TAS in Session: Horse Feathers
Horse Feathers, a whimsically-named quartet of folk rockers from Portland, Oregon, recently released a third album, Thistled Spring, on Kill Rock Stars. The band, led by singer, songwriter and guitarist Justin Ringle, will be heading out on tour this summer, with stops at the Newport Folk Festival, the Philadelphia Folks Festival and the Ottawa Folk Festival.
Ringle began Horse Feathers about five years ago with an initial lineup that included Peter Broderick on Horse Feathers' debut, Words Are Dead, which received a Plug Awards nomination in 2007 for Americana album of the year. For the group's wintery sophomore album, House with No Home, the duo added Broderick's sister, the cellist Heather Woods Broderick.
After the Broderick siblings left Horse Feathers to tour with the Danish orchestral-pop collective Efterklang, Ringle recruited Peter Broderick's friend Nathan Crockett (violin, vocals), former Sea Bear member Catherine Odell (cello, vocals), and Sam Cooper (banjo, violin, mandolin, percussion, vocals, harmonium) who not only joined the band, but became Ringle's roommate.
Horse Feathers dropped by The Alternate Side's Studio A not long ago and treated us to a beautiful live session of three songs from Thistled Spring: the title track, "Starving Robins" and "Belly of June:"
Alisa Ali: When we began playing your music, I thought that your band’s name was an old-time expression. Is it?
Justin Ringle: It’s synonymous with nonsense or rubbish. It was originally something I heard my grandfather used and I just liked the antique sound of it.
Alisa: Do you actually use it when you’re speaking?
Justin: I don’t (laughs).
Nathan Crocket: If you say something ridiculous during this interview we’ll make a point of retorting thus.
Alisa: I will likely say something ridiculous during this interview. [“Horse Feathers”] is also a Marx Brothers movie.
Justin: Yeah, I’ve become painfully aware of that since I’ve had the name. I didn’t know that there was a Marx Brothers movie when I began playing under that name, but a lot of people think that was the genesis of the name. But it’s not. I’ve never actually seen the movie, but in mood, it’s about as far away as possible from what we’re doing, so it’s kind of confusing.
Alisa: From your name, I was expecting something different, like a hipster, ironic, indie band. But when I started researching you, I saw all of these Americana labels pop up which is probably due to the fact that your first album [Words Are Dead] was nominated as Americana album of the year for the Plug Awards. What do you feel about the Americana label?
Justin: I think it’s more fitting than a lot of other labels that people try to affix to what we do. Only because it’s even more open-ended in a way. In the indie community, they always want to label things contextually to other bands. But in the Americana world, it’s kind of like, well, Americana.
Alisa: I’d love to know the genesis of the band because there have been some lineup changes.
Justin: Well, I moved to Portland in 2004 and I started writing songs, right before I’d moved from Idaho. I started playing open mics and just kind of messing around with music, but then I began to take it more seriously. Eventually I met the first instrumentalist that I began working with, Peter Broderick, and did Words Are Dead with him. Then we enlisted his sister to play cello on the next album and we did House With No Home with me, Peter and Heather. Then they got involved with other projects and [Nathan, Catherine and Sam] began to filter in during various times and we’ve been playing in this arrangement for about a year and a half. There’s been other people involved in the past too, playing live. This is the first time I’ve actually been able to tour with the band that I recorded with on the record.
Nathan: The original instrumentalist, Peter Broderick, is an old childhood friend of mine and when he went on to other projects, he suggested me as a replacement. Sam and I began playing with Horse Feathers at that time.
Justin: Which is funny because Peter and Nathan grew up together, literally 400 yards apart, in rural Oregon. [Nathan’s] mom was their violin instructor and orchestra teacher.
Nathan: I started playing violin when I was about five.
Sam Cooper: I like to tell people that Nathan began playing when he was an embryo.
Nathan: In some ways I was studying at that point. When I was really young, I really wanted to play the violin. But as I started getting into the depths of classical training, I definitely had several years where I was not enjoying it. I’m very glad I stuck with it because I wouldn’t be where I am today.
Catherine Odell: I met Justin through the Portland Cello Project. I used to play with them and they collaborate with local musicians. Horse Feathers was one of the bands they collaborated with.
Justin: I could tell that she had better intonation than most.
Catherine: He stalked me.
Justin: I did, actually (all laugh). I watched all of the YouTube clips she was in. At the time she was playing with another band called Sea Wolf from Los Angeles and watched those clips with the utmost scrutiny.
Nathan: I remember chatting with Justin about this when we were recruiting Catherine and he was like, “I think she’s going to do okay. I was watching videos of her all last night!” (all laugh).
Sam: The technical term for what Justin did is “headhunting.”
Catherine: He came to one of my shows with another band in a really small venue. After that show, he asked if I had any interest on joining him on tour. I was a little offended at first.
Alisa: You were? Why?
Catherine: I was doing my own thing, so the gall of this man to ask me to leave what I was pursuing to go join his efforts! (she laughs).
Justin: You never told me that!
Catherine: I didn’t? (laughs). What better time to reveal it than now?
Justin: Now you have all this.
Catherine: Living the dream.
Alisa: How did you break up with your old band?
Catherine: It didn’t happen immediately. I actually think I got kicked out of my own band when I was gone for too long.
Justin: It was my fault.
Alisa: Tell me about the title track of the album.
Justin: Originally ["Thistled Spring"] was written on piano and we recorded it with a live quartet. We had a violist play with us as well. Obviously we’re not hauling a piano around so we just translated it to guitar, but it still retains the basic concept of the song.
Nathan: An approach used in the entire album is recording several people, if not all of us, live. In over half the songs, that’s the core of it. So in [that] song we did live piano and string quartet all at once. I think it made the album fun and kind of vibrant.
Catherine: And the string parts for that song were pretty much written in one day.
Justin: It was mostly written, recorded and arranged in one day, so we really felt as which we captured a moment.
Alisa: What’s the writing process for you?
Justin: I’m sure everyone has their unique process. I definitely feel as if I’m on one side of the songwriting process. Some people are lyrics first and then try to put them into the song. With me it’s music first. I figure out the melodies that I want and then take words and try to fit them to the song. It’s kind of a backwards way, but I feel that I can control what I want to say in terms of how it relates to the mood of the song. The words, in a certain way, become slaves to the music.
Alisa: So you consider youself a musician first and a lyricist second.
Justin: Yeah, definitely. More of a songwriter, overall. I don’t think I’m a fabulous musician.
Nathan: Horse feathers, Justin! (all laugh).
Justin: I don’t think I’m a fabulous writer.
Alisa: Horse feathers!
Justin: The two things together, I feel that’s the one thing I can really get into. But that is the most challenging process, definitely.
Horse Feathers Tour Dates
23 -- Guelph, ON @ Hillside Festival
24 -- Guelph, ON @ Hillside Festival
25 -- Guelph, ON @ Hillside Festival
27 -- Exton, PA @ Eagleview Concert Series
28 -- Baltimore, MD @ Metro Gallery
29 -- Arlington, VA @ IOTA Club & Cafe
31 -- Newport, RI @ Newport Folk Festival
August 2010
01 -- Montreal, QC @ Osheaga
11 -- Haddon Heights, NJ @ Summer Series
14 -- Ottawa, ON @ Ottawa Folk Festival
15 -- Ottawa, ON @ Ottawa Folk Festival
18 -- Fairfield, CT @ FTC StageOne
20 -- Harrisburg, PA @ Stage Two @ Whitaker Center
21 -- Schwenksville, PA @ Philadelphia Folk Festival
