Track By Track: Zeahorse

The debut album by Sydney quartet Zeahorse, ‘Pools’ takes inspiration from Bondi Junction, stoner rock and one “bullshit penne pasta dish,” according to guitarist/singer MORGAN ANTHONY and bassist BEN HOWELL.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

‘Career’

This is the track that blew my 2x12 speaker cab whilst tracking stupidly loud guitar overdubs. Wasn’t the happiest chap in the cabin. The riffs and dynamics came from listening to a lot of stoner rock and the beug breaks in between tracking would have no doubt helped the sluggish tempo. The lyrics were written during a short stint of full-time work, which allowed me to see how deluded people’s lives can actually be.

‘Pool’

When Max [Foskett] wrote the riff for ‘Pool’, it really gave the whole band a push and it seemed whenever we rehearsed it was the only song we wanted to play. Then came time to finally record it and I think it was the most focused time we’ve ever had and we’re not the most focussed bunch so it was a great achievement, ha ha.

The ideas in ‘Pool’ pretty much summed up the whole theme of the album, which is why we called it Pools.

‘Familiar Faeces’

This song stems off from our last release [2010’s self-titled EP] in that it’s kinda long and weaves in and out of different moods. We have held off playing this track live until the record launch shows, purely because it’s a bit tough to nail live, but hopefully there’s enough people talking over us that no one notices the mistakes. :0

‘Onion’

A raucous little number that has a change of heart halfway through, when Max’s baritone slows it down a peg or two into a swampfest for some spacey lead noodling. Julz [drummer Julien Crendal] really gave this song some with his super rhythmic tricks.

‘Junktown Train’

Just a nice little banjo hoedown about getting so high that you “nod out, choke on your vomit and die”…

‘Dave’s 30th’

This is the only instrumental song on the album. It originally had a whole section in front of where it now starts, but we cut it off cause it stunk. We’re suckers for a good ol’ fashioned guitar harmony, plus it’s always fun to see what kind of noise you can make with a synth and a space echo. Beware of the jazz-fusion nightmare end section.

‘Tugboat’

This was the last song we tracked and, as you can imagine after a solid week of living together in a shed in the middle of nowhere amidst the aid of countless tinnies and performance enhancers, we were looking and behaving quite ridiculously.

The vocal take for this song (well, the chorus anyway…) was hilarious. Take upon take of wild rambling flipped in reverse, which as most would know isn’t the funniest thing for our engineer [Steve Law] to mix at 1am and six days deep into the project. Mike Morgan, who mixed the record, really brought the noise for this track, especially the way he pushed Benny [Howell]’s bass riff toward the end – gave it some real snarl.

‘Kathie’s Makeover’

Inspired by Bondi Junction and the extreme amount of sadness in the people around that area: a lot of alcohol abuse, desperation and denial. On my lunch breaks I’d wander round the shopping centres, completely baffled by the amount of full nail salons, and I guess they served as a good reference point.

‘Pesto’

There’s a wizard named Whitey who owns the property where we recorded the album. This song is an ode to his bullshit penne pasta dish he made for us. The song was a complete freaky fluke jam recorded during the few spare hours of studio time we had left and it’s probably my favourite moment from the whole record.

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‘Pools’ is out now through Hub the Label/Inertia. Zeahorse are supporting Wolf & Cub on five dates this month.

Thurs, Oct 10 – Oxford Art Factory, Sydney, NSW
Sat, Oct 12 – The Zoo, Brisbane, QLD
Thurs, Oct 17 – Republic Bar, Hobart, TAS
Sat, Oct 19 – Ed Castle, Adelaide, SA
Thurs, Oct 24 – Northcote Social Club, Melbourne, VIC