With the release of blistering debut album, World To Me, out on 1 July on Clue Records, Tyneside’s five-piece fuzz rock sensation Pit Pony are about to make a gallop for success. From the launch of first single, Osaka back in 2019, which made the BBC 6 Music playlist, their scathing sound has caught the attention BBC Radio 1 and Radio X amongst others.
Fronted by the feisty Jackie Purver, they’ve been compared to The Kills, The Mysterines and The Duke Spirit, albeit with darker and more abrasive soundscapes, pulling on influences such as punk and Krautrock. There’s an old soul in latest single, Sinking, which blasts open with a rollicking punk riff and Debbie Harry-esque vocal, before melding into the classic loud quiet loud, while Black Tar, first release from World To Me, is a snappy burst of grinding guitar and relentless rotating rhythm amidst Jackie’s gutsy vocals.
Last week Re:Sound caught up with vocalist Jackie, who took time out for the Zoom meet despite suffering from Covid, along with guitarist Andrew Jones, who’d just got over the nasty bug and drummer Joey Morley, who was the picture of health. Bassist Andrew Potter, or just Potter as he’s known and guitarist Garth Purver were unable to make it, Garth on bath and bedtime duty for his and Jackie’s toddler daughter.
COMPARISONS & INFLUENCES
So how do they feel about all the comparisons? Andrew points out that “a lot of the time we’re compared to bands I either don’t listen to or don’t like, so it can make me re-evaluate these artists and I’ve learned to appreciate them. It even opens my eyes to things I’ve never listened to before, which is really encouraging.”
Jackie adds, “if someone comes up to you and says you sound like a band they like, it’s a compliment because you know they mean it in a nice way.”
Most of the time people are comparing us to bands that I really like, for example somebody said The Kills and I was like yes, that’s what I’m going for!”
As far as establishing their own sound, Andrew says they all have separate ideas which they bring to the band.
“Usually one of us will write a skeleton of a song, so the riff tends to be me or Garth and once we bring it to the others, Jackie brings the lyrics and melody. But during the pandemic when we couldn’t rehearse together and jam ideas out, we had to write things separately but even then, when you bring it to the band, all those parts change to each individual’s playing style.”
And I think that’s one of our strengths as a band – that we can pull on separate influences to make a sound which is us rather than being a carbon copy of other bands.”
“Some of us in the band come from more of a punk background. When I was a teenager I was very obnoxious about it, so if a song was longer than two minutes I’d write it off. But now a lot of the music I listen to is like Krautrock and stuff and our song Supermarket was originally around nine minutes long as a result!”
Supermarket’s about how if feels to see someone again after a break up. Part of it was inspired by the TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel, Normal People. Jackie says she doesn’t want to say too much as “songs should mean what people want them to mean”, but explains, “the scene in the supermarket where they haven’t seen each other for a long time, that’s what prompted the supermarket bit.”
On the subject of TV shows, with Andrew being a bit of a punk in his youth, what did he make of the TV series Pistol?
It kind of reaffirmed to me how much of punk was just manufactured. It’s taught me that being so devoted to one particular genre is an extremely limiting thing and if you have anyone promising you the world, especially in the creative industries, you probably need to ask what they’re trying to sell.”
He’s not wrong there, although the band have had at least a couple of boosts, in the form of the PRS Open Fund and Radio 6 Music playlist inclusion.
PRS OPEN FUND
Pit Pony were awarded PRS funding, without which the release of World To Me would never have happened. Andrew muses, “one of the biggest barriers for up and coming bands is financial and we’ve had to buy amps, guitars, drums and all that, along with paying for rehearsal and studio space.”
The PRS funding really gave us the opportunity to creatively do what we’ve always wanted to do, opening up incredible opportunities like touring and signing up with Clue Records, who are putting us out on vinyl. I just feel incredibly lucky that we got the funding.”
This opportunity is something to be aware of if you’re a new band, struggling financially to get things together. Andrew says applying for the funding was really all down to Garth. “He’s the most organised person I knows and if you’re well organised, you can get a lot done.” So the takeaway here is bag yourself a Garth!
It makes me wonder who the main control freak in the band is, because there’s always one. Hmm, Joey’s smirking, so is it him? “It’s not me,’ he laughs, “no, I just turn up and play, to be totally honest with you.” Jackie agrees, “Yeah, Joey’s the most laid back!” Well, surely turning up and playing is the most important thing, so every band needs a Joey too.
Andrew’s still trying to decide who the control freak is, “I think we all have different roles and we do run things pretty democratically, most disagreements are about something trivial like track order, but when it comes to, say rehearsals, Garth is pretty strict but then when we’re in the studio and doing overdubs I think I can be a bit difficult in that regards.
RADIO PLAYLISTS
Pit Pony’s first single, Osaka attracted the attention of BBC 6 Music’s Mary Ann Hobbs back in 2019 who described the band as a ‘ferocious five-piece’, with Osaka subsequently being included on the 6 Music Playlist. How much of a boost was this for the band?
“Huge,” says Andrew. “We were all really shocked and surprised by that as it was probably the first proper song we’d put together as a band.”
Jackie and Potter host a radio show for local community radio station, Nova Radio (102.5 FM) where Jackie says they can “basically play what we want, you know alternative stuff and the likes”.
So do they ever sneak in one of their own songs? Jackie laughs, “we don’t sneak them in, we make a big thing of it. Potter’s even submitted our songs as the regional station’s Record of the Week so yeah, it’s nepotism!”Well, glad to hear it and I mean, if you can’t promote your own band, why bother?
SUPPORTING IDLES
Last year another big break came along for Pit Pony when they were asked to support Idles at their sell-out Newcastle show at the Boiler Shop.
“I was blown away how nice their audience was,” says Andrew, “and there was a lot of things in place like great accessible. It’s great that a band of that stature really cares about that sort of thing. There was a good monitor and stage set up so we could actually hear what we sounded like, it was that kind of jump in performance quality that was really exciting. They (Idles) came and said hello, they were really friendly but we were all just really nervous.”
Joey reinforces the point “I was absolutely shitting me pants!” Ah gotta love Joey, no messing around for this lad, and he did a sterling job once he changed his trous and got behind the drums.
On the subject of nerves, Andrew said he gets anxious before every performance “but when you’re half way through the first song, that all goes out the window… you’re playing at being someone else really, and it gets easier to get into it.” He adds, “if anything, smaller gigs can be more intimidating with people a metre away from your face just staring at you.” Ok, point noted.
ANXIETY
Shifting focus, Jackie’s described the songs Black Tar and Tide of Doubt, the bruising opening track from World To Me, as being “outlets for the pent up anxiety of isolation”, something I’m sure all of us can relate to. And as the album was written during the early stages of the pandemic, did it feel like a form of therapy?
“Writing certainly helped because although we are all key workers and had to keep on working, we lost the other things we normally did to help relax. Having the album to work on was something that helped us express ourselves, and I do think that all art and creativity is a form of therapy.”
MOTHERHOOD IN THE MUSIC BIZ
She goes on to say “I’ve just listened to Florence and the Machine’s new album, Dance Fever and there’s a lot in it about the anxieties and conversations that you have in your 30s, especially for women, questions like ‘are you going to have children?’ and ‘how far do you take your career?’ I think it’s really important to put these sort of ideas in a song as there are so many other people who are going to relate to it.”
It’s that old conundrum of career or kids, but Jackie’s keen to be part of the conversation on this and let other artists know there’s always a way. With her baby just 18 months old when they wrote the album, there was no question about overlooking motherhood as a topic.
I consciously wanted to explore motherhood as it’s really hard to find examples of women who are in a band and writing music who actually talk about having children, or what it’s really like to tour with children.”
She’s got a point on both accounts. The whole issue of childcare and touring is so often swept under the carpet and obviously not just limited to the music industry. Wouldn’t it be more helpful to share lived experiences and look at positive ways to include the family unit in the not so sordid world of rock ’n’ roll? Throwing Muses’ Kristin Hersh went the whole hog and brought her four kids up on the road, even writing a book about it, but that is of course not alway an option or even a preference for everyone. But the fact is there are musicians out there touring with their kids, it’s just not spoken about much, and that’s the problem.
Jackie goes on, “I read an article by Emmy the Great where she was talking about taking her baby on tour, and I also spoke to Hazel (Wilde) from Lanterns on the Lake about it, she’s local and had a baby around the same time as me.”
It’s difficult to find people talking about touring with kids but I think it’s important because we write about lived experiences and why should women not include that?”
As for her and Garth’s own set up, she says “it is hard with two of us being in the band but we’re really lucky as the grandparents do help. We just can’t be away too long as even if we take her with us there needs to someone to be there so it does make everything logistically difficult but it’s not impossible and I think it’s important to still do it and talk about it and then other people might then give it a go.”
For something so life-altering and emotionally charged, Jackie saw having a baby as a hotbed of inspiration when penning the band’s lyrics, with title track World To Me and See Me Be exploring the new perspective it gives you afterwards.
Musically, Andrew says that track World To Me was influenced by The Social Network movie which he was watching at the time of recording the album. The Academy Award winning soundtrack was composed by Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, and he says “I loved the soundtrack so much I ended up listening to a podcast about it. The song has sound effects and features which are directly inspired by it.”
These effects are evident in the sparse, ambient atmospherics which build beautifully against Jackie’s intense, emotionally charged vocals as she soothes ‘it’ll be alright’. The low key number’s melody is, for me, reminiscent of Garbage’s The Trick Is To Keep Breathing, with an uplifting outro, heavy on reverb and looming bass.
INCLUSIVITY
So does Jackie feel she gets treated differently from the guys in the band? She says “people will come up to me and make suggestions that they wouldn’t give the others”.
Andrew agrees it’s something that they’ve all noticed, saying “we’ll play a show and people will come up to us and say that was great then the blokes will go over to Jackie and start giving her unsolicited advice.”
Jackie adds, “we consciously try to be part of events where there are more diverse line ups as it’s mostly men in bands and it’s not that I don’t love those bands, because I’ve grown up listening men in bands, but people should be aware of it now and be more inclusive.”
Thankfully festivals are beginning to echo these sentiments and we look forward to seeing Pit Pony out on the live circuit very soon, with Scotland high on the list!
World To Me is out on Friday 1 July on Clue Records. Order your copy now at https://pitponyband.bandcamp.com/
PRS Foundation: https://prsfoundation.com/
Words and interview: Shirley Mack @musingsbymarie