Interview: Horsegirl
If you haven’t been listening to the band Horsegirl, you’ve been missing out. But luckily for you, they’ve been listening to all the bands you like to listen to, and all the bands you should have been listening to but just didn’t know it. They’ve been eagerly audio-ingesting albums by bands like Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo, The Feelies, Gang of Four, and many more. The crazy thing is that many of the albums are old enough to be their parents, or at least a much much older brother.
Their album parents must be mighty proud to hear how Nora Cheng (guitar/vocals), Penelope Lowenstein (guitar/vocals), and Gigi Reece (drums) have absorbed the aesthetic of so many of the iconic and obscure punk and indie rock artists from the past four or so decades and repurposed it for their own distinct sound, which belongs to the lineage while holding a new place as well. You can certainly hear hints of some of the above-mentioned bands on some of the songs from their first full-length album, the aptly titled Versions of Modern Performance, released on Matador Records in 2022. But the more you listen, the more you just hear Horsegirl.
And people are listening and liking what they hear. Horsegirl is currently on tour in support of that outstanding debut album, playing The Grey Eagle on Friday, July 28, sharing the bill with fellow Chicago-based band, Lifeguard.
The members of Horsegirl may enjoy doing record-bin deep dives to discover obscure seminal musical acts, but they can no longer consider themselves an unshared secret. In 2022, they played Lollapalooza as hometown heroes, and have since opened for the likes of Pavement, Yo La Tengo, and Wilco. Earlier this year, Horsegirl played Coachella and Summerfest. And just last week, the band headlined an indie rock minifest at New York City’s Central Park, with Rolling Stone raving that “they earned that headline spot, with poppy melodies shining through fantastically moody noise, and a locked-in trio energy that never failed.” And later this fall, the group will play The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, opening for The Breeders, another acknowledged influence of theirs. Get ready, Horsegirl is hitting its stride, even though the artists are just a few years out of high school.
Though musically wise beyond their years, the trio’s youthful yearning for fun is still very apparent. When I spoke with Cheng and Reese on the phone a few days before their arrival in Asheville, I asked them where they were and they shared that they were at some dinosaur park somewhere in Maryland because one of the members of Lifeguard wanted to go to a playground. They were disappointed to find that the spot was closed, but despite the momentary setback, I would dare to say that the world is their playground right now. When I asked where they were timewise on their tour, they said that they had just done a few dates so far and were excited to push onto the next several cities, Asheville included, that they are slated to play with their collective tribe.
Familiar with their history of forming back in 2019 while still in high school, I asked how important it was to come out of a music scene like they had in Chicago. To them, it felt very safe and gave them great confidence to be playing shows where friends from other bands would be dancing in the first few rows, and then they would go do the same for them.
They are all now college students in NYC, and they added that playing Central Park had a similar feel, with so many people they knew showing up for that show and it being quite surreal. Their story prompted me to reminisce about a recent show by the Asheville-based band Wednesday at The Orange Peel in which the large crowd included many of the group’s friends from the area. On stage, lead singer Karly Hartzman shared that when she decided to learn how to play guitar as a junior at UNC Asheville and went downtown to Heyday Musical Instruments & Repair to buy an amp, she never imagined it would bring her to where she was now. Cheng and Reese empathized with the unexpected and surreal success with a sweet “awww.”
As someone who’s old enough to have been these women’s age when these landmark indie rock albums that they’ve feasted on first came out, I wondered how they came to know of this music from my generation. I had a cool older brother and an awesome record store up the road to help point the way. Who was their musical sherpa? They credited some friends with similar tastes, but mainly thanked the internet for the many punk-rock rabbit holes they went down. They admitted it wasn’t exactly rocket science, that you start with the obvious ones, like Sonic Youth, and just see where the YouTube recommendations and the Spotify playlists take you. Share, rinse, repeat. We sometimes worry about what the internet is doing to the younger generation. In their case, it has helped make them musical savants of sorts.
I commented how, for a band with very inventive song titles like “World of Pots and Pans,” “Sea Life Sandwich Boy,” and “Emma Switched Instruments,” their album title Versions of Modern Performance feels like more of a gallery exhibit label. Cheng and Reese like the simplicity of words sometimes and wanted it to be clear what could be found inside the album. With such an open acknowledgement of influences, I asked them about the thin line between inspiration and imitation. They don’t worry about it that much since their songwriting process does not follow a direct path, but rather darts and diverts in several different directions. They know in the end it will sound like a Horrsegirl song.
For example, with “Anti-Glory,” their fantastic first single off the album, they set out to write a Gang of Four song but finished with something far from that. I told them I thought that song sounded like if Sonic Youth had covered Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone,” with a little Lydia Lunch sprinkled in on the dramatic “Dance! Dance!” lyrics. They miraculously didn’t hang up on me but laughed, allowing and even welcoming the analogy. They seem to have a good sense and a good sense of humor about how they can’t control the reaction to their music, just the production and presentation.
In approaching the video for “Anti-Glory,” they let yet another influence from the distant musical past inform the visuals, borrowing the simple, stark look that the Swedish punk rock band Kleenex, aka LiLiPUT, employed in their 1978 video for “Nice.” Again, where are they getting these references? Right, the internet. Good for them. I had to force my tired teen self to stay awake to reach the land of late-night TV to watch the amazing manna-from-heaven music video show, Rock World, to see such things. I love that Horsegirl is giving me reason to remember Rock World.
We then talked about how much being a trio informs their sound and songwriting. Cheng and Reese didt hesitate to state that being a band of three is a crucial component to the composition of their music. Each element is important. Nothing can be wasted. Everyone has a job to do. Makes sense to me. You can hear each of them clocking in and doing their job on tracks like “Beautiful Song” and “Billy,” where the instruments are established and quickly layered over each other to build a firewall of flangey guitars and dirty-martini drums, a gritty gear that just keeps growing.
When I listen to the Asheville-based band Ahleuchatistas, I often think, “How is this just two guys making this wide net of noise?” With Horsegirl, I find myself asking, “How can they get such a textured sound with just two guitars and drums?” Let’s not forget that many of the bands that they emulate are quartets and not trios. It’s Gang of Four, after all, not Gang of Three. Like the Deal sisters do for The Breeders, another of their four-member musical forebears, the women of Horsegirl know to use their slightly haunting vocals as an additional instrument to heighten the harmonic haze.
I admitted to them that I’m a fan of female-fronted indie rock acts, from Blondie to Courtney Barnett and dozens of other kindred bands in between. I didn’t want to inject gender into a conversation where it wasn’t a consideration, but I did ask if they see themselves as part of a continuing tradition of fierce female rockers. When they started the band, they didn’t think of themselves as a girl group —not at all. But playing shows, they’ve noticed how women will come up to the merch table with a young daughter or a younger sister, saying how much they enjoyed seeing a version of themselves up on that stage.
That sense of connection isn’t lost on the members of the band, and it means a lot to them to hold that place in the performing world. And they also added that female vocals can have a quality that male vocals just can’t match. I couldn't agree more. I can’t imagine their song “Dirtbag Transformation (Still Dirty)” without the coolly detached yet in-on-the-secret flavor of the female vocals, topped off toward the end with the siren’s call chorus of “oohs,” just as I can’t imagine what The Waitresses would sound like without the signature sassy vocal style of lead singer, Patty Donahue. So I won’t.
Horsegirl is not a girl group, even though they are. And Horsegirl is not a college rock band, even though they are. They’re a talented trio that’s trying to make the type of music that they were so excited to discover and share and obsess over. They just happen to have gotten a good head start on it.
They’re a modern band, informed by the internet and allowed time and focus to create their music by the limits of the lockdown. But they are also a band that would have fit right in on an episode of Rock World, making me perk up when their video played. And it’s clear from talking with them that they enjoy each other and see it as a real pleasure to get to play their music for people who turn out to see them — young, old, female, male, or other. I’m sure that joy and connection to their musical mentors comes through in their live performance. I can’t wait to stand in their crowd and see them shine bright.
IF YOU GO
Who: Horsegirl + Lifeguard with Florry
When: Friday, July 28, 8 p.m.
Where: The Grey Eagle, 185 Clingman Ave., thegreyeagle.com
Tickets: $16
(Photos by Cheryl Dunn)
