All of the guys that we have with us are here because they’re true friends,” declares Ben Bridwell, frontman for South Carolina’s newest musical transplants, Band of Horses. “They’re all super-talented in their own way, but it’s not about virtuoso playing sometimes. It’s more about the family aspect of it.” At the present moment, taking a break from tracking his sophomore album in the homespun comforts of Asheville, North Carolina’s Echo Mountain Recording studio, Bridwell is very much in tune with these thoughts. His birthplace of Irmo, South Carolina is only a couple hours away by car, and his parents live a bit further out in the Low Country, near to where he has just bought his own house. Life has brought him and his bandmates full circle, but it’s been a long trip home.

The band has covered a lot of ground since its 2004 inception.
Originally hailing from the indie-rock enclave of Seattle, Band of Horses was born out of the demise of local cult sensation Carissa’s Wierd when Bridwell and guitarist Mat Brooke expanded their instrumental repertoire and regrouped along with two other musicians. In a little over a year, they had signed with the Emerald City’s famed Sub Pop Records, released a critically lauded debut and embarked on a whirlwind tour with stops in Europe and Australia. Halfway through the domestic run, however, Brooke suddenly quit. The music blogs broke out into wild speculation at the news of the co-founder’s abrupt exit, and a statement on the band’s website about a conflicting “side project” did little to quell the rumors. Regardless of the terms of his departure, Brooke’s contributions to the Horses’ incipient oeuvre had already begun to resonate with fans, and his absence left a noticeable gap. Upon returning from the road, Bridwell began scouting for new bandmates. He reconnected with an old friend from Charleston, drummer Creighton Barrett, and invited him to saddle up. Barrett brought along Rob Hampton, who took up bass and guitar duties in the revamped outfit. There may be new Horses, says Bridwell, but the song remains the same: “I don’t think it’ll sound any different. From the beginning, I’ve been the dude that writes all the songs... It’s an improvement to the old show that we used to do, I think. I hope it wouldn’t confuse anyone too much, but the songs are still Band of Horses.”

The debut album, Everything All the Time, is a breezy scrapbook of nostalgic country-pop and blissed-out rock that swings low with sweet emotion. Given that Bridwell was the drummer in Carissa’s Weird, it is astounding to imagine his transformation to both a singer and guitarist in these 10 tracks, as his vocals soar effortlessly and his playing comes off as smoothly polished. “I’d never played guitar before, really, so I detuned all the guitars to what I thought sounded right and cool,” Bridwell divulges. “Most of those songs are written in strange tuning that doesn’t even really exist.” While his lofty, trilling falsetto has prompted comparisons to contemporaries My Morning Jacket, Bridwell relies on Neil Young for inspiration. He wails mournfully over lilting pedal steel and sparkly banjos in the rock-a-bye blues of “Monsters,” recalling the pastoral lullabies of alt-country antecedents like Young and Gram Parsons. Bridwell’s vocals have the unique ability to reflect unlikely pairings, as when sorrow and hope collide in the tender, elegiac rush of “The Funeral,” one of Everything‘s most stirring offerings. It is the heft of the sentiments in these compositions that strikes such a resonant chord with listeners, a power that Bridwell chalks up to his own desperation bleeding through the music. “I know it sounds so cheesy, but I dropped out of high school — I have no skills. It’s like, ‘If you’re gonna do something, like have an opportunity to put out an album on Sub Pop, you might wanna try real hard, ‘cause you’re not really doing anything else right now.’”

His story has its share of rocky trails and dead-end streets. Reared in the bucolic environs of Irmo, Benjamin Bridwell lit out for the territory at 18 and soon found himself homeless on the streets of Seattle. Along with childhood friend Brooke and Carissa’s Wierd alum Jenn Ghetto, he spent a month as a squatter punk, slumming in church doorways and getting pitched out of empty Ryder trucks into morning traffic. Before long, however, the reverse glamour of teenage indigence began to wear thin. “Being homeless after a while just gets really fuckin’ old unless you want to stay that route,” Bridwell advises. “But if you’re a person that’s striving for higher things for yourself, it can be a bit fuckin’ obnoxious to not have a place to go.” Life in the big city of Seattle was exciting for the young musician, and he soon became familiar with many of the region’s standout acts such as Built to Spill and Modest Mouse. “To be in that environment, and to get to know those bands and be friends with them — it was something to strive for,” says Bridwell. “The success of our friends was amazing — to think of them as rock stars, you know?”

Although recognition was still a bit farther off for Bridwell, he didn’t hesitate to help his talented peers get noticed if an opportunity arose. When an old friend from South Carolina sent him a hidden treasure in the form of a crackly home demo, Bridwell diligently sought an outlet to get it released. Through his infiltration of the local scene, he had made the acquaintance of the management at Sub Pop and passed them the cassette. “They fuckin’ freaked out,” he exclaims. Sub Pop promptly released the tape as is — a fuzzy, warbling gem of Americana folk that made big waves in the indie rock circles. Its creator, a humble film teacher by the name of Sam Beam, was instantly catapulted into a prolific career as a singer/songwriter under the moniker Iron and Wine.

Bridwell credits Beam’s success with landing Band of Horses their eventual recording deal: “I think it was a bit of a favor to give our demo even a listen at Sub Pop.” At an early Horses gig in Seattle, an opening slot for Iron and Wine, several employees of the label were in attendance. Impressed by the band, they purchased a copy of the Horses’ EP and brought it into the office. By the time label head Jonathan Poneman finally made contact, the band was already being courted by another prominent Seattle label, Barsuk Records. Both were great options, Bridwell insists, but ultimately he felt more of a kinship with the roster at Sub Pop. “By having an old friend like Sam have a home there ... I guess it felt more natural to go with them,” he muses. Miles from home, rubbing elbows with the luminaries of college radio, the Horses opted to stay true to their roots rather than jockey for rock ‘n’ roll glory. The blessing of their achievement is the opportunity to be surrounded by good friends while making music they believe in. “For us, it’s more about just getting along with people ... whether it’s the guy doing monitors, or the fan in the audience, or the fuckin’ promoter,” says Bridwell. “All my friends, we’re all cut from the same cloth — it’s like, don’t be a fuckin’ diva asshole or some rock star douchebag. That’s just not our scene.”

After nearly 10 years of struggling as a musician in Seattle, the chance to release a debut on a label like Sub Pop was not something Bridwell took lightly. The producer he enlisted to craft this make-or-break record would be as pivotal to its success as the songs he picked to put to tape. Phil Ek was a standout choice; with production credits on seminal albums by The Shins, Les Savy Fav and Built to Spill, he had a solid reputation for launching careers. But more importantly for Bridwell, he was also a close friend. The two had met through fellow Horses Hampton and Barrett, whom Ek had worked with in their previous outfit, The New Mexicans. Long before the Sub Pop contract was inked, Ek was already on board to be the man behind the faders for the Band of Horses inaugural release. “We based our record deal on how to get the right amount of funds to make that album happen,” says Bridwell. “So Phil was very much involved when I was trying to choose which label to go with.“

Once the deal was signed and it was time to cut the record, the band joined Ek at Seattle’s Avast Studio for a crash-course in professional recording. “At least for the first album,” confesses Bridwell, “[recording] was really kind of a traumatic experience for all involved. People had a hard time getting their parts right with the demands of what Phil wanted to hear — it was definitely a big ‘wake-up’ for all of us.” An avowed novice on the guitar, Bridwell recalls being challenged by Ek’s uncompromising methods: “I can be lazy, and he makes me do everything to try to be completely perfect. He has a very large picture of how he thinks everything should sound. So if you’re not doing it right, he makes sure it gets done.” Everything‘s strength as a cohesive work comes as much from its inspired songwriting as it does from the reverb-soaked guitars and ethereal vocal harmonies that give the tunes their vibrant sheen. As most successful musicians will readily attest, a truly visionary producer is crucial to sculpting a memorable album. “Phil might as well have been a member of the band on that last record,” insists Bridwell. “If someone else would’ve done it, I don’t think we’d even be talking right now.”
To be sure, many things have changed in a very short time for Band of Horses. Along with Hampton and fellow South Carolinian Barrett, Bridwell recently migrated back to the Low Country of his childhood after more than a decade in the Northwest. The homecoming marks the close of a circuitous journey in his life and the return to a region that fills him with a sense of admiration. “I have a lot of pride for our state,” he beams. “For those kids that are in high school and might like our band, I want them to think it’s cool to live in South Carolina. It’s rad to think that that there are South Carolina kids that are stoked to know we live here.” Finally back on hallowed soil, the band is carrying this enthusiasm with them into the studio. In the luxuriant warmth of Echo Mountain, a church-turned-pro-audio-playground complete with a stained-glass backdrop, Bridwell, Ek and the Band of Horses family are simply happy to be recording music together: “It would be easy to be kind of terrified about your sophomore album, but it’s really cool that we’re all just really excited about what we’re doing and what lies ahead for us.”

www.bandofhorses.com