aaamusic | On 25, Nov 2022

Who are you and where are you from? 

We are Wild Horse. A band from a middle-of-nowhere village in East Sussex called Burwash. It’s tiny, there’s probably more cows than people. Our band is made up of brothers Jack Baldwin (vocals, guitar, bass, keys, synths) and Henry Baldwin (bass, guitar, keys, synths, backing vocals), and their long-time friend Ed Barnes (drums, percussion, backing vocals, guitar).

We formed around 9 years ago when we were very young. Jack was only 11, Ed was 12 and Henry was 14. Originally, Henry and Ed went to the same after school band club and decided to have a jam as they knew each other well. They really enjoyed playing together and decided to try and form a band. At this point, Jack (who was still in primary school at this point) had been playing guitar for a few months and was getting quite good and so Henry asked Jack to come and try out with the band. Jack declined because he didn’t want to be in a band with his brother and end up “splitting like Oasis did” (Jack was thinking about big levels of success before the band had even started). But eventually, he was convinced, and we went in to the after-school club and tried it. All three of them instantly connected musically and knew they had something special. The first song they ever played together was a 25-minute version of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” and the rest is history.

What inspired you to get into music? 

We all got into music very young. All three of us grew up with a whole range of music around the house. Motown stuff, classic rock, pop, 80s true romantics, funk, rnb, soul, Robbie Williams, Sex Pistols, The Clash. You name it, it was playing as we were growing up. That’s why we grew up with such an eclectic music taste. It was clear that Ed was going to be a drummer from when he was 2 years old. He would always be tapping. He’d use anything and make a beat out of it. He used to get into trouble at school for the constant tapping of things. Henry took a traditional route to getting into music. He started learning classical guitar when he was about 8 years old and learnt to read music (the only band member who can) and developed from there. Jack was a bit unsure what he wanted to play at first. He learnt piano in a classical way of music reading for a bit when he was around 7 but he gave up because he was bored of playing ‘Mary had a Little Lamb’ and he wanted to do his own thing. He stopped music for a few years until he heard “sympathy for the devil” by The Rolling Stones and then he knew he had to do music. He played around with the piano again, then even thought about the harmonica but when he saw how much attention his brother was getting for playing guitar he decided to pick up the guitar as well. He picked it up extremely quickly and instead of reading music he would teach himself things by ear and after a couple of months he stopped using a guitar teacher and just taught himself. And from there, they were all soon in a band together.

 What have you done?  

We’ve done a lot of things in this band that we are proud of. We’ve released multiple albums (one of which we produced ourselves from scratch), we’ve had some highly streamed songs, we’ve had celebrity followers. However, I think the thing we are most proud of is when we play a show and the people in the crowd sing our own lyrics back to us. That is the best feeling in the world. There is nothing like it and we are fully addicted to it. That’s why we gig so much and have shown no sign of stopping after nearly a decade. We just love it so much and we are so proud that people know the words to our songs. It’s crazy to us.

What are you like live?

We are known for putting on a highly entertaining and incredibly energetic live show. We love to push the boundaries with what we can do live. It’s always our goal to make sure that every member of the audience feels included in the show, and not just like they’re watching a band play some songs on a stage. Audience participation is at the heart of our shows. If even one person leaves the venue feeling like they didn’t have fun, then we haven’t done our job.

What makes you different?  

I think the main thing is that we don’t put boxes or barriers around our music. We don’t confine ourselves to one particular genre. We release whatever it is that we really enjoy playing. The genre doesn’t matter. We’ve released funk songs, jazzy songs, punk songs, reggae songs etc. there’s something for everyone in our music.

Physical vs Downloading vs Streaming…How do you listen to music? 

We listen to music in both the physical sense and the streaming sense. We usually use Spotify because we find that one of its main benefits is that it is so easy to find new and interesting music that you would never have found without it. And then if we like something a lot, we’ll buy it on vinyl. We do admit, using Spotify does feel a little bit wrong to us because as artists we know how little pay you get for your work from steaming platforms. To be absolutely clear, we don’t do music for money (no band should, if they are then they will never get anywhere) but for up-and-coming bands it can be hard to keep the ship afloat and when you see how little you get for your work it can be a little disheartening. Especially when you realize that most of your work is going into the pockets of billionaires. But then again, that’s the same with most things. Streaming services have definitely helped us to grow and reach an audience far more quickly and easily than if we didn’t have streaming services, so they have definitely helped us as a band. Overall, we like streaming services and feel that they have allowed artists to find more inspiration and be more creative. But like everything, there’s pros and cons.

What have you been listening to? 

We’re loving the new 1975 record at the moment. It slaps. We also like Wet Leg, Wolf Alice, Blood Orange, Steve Lacey, Sam Fender. The list goes on and on. We listen to all sorts. This may sound big headed, but we’ve also been listening to a lot of our own stuff recently. Hey, if you’re not a fan of your work then how can you expect anyone else to be!

What are your aspirations for the future?   

We have massive aspirations. We want to go right to the top. We want to be able to put our mark in music history amongst the greats. Ultimately, if we can connect with people all around the world through music and spend our lives traveling the world and doing music as a full-time thing (without having to have a pub job) then we will be very happy.

Questions answered by: Wild Horse…