We were lucky enough to be front and centre during the press conferences at the recent C2C Festival in London. A Thousand Horses stopped by to talk about their musical influences, visiting the UK for the first time, ‘Southernality’ and its singles ‘Smoke’ and ‘(This Ain’t No) Drunk Dial’, the progress on their next record, and working with producer Dave Cobb. You can read what went down below.
RW Publicity: We’d like you to introduce yourselves, and tell us just a little bit about where you’re from, something about your background?
Graham: My name is Graham DeLoach. I play bass in A Thousand Horses, and I’m from Savannah, Georgia. Lived in Nashville, Tennessee for about nine years now.
Michael: I’m Michael Hobby, I’m the lead singer in A Thousand Horses. I’m from Newberry, South Carolina, in the States.
Bill: I’m Bill Satcher, I’m the lead guitar player in A Thousand Horses. I’m from Newberry, South Carolina as well. Michael and I grew up together in middle school, and moved to Nashville in 2005.
Zach: My name’s Zach Brown, I play guitar as well. I’m from a town called Clarkesville, Georgia.
Michael: Yeah, so a little bit about A Thousand Horses. Bill and I grew up together in South Carolina, he and Graham are cousins. We’ve known each other since we were kids in middle school, moved to Nashville together, met Zach in 2010 and that’s when we formed the band A Thousand Horses.
Think Country: Have you had a chance to see anything over here yet?
Michael: Yesterday when we flew in we were advised to stay awake as long as you could when you got here, and not go to sleep. So we decided to go around the whole city, and walk around, and check out a few things. Have a few beers.
Bill: Bit of a pub crawl! (laughter)
Michael: Mostly, actually.
Think Country: You’re quite new to some of the guys in the UK. What reception do you think you’re gonna get on stage?
Michael: We have no idea! We’re really excited to be here so we don’t know! We’ll see. Hopefully a great one!
Zach: We walked around a little bit, looks like everybody’s ready to have a good time, so.
RW Publicity: Your first single was ‘Smoke’, wasn’t it? And that was a song that really helped you.
Michael: So ‘Smoke’ was our first single that we released as a band in the United States, and was our first #1 song over there. So that definitely changed our lives, and been a huge thing for us. We wrote that song, just the comparison of a toxic relationship, compared to the addictive nature of a cigarette. We put it in the form of a love song, essentially.
UKcountrymusic.net: I’ve been listening to ‘Southernality’, and there’s influences and the vibe of Lynyrd Skynyrd, and the old southern rock. Were they your influences growing up?
Bill: I would say so, you know we all grew up listening to classic rock, what our parents listened to. Stuff like the Beatles, and Led Zeppelin, and Lynyrd Skynyrd. So I think so, for sure.
RW Publicity: The title of your album – what does it mean?
Michael: Well ‘Southernality’ is a made-up word that we came up with one day. The song is kind of about the lifestyle that we grew up observing, and the metaphors behind that. Basically being proud of where you’re from and what you believe in. We just took ‘southern’ and ‘personality’ and put it together and that’s how ‘Southernality’ came about.
Chris Country Radio: Another song that’s also been really popular is ‘(This Ain’t No) Drunk Dial’. I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about that song.
Michael: Yeah, ‘(This Ain’t No) Drunk Dial’ I wrote with a couple buddies of mine. The meaning of the song is not being drunk when you call – I mean, you do have a few, so let’s be honest, to work up the courage for it – but you’re just laying that out on the line and like your truth towards that relationship. Just trying to make it right, is essentially what that song’s about.
RW Publicity: I was going to ask you about your producer for this record. People seem to know who he is now! Your producer was Dave Cobb, who’s also done Sturgill Simpson I think, Jason Isbell.
Michael: Yep, Jason Isbell and Chris Stapleton.
RW Publicity: We don’t know much about him as a person, how he gets busy. So can you just give us a little bit of an idea how he produces?
Zach: Dave’s great, you know he’s produced basically everything we’ve ever done since we formed this band. When we got signed to Republic it was our natural first choice to have him produce our first debut ‘Southernality’. But he’s cool, he’s actually from Savannah, where Graham’s from. He’s a super musical guy. What we’ve always done with him is we get into a room together, and we record it live as a band. So we tracked this record at Southern Ground Studios, which is Zac Brown’s place – yeah the other Zac Brown! (laughs) Z-A-C. So yeah, we got into a room together, and we set up, everything was live and we ran basically the whole album like that. He’s all about that spontaneous, find the right moment and get the magic.
Michael: The feeling.
RW Publicity: Is he there to help rather than to tell you what to do?
Michael: Yeah, absolutely I mean he’s definitely really helped us. Sometimes some people need to be told what to do.
Graham: Sometimes you need a guy that can take all four of us, and say “Okay, alright, let’s focus this. You guys are all over the place right now, let’s focus this, here’s what I think.” And you’re like “Oh, I never thought about it like that.”
RW Publicity: He has produced quite different records, he’s produced the records of Mary Chapin Carpenter, which is different.quite
Michael: Yeah I mean he’s kind of a chameleon when it comes to –
Zach: He’s kind of an extra band member, kind of fits in where he needs to.
Think Country: Have you got another single coming off this album?
Michael: We just released ‘Southernality’ as our next single in the States.
Think Country: Are you now working on something new? I know you’re always writing.
Michael: Yeah we just started the process of putting together what we wanna do for the next albu, so that’ll take a bit of time. But yeah, we just started the whole thing.
RW Publicity: Did you know you’re going to make a surprise appearance this afternoon?
Michael: It surprised me! It’s all a surprise.
Sounds Like Nashville: I was riding back last night on the tube, and I was talking to this gentleman next to me, and he was guessing maybe between 60 and 70. I asked him, you know I’m really interested to hear the perspective of fans over here, and when I asked him who he was most excited to see, he said A Thousand Horses. And I thought that was really interesting, you know he’s not like your normal audience at home, but it’s interesting just to see the difference over here. Have you had a chance to get a feel for that? We’ve talked about a lot of the fans here like album cuts and lyrics more than back home.
Bill: We don’t know, we just got here!
Michael: Our secret show is our first show, so we’re excited to see – and we have few more after, today. But we’re excited to see that response, and see what songs they know off the album, that weren’t singles here or singles in the States for that matter. So I don’t know, we’ll see.
