Straight from the Horse's Mouth
An Interview with Front Man, Nathan Winneke, from Horse the Band By Leah Offenbacher

EDITOR'S NOTE: This interview was conducted live and has been edited for content and length.

MWE: First off, do you prefer to go by Nathan or the General?

N: (Laughs) Nathan’s fine.

MWE: Any story behind all your nicknames?

N: Lord Gold is Erik, because he’s fabulous.

MWE: Darkenstone?

N: That would be our bass player.

MWE: Baby Horse?

N: He’s a baby. He’s our drummer. We just make fun of each other a lot. I don’t think any of one person would ever call themselves any of those names, but that what we call each other.

MWE: What inspired your Animal Planet stage set-up?

N: Nature. We’re still building towards the release of our new record and it’s all nature themed.

MWE: Do you have names for the creatures that made their cameos on stage?

N: The bear is the Reaping bear. The bear just sort of follows us around. He keeps showing up though.

MWE: During your show, you asked the audience to form a human pyramid. I heard you had luck before with this request?

N: I think they’ve done it maybe four, five times total on the spur of the moment. That was the best pyramid to date though, it was solid. It was well formed. I’ve only done it once on the whole tour. I believe it was five across the base, so that’s pretty decent. They did well. I was proud of them.

MWE: It’s too bad Grand Rapids didn’t do it for you.

N: Oh, it’s okay. That’s right, I had a request that didn’t go out. It’s really strange; I’m surprised people did anyway. I got everybody to sit down like it was Romper Room and we played a whole song while everyone was sitting on the ground. It was fun.

MWE: You’ve been described as Nintendo-core. How did you adapt your unique style?

N: The band had like a demo before right around the time I joined them, and they just used like a Casio and I called them “kindergarten rock” because that’s what it sounded like to me. Then right about that time Erik bought a new keyboard and then it started getting heavier. Then it started getting better. And the sounds that Erik had and stuff, we were like, “Dude, it sounds just like a Nintendo game” and we just laughed about it. And was just how it sounded like and we had a demo that had “Nintendo-core” written on it because it was just as a reference for the sound and I think he even incorporated like a piece of his Zelda in it … but it was because we thought the sound was just too dead on, and it was cool. But then on the first release, we actually did. It managed to get everyone going crazy for that. The songs were really about other things, but because the keyboard sounded like that and it was something we were joking around with at the time and we ended up using it. It’s definitely the way Erik plays it, like a really heavy Nintendo game.

MWE: One song reminded me of the dungeon in Super Mario Brothers.

N: You know what? He may have gotten it from there. I don’t know. I believe everything he does, just seems he’s inspired by that.

MWE: Do you intend to produce more of your Pizza vinyls that sold out in March?

N: No. We were all so astonished that we even made them. All the ones that we have have all been sold.

MWE: You’ve had many significant changes to the lineup in the past half-decade. How has that impacted Horse?

N: Before people even heard the band, it was perpetually changed. It has always been Dave and Erik in the heart of it. Since I’ve joined the band, I played three different instruments. I started out as the drummer for over a year, the bass player for over a year and I was writing for Crook and when he quit, I took over for him. That’s the way it’s always been, so I’m not shocked or surprised by it at all.

MWE: How have things changed since adding Dash and Chris?

N: We’re jerks now. We used to be innocent, fun-loving children and now we’re all sour and bitter. We all blame each other for it, because we’re all wrong.

MWE: Can you tell me more about Chris’ background?

N: Little Baby Horse, he was born on a farm. No, he was in another band with our bass player, Dash, before and he was really good and we needed a good drummer, so we called him and he joined the band. He always loves to have fun. He always plays in the fields. He’s not bitter or angry. He’s full of life and wonder and he has a childlike amazement in his eyes at all times.

MWE: You’ve been all across the United States, Mexico, Europe and Canada. What’s been your wildest, most memorable show?

N: I don’t know. It’s usually something that happens before or after the show that really makes the night memorable. And that doesn’t have anything to do with the performance. You could probably get better ones from the guys … they always have a way of making it sound so amazing. And I’m just like “What do you mean, I was just making fun of the kid. What do mean the bear just tackled Erik? What do you mean an eagle just swooped down and saved the day?”

MWE: What can people expect on your next album, A Natural Death?

N: They can expect to learn all the secrets of life.

MWE: I hear you’re incorporating the actual sounds of a Game Boy?

N: He [Erik] has a program that he can plug into a Game Boy and use the actual Game Boy sounds to write parts. So he wrote some parts on it and then he ripped them off onto a sampler, so he can just play them live just like that without having to use the Game Boy which is just an archaic piece of garbage that makes a lot of noise. He created all these parts with it, and there are four songs with actual Game Boy sequencing parts simultaneous with his keyboard work. And he’s gotten really good at doing both. That Nintendo sound you were talking about is still definitely really strong. There’s a real overt reference to it on this album.

MWE: How was it working with Brian Virtue?

N: He was cool. He was a fun guy. We made ridiculous movies on YouTube. Hey, it’s entertainment.

MWE: How did you rip your tendon on your last tour?

N: I tore a tissue in my chest and I’ve done it twice in my life. While playing live, and not knowing what I was doing and screaming so hard that I just like tore something. At first, I grinned and bared it for like two weeks. And then two years later it happened again on tour and I ended up going to the emergency room and they gave me a lot of medication and told me to stop playing shows for a while and I went and finished playing the rest of the two months. It sure doesn’t happen anymore luckily, because I have ribs of steel.

MWE: So how many animals were harmed during your show? PETA activists everywhere want to know.

N: Let’s see … 300? Because all of our guitar cabinets are actually made out of beef steak and if you count what we do to poor Baby Horse at the end of the set, and that’s pretty bad too. And the bear we keep in a cage.