the existing vibe of the albums single releases, ‘IGNORE THIS’ acts as a fanfare in opening a chapter which both establishes the evolution of Dead Pony and cements the premise for the whole album concept.

Anna “The whole vibe was that we wanted to make this album that was so good that people can’t ignore it. The whole concept for the album was that we wanted it to sound like you were flicking through your old VHS or DVD collection, and every song could be on a movie. We love that nostalgic thing of like the late nineties, early noughties movies; The Matrix, Charlie’s Angels, Kill Bill and Natural Born Killers.”

Feeding right into the first single of the album ‘MK Nothing‘ the albums momentum doesn’t slow down. Capturing Matrix level energy, this single hits just as hard now as it did during it’s initial release almost a full year ago. ‘AWOL‘ goes all 8-bit Amiga style, drawing in the nostalgia of early computer games such as Mortal Kombat.

As a band, Dead Pony are keen to move away from the indie/post-punk labels that have grown on them. Alternatively they intend to revolutionise genres by taking the title of ‘nu-rock‘.

Anna “I think what we used to make was more like a kind of indie rock. It wasn’t like really heavy, and it wasn’t necessarily alternative. But we wanted to move away from that world because we just didn’t feel like it was authentically us. We felt like we were making this music to like appeal to what we thought people wanted us to make, or what we thought people would think was cool. But then we kind of had this realisation that, actually, the coolest thing you can do in life is just be yourself and make the kind of music you want to make. So that’s kind of why we went down a more like an alternative route. We’re totally detaching ourselves from any relation to the word post-punk now (laughing).”

Blair “I think that with the whole idea of the album was that we wanted to show everyone the stuff that we knew we had in our pockets for ages. I think everyone had just pigeon holed Dead Pony being like a female fronted angry post-punk band. But we’re much more than that – we can do so much more.”

In a genre blending soundscape, the phrase ‘post-punk’ has become vastly diluted. A throw away term to describe everything and anything alternative; not punk enough to call it punk or not heavy enough to be classed as rock or metal – rendering the phrase almost meaningless. Dead Pony defy those genre expectations and deliver an album which reflects the diversity over three decades worth of popular music. Combining flavours of punk, rock, pop, nu metal and even electronic dance intertwined with a taste of r’n’b and hip hop, the diversity works. All whist managing to avoid being either a copy or parody of the other.

The second half of the album is probably the more interesting slice. Perhaps just because it offers the freshest tracks, but it also feels more personal. At times the cinematic element of the tracks retracts from any emotional connection to the band. The dystopian theme attached could well alienate some listeners, however, reflecting back to EP War Boys, the narrative was still essentially rooted in storytelling. Whilst masking themselves in cinematic references, ‘IGNORE THIS’ is still probably the most personal work yet.

Tracks such as ‘Myself‘, ‘RAINBOWS‘ and ‘I might die‘ reflect a more vulnerable side of the band. Then songs such as the interluding ‘tedious and bleak‘, ‘Bad Girlfriend‘ and the unexpected end track ‘Motor City Mad Man‘ explore the fun side of their personalities. There’s heaps of character within the album, all reflecting of the various pop culture influences that made it.

Namely, earlier singles ‘MK Nothing‘ ‘COBRA‘ and ‘MANA‘ are soundtrack worthy and paint a strong cinematic visual which are complimented by tracks like ‘AWOL‘ ‘White Rabbit‘ and ‘Faces On The Wall‘.

Anna “I love the fact that there’s like nostalgic threads being sown through the entire album. Like there’s sprinkles where it’s like ‘oh, that sounds like Gwen Stefani’ and ‘that sounds like Justin Timberlake’ but then there’s some that just sound Limp Bizkit. And then there’s others that are a bit like softer, you know.”

Every single song on this debut album opens a door for discussion and critical dissection. Both instrumentally and lyrically massive, every track individually tells it’s own story. In conclusion, Dead Pony deliver 16 songs made for the spotlight, made to be showcased on a grand stage in all its 360° glory are frankly dares you to IGNORE THIS.