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RHYTHMS MAGAZINE - DEC 2006
I don’t fully understand Horse Stories. Though some might argue that it’s a journalist’s duty to offer insight into – and even judgement of – the music and musicians being written about, I would offer my incomprehension as a powerful recommendation of Horse Stories’ music. A cursive listener could mistake Toby Burke’s songs as uninspiringly simple, his acoustic folk roots and his vocal bay tempting critics to pin Horse Stories on the display board alongside the genus of alt. country/Americana outfits proliferating throughout the western world. Of course, such classification is boring stuff - and it’s for boring music. Horse Stories, however… well, Horse Stories are… umm… what are Horse Stories? Well, they were formed in LA in 2000 when the then recently relocated Melbournian Toby Burke met Texan drummer Clinton Stapleton. That much is set in stone. And they have produced three albums, counting the brand new Everyone’s A Photographer LP, punctuated by Burke’s solo album Winsome Lonesome. As suggested, their guitar balladry, coupled with Burke’s pretty and measured vocal-style, could have them compared with any number of folk-rock folk, but there’s much more to Burke. There’s a ferocity simmering beneath those gentle tones – a fierce intelligence; a fierce passion; a fierce resourcefulness; a fierce vigour; a fierce integrity. Neither Burke’s lyrics nor his melodies allow instant gratification - I’ve often found their opacity a little unsettling - requesting the listener to invest some extra effort in his or her role. Perhaps that’s an unreasonable request in a society increasingly constructed on instant gratification, but I get the feeling that Burke would be the first to admit that being reasonable is not high on his agenda. But what do I know? I’ve been listening to Burke’s music for five years, interviewed him on several occasions, and I’m still scratching my head. Maybe I’ve been too lazy to make the intellectual and emotional investment Horse Stories’ music deserves. Indeed, when I keep pushing concepts like “innocence” and “naivety” in front of Burke’s face, it’s no wonder he’s a little bemused. There’s untold experience and deliberation behind his music, hence its (albeit disguised) complexity. “I wouldn’t use those words,” Burke replies when asked if he recognises “innocence” or “naivety” when looking back to Horse Stories’ debut Travelling Mercies (For Troubled Paths). “Obviously I hear a certain youthful disregard for convention on that record that I wouldn’t necessarily hear in work I produce now. I hear me, Clint [Stapleton] and Jon Taylor really trying anything and enjoying that. But I don’t think we were naïve… Clint had toured America extensively and Jon had done a lot of studio and live work. I worked a long time on those songs and demos, so I had a strong idea of the sounds I wanted to try on that recording and I hear all that. I spent a long time getting it right and I’m glad I did. I do hear choices that I wouldn’t necessarily make now, and that’s a good thing.” The narrative scenario I was trying to establish with such an opening question was a kind of ‘look how far Horse Stories have come since their first record’ thing, Everyone’s A Photographer being their most sonically varied and produced record to date. It’s reasonable to hypothesise that the latest record is more informed by experience. Burke and the band have had some adventures since 2000, touring extensively throughout the USA and Europe and the UK, recruiting and then losing guitarist Jeff Holmes as permanent band-member and adding multi-instrumentalist Beth Balmer to the line-up. Amongst that, Burke has relocated twice, first for a two-year stint in London with his partner and, most recently, back to his home-town, Melbourne. “Everyone’s A Photographer is a very different record to anything else I’ve ever made. And as far as “experience” goes, I had to grow up a little bit to make this record, certainly,” Toby reflects on how events of the last five years have informed the album. “The project was a long, rocky process. At one stage the record was perched between being a two disc monster, or not happening at all. They were the two options that I had laid out for myself. My partner talked me down off the roof a little bit when I set that scenario up, thankfully. Spending so much time [in London] away from the other band members changed the way I worked (as opposed to One Hundred Waves) and touring the UK with Beth in the band made me appreciate what she could bring to my new songs. My re-evaluation of Jeff [Holmes]’s position in Horse Stories (which led to him leaving the band) was incredibly difficult, especially as it all had to take place with me in London and him in LA. “At first I think I was wed to the idea of the “band” as it was – me, Clint and Jeff – getting together and really trying to push my new songs in a much different direction. I felt that whatever happened, “we” would make something good out of it. Then around the time that Jeff left the band, was when I’d really started to feel as if perhaps that structure wasn’t the best treatment for the songs I was writing. I had definite ideas about the greater variety of sounds and about me not holding the song down with a rhythm guitar part and vocal – which seemed to be the norm. I wanted Beth and Clint all over the record. More drums and no standard rhythm guitar track meant bass might be needed – a first for Horse Stories – with no Jeff, guitar duties all fell to me suddenly. So by the time I landed in LA to do a couple of short rehearsals with Clint and Beth (who so far had only heard rough acoustic guitar/vox demos), my rule had become “no rules”. We would go down to San Diego with a rough idea of what the songs were and see what happened.” Recruiting The Blackheart Procession’s Pall Jenkins as producer to help realise Burke’s new vision, the trio hit sunny San Diego armed with that ‘no rules’ policy, preparing to make the most sonically adventurous Horse Stories album yet. Burke and Jenkins found they got along well and discussed making a “fun” and “up” sounding album. Burke credits Jenkins with maintaining that focus in the production, reminding Burke of his original vision when he wavered. The results, though nearly all performed organically, are certainly the most sophisticated and diverse of the band’s career, blending guitars, organ, trumpet, strings, layered vocals, more prominent drums and, yes, even bass to carry Burke’s songs into indie-rock territory. When I again raise this sophistication as symptomatic of a departure from innocence, Burke is (again) disconcerted, kindly (and eloquently) suggesting “if what you mean is that I value a dislocation from obvious or contemporary influences, then yes, that is true.” But did Burke find that pursuing a broader range of sounds was fraught with an increased risk of diluting the original gist of the songs? “I was initially very wary about making the step into a much broader sonic landscape, there’s no doubt about that,” he confirms. “The way I saw it, the more you try to do, the more you can get wrong and the further away from the “idea” of the song that you can get. But, further to the earlier point, I had to grow up a little bit. I decided to find a producer I liked and trusted, so that I could forget about distilling things and start fleshing them out. Besides, you can always shove the songs back through the still. Also, I felt like I’d done “simplicity” on three records, to varying degrees, and it was time for a change. “Sometimes I think if anything I tend to err on the side of keeping it too simple. Again, that was the nice thing about having Pall around… sometimes before you start making a record it’s like standing on the shore just before you go for a swim. You’re all brave and figure out how far you’ll go out, then once you actually start swimming you can lose your nerve a bit, maybe wanna just turn back. Pall was the one saying “no, come on, you said you wanted to make a certain kind of record, let’s do it.” So yeah, it’s exciting, but a little nerve-wracking too.” After an isolated stint in a tiny flat in London that Burke describes as “bloody miserable”, Burke made a fairly public return to Melbourne by releasing his solo album Winesome Lonesome to coincide with his repatriation. He suddenly found himself repeatedly questioned about his reasons for returning home and, finding the “forced reflection very stressful”, took a break from recording and performing, taking the opportunity to improve his piano playing. Preparing to re-emerge into the public eye to launch Everyone’s A Photographer and play some summer festivals, Toby is set to embrace yet another chapter in what seems to have been a turbulent five years. How much have those experiences changed Burke’s ideals since the release of Horse Stories’ debut? “For a little while there I was tricked into thinking that they had changed… into thinking that I HAD to make a living out of music and touring. But when I really had a good think and cast my mind back, I thought about how and why I started making records. I realised that really I’m the same person as I was then… and all I ever wanted to do (and still want to do) is make records and get them out to as many people as possible. Not to necessarily be making a “living” off of it. “I’ve never had glamorous dreams. I think working in music TV in LA right when I was staring my music career helped to put me off glamorous dreams for good, at a very important time. Glamorous dreams revolve around the parts of music that I least enjoy – hob-nobbing with famous people and playing to huge crowds. For the most part I don’t even like playing live – that seems to have become an extension of marketing your record. I like writing songs and making records.” With that, I’m finally hit with some sort of revelation – where I was talking of “innocence” and “naivety”, I was actually recognising “integrity”. And with that, I have a good head start on a better and undoubtedly rewarding understanding of Horse Stories. |
