Horsegirl
As part of our Artists To Watch list, we’ve conducted interviews with the eight artists featured in our 2021 Spring/Summer edition. Check out our Q&A with Horsegirls below and click here to check out the full list.
Blazing onto the scene with their time-transcending rock sound, Horsegirl is already beginning to make noise on the national level, and it’s hard to ignore. Made up of Nora Cheng, Gigi Reece, and Penelope Lowenstein —who seem to have found each other thanks to fate—Horsegirl is a love letter to what once was and a promise of what can be. Different pieces of their individual personalities reflect in one another and make up their harmonious relationship. From finishing each other's sentences to merging their lives for the sake of the band and their connection, this trio has given in to the growth of Horsegirl as a unit. Reminiscent of DIY scenes that once were and a haunting spirit of rock from decades past, the band is determined to bring this feeling back on their own terms and spread it throughout their generation and those to come. For them, it comes down to community and a shared love of music, which, when paired together, often results in magic. In 2021, Horsegirl seeks to continue harnessing that alchemy, and what they do with it will be worth the wait.
What have you been up to so far this year?
Nora: I mean we spent like our entire winter break kinda just recording demos and writing a lot of new stuff.
Penelope: Yeah, we've been on a little bit of a label hunt recently so that's been what we're going through now. There's been a lot of behind-the-scenes Horsegirl business going on and just like navigating that.
Gigi: We never thought the email would be this active (laughs). We just made it for fun but it's like Penelope was saying, sort of just like label hunt, making demos, writing stuff, and seeing each other a lot.
Penelope: Now that we have kinda written our record or like the songs we will be playing done, we've been trying to practice them in different iterations and working on our live set even though that's so far in the future. We did an Instagram live stream where the sound was really bad but just trying to make sure that our live set is our focus now that all the songs are written.
Gigi: Also if we aren't practicing our live set then we just get stuck, we just keep writing more songs and we already have too many for an album. We have no album recorded but we hope to do that.
How has forming Horsegirl changed you all individually, whether it's creatively or personally?
Gigi: We are just so like a unit of Horsegirl.
Nora: We go through many of the same phases together, music-wise or fashion-wise.
Penelope: I think it's been a thing of we all go to different schools and but we all are together all of the time and there's just something about being with this group of people who have really similar interests and then we fall in love with a band or a new scene or a new film that had really cool fashion so I think that's been really good. Also, I think, in high school, having a project so important to you is kind of rare. It’s almost entrepreneurial in a weird way like trying to run it, trying to grow it, and trying to hustle your friends into going to shows. I didn’t necessarily see myself being so involved in a band in high school but it's become my whole high school life and personal life. It's cool to have a life outside of school life.
Nora: It's also rare to find people who have such localized, clear creative visions and similarities and it’s very surprising that we managed to find each other. It's definitely also being together and kind of just creating the same vision but we also kinda all came in with the basis to be able to get to where we are.
Gigi: It's like we all really gave into the growing together and showing each other new music and new everything and since we sort of let ourselves fall into Horsegirl fully, we really just became this unit and we all have such a clear vision of what we wanna be but […] It's really hard to explain but we all know we have the same thing, like the same exact thing going on in our brain about what Horsegirl is. I like to think we came together because of fate.
Your music can fall into a variety of genres and sounds, can you talk a bit about how your sound came to be?
Gigi: We could list forever
Nora: Kinda what started all is.. [laughs]
Penelope: Sonic youth…is that what you were gonna say?
Nora: Yeah!
Penelope: I do think Sonic Youth was the reason. I feel like some people are like, "Oh every person who bought that velvet underground album started a band.” And for us, we started a band because of Sonic Youth. I do feel like we are very inspired by scenes that don't exist anymore like no wave music.
Nora: And New Zealand’s twee, indie alt-pop-type, alternative scrappy stuff.
Penelope: I think a lot of it for us was watching videos…
Nora: Very low-quality live videos in weird places of people from decades ago.
Gigi: Also, watching Pitchfork documentaries. Watching documentaries that were like depicting scenes of the 90s, 80s, all of that.
Penelope: We grew up in a DIY scene that was really wonderful and no shame to it but then we were also falling in love with music that isn't necessarily being made anymore and watching a lot of documentation of those scenes and being like, “Wow it'd be really cool to grow up in this and hear music like this live." So that's what we try to do.
Penelope: I feel like we should list some bands just for bands sake…
Gigi: Sonic Youth…
Penelope: My Bloody Valentine…
Nora: Yo La Tengo…
Penelope: Belle and Sebastian and Stereolab.
What do you see in the future for Horsegirl?
Gigi: I mean for all of us it feels hard to think about it now but a big dream would be touring because we are really focused on these scenes that used to exist and a lot of it revolves around touring. And the fans that would go to the shows and how amazing those shows were and how tiring tour was, all of that and just how exciting everything is and I think it's like we could just fantasize about going on tour and I feel like if we ever go on tour, it's gonna be huge for us.
Penelope: I feel like we have this really long term vision for this band that we've had for a long time and we want to kind of bring back punk music or you know rock for younger people and because we feel like it's been so important to us in our youth and our lives, that would be the ultimate goal. To bring it back, not bring it back just us but that could be a new wave of music in the 2020s.
Gigi: 2020s [laughs] and that type of community and that type of show where you’re just there having fun and you love the music, everybody’s really nice and all that type of stuff- the excitement of the stuff we used to see, like a band that is a unit.
Is there anything you want listeners to know about Horsegirl or what you have coming this year?
Nora: Oh boy.
Gigi: Who's to say?
Penelope: I mean there's gonna be an album one day!
Gigi: Yeah, the album will be recorded this year.
Penelope: When it will be released? Maybe not our call!
Gigi: We are definitely gonna be recording an album this year because as we said it's all written. We hope to just maintain the people that are coming in now and really understanding what we’re about and hoping to keep trying to get what we all understand so well to other people and deliver it nicely.
Nora: Also just younger generations and our age people and people younger than us into these older types of music but kinda entering through us in a way.
Penelope: I think that what I would want people to know is hopefully they can feel we represent them in some kind of way. I do feel like we've been receiving a good amount of press and my hope is there's some longevity with this project and we intend for this to be a long-term thing.
Gigi: We hope for it to be [a long term thing] because we really love doing it, we are just trying to exist for as long as we can.