Dead Pony: Exploring Infinite Possibilities

There is no denying that life right now is incredibly hard for many of us. We constantly search for an escape from the mundane routines we find ourselves locked into, desperate for a distraction from the monotony that comes with the average 9-5 job. Scottish four-piece DEAD PONY are using their debut album Ignore This as an excuse to break free and transport themselves into a world packed full of the undead, action, and all things theatrical. 

“I really like to write about media that inspires me, so a lot of my songs are written about movies that I love,” says lead singer Anna Shields. “What I love so much about movies is how they can just totally take you into another universe and completely create a new world that’s so different from the one we’re living in.” 

The band makes a conscious effort to recreate the universes they escape to within their music. The music itself doesn’t look inwardly at the band and their experiences, choosing instead to focus on the things we use to escape these things. Ignore This features a myriad of universes, with DEAD PONY creating songs that could easily be a part of the universes of Charlie’s Angels, Natural Born Killers, or even a zombie apocalypse.

The possibilities to choose from are infinite, so each song can trigger an entirely different experience for each listener. The VHS cases that cover the front of the album add to the feeling of nostalgia and transportation to other worlds, making the listener truly feel as if they are riffling through their own collection to find that perfect film to fit their mood. While some of the tracks may seem to mimic reality, the band are adamant about creating their own DEAD PONY universe and use music as an escape from the mundane.

Ignore This spans an extremely impressive 16 tracks; an impressive feat today given the rise of EPs and the decline of long form releases from bands. DEAD PONY was always dead set on writing an album, with guitarist Blair Crichton simply stating to his fellow band members that he would simply “give up” if they hadn’t released an album by the time he turned 27. 

The band has changed their attitude toward their creative process since committing to creating an album – instead of creating music they thought their fans and the industry would like, they instead have begun to create the music that appeals to them.  

“I think that some people might think that we write music for cool people but it’s totally the opposite,” laughs Shields. “When we were growing up, I was quite a shy person and I found it quite difficult to make friends and open up. I went through an emo scene kid phase and a goth phase and all these different things.” Shields’ working-class upbringing in Glasgow only added to the alienation that many of us felt during our younger years. Being picked on by your peers for looking out of the norm is a tale as old as time, and something that DEAD PONY knows all too well. “A lot of people then viewed me as being a bit of a weirdo and an outcast – I didn’t really fit in at school. Those are the kinds of people we write these songs for.”

The theatrical nature of their music is only enhanced by these experiences, with the relentless teasing adding an extra layer to the escapism through film that the band is so fixated on. “We did kind of go through a phase when we were finding our sound and were like ‘oh, we need to try and be cool and do what everyone else is doing,’ we needed to be viewed as cool,” reflects Shields, “But I would rather people see Anna and think that Anna is weird rather than seeing this theatrical thing that isn’t Anna.”

Bands like DEAD PONY that are authentic and open about their experiences and past as a working-class group is a refreshing taste of something that is seriously lacking in alternative communities. It’s something that many of us are born into and unable to control, yet it can make or break a band. In the unpredictable landscape of the music industry today many bands find it difficult to survive because of the hand they were dealt earlier in life. 

“We’ve really struggled with [being working-class],” reflects Shields. “We’ve had to work full time and don’t have rich parents that pay for our tours or keep us going with a monthly allowance while we go out and write songs.” While she’s not talking about anybody in particular, Shields’ statement alludes to a fact that many of us know: many bands try to relate to the working-class by acting like us, but there is a crystal-clear difference between these bands and the genuine sentiments of someone that has lived that experience. “Within the arts in general, not just in music, there’s not much support for working-class people when there should be.”

The band’s experiences and hardships are at the core of their values with the name of their debut album Ignore This stemming from the group’s resilience, constantly having been ignored by the people that matter in the music industry to the point where it only made them want this career even more.

“We were so sick of being ignored by our peers, by management, by labels, by promoters, that we were just like ‘we’re going to write an album that is so good that no one can ignore us and this will be our moment’,” laughs Shields. “It’s easy to have faith in yourself but to try and convince other people to have faith in you is really difficult, but that’s what this album is all about. We’ve had enough of being ignored and being told no, so we’re just gonna do whatever the fuck we want.”

Ignore This is out now via LAB/Seeker Records.

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