{"id":456,"date":"2010-02-04T09:00:04","date_gmt":"2010-02-04T15:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=456"},"modified":"2010-02-04T09:00:04","modified_gmt":"2010-02-04T15:00:04","slug":"an-horse-grey-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2010\/02\/04\/an-horse-grey-area\/","title":{"rendered":"AN HORSE – Grey Area"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jenny Henkelman<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"anhorse\" <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a long way around the world. When indie pop outfit An Horse pulled into Winnipeg in September, 2009, Kate Cooper and Damon Cox were more than a little run-down-looking, a little weary\u2014offstage. Onstage, of course, the guitar-drums duo were impeccable and compelling, both in the UW quad and, I\u2019m told, at the Lo Pub the same evening. Touring solidly this past year in support of their critically acclaimed debut full-length, Rearrange Beds<\/em>, the pair are about to take a hiatus to write a new record. \u201cWe\u2019ve nearly finished the cycle of the record we\u2019re on,\u201d said lead vocalist and guitarist Cooper.<\/p>\n

The cycle has taken them from their home of Brisbane, Australia to the bright lights of New York City and The Late Show with David Letterman. It\u2019s taken them to Europe and on tour with Silversun Pickups, Death Cab for Cutie, and Canada\u2019s own Tegan and Sara. \u201cThey\u2019re fun, great fun, good friends of ours and very supportive of us,\u201d Cooper said of the Quin sisters. \u201cThey\u2019ve worked really hard to be where they are and they\u2019re very authentic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Authentic is a word you could use to describe An Horse\u2019s beginnings. Cooper and Cox were co-workers at the last indie record store in Queensland. They were playing in other bands, but as Cooper says, started \u201cmucking around\u201d and found a chemistry between them that worked. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t intentional,\u201d Cox said.<\/p>\n

The store where they worked has now closed, largely because, Cooper says, \u201cPeople don\u2019t buy CDs anymore.\u201d An Horse aren\u2019t digital haters; \u201cDigital music\u2019s cool, if people buy it,\u201d she said. But there\u2019s a dark flip side to that. \u201cMore people have stolen our record than bought it,\u201d she said, and Cox had the anecdote to illustrate. \u201cSomeone had registered a website with Kate\u2019s name, put up our photos and our record to download for free. It was one of those websites where you have to do a survey or something. So someone was getting money somehow. It was really shit and disappointing. We fucking worked really hard on that record,\u201d he said. And the insults don\u2019t stop there. \u201cWe\u2019ve had people at shows come up to us and say, \u2018You guys are fucking great! Hmm, this is your album. I\u2019m not going to buy it, I\u2019m going to go home and download it for free.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Disheartening words for people trying to make a living playing music, but An Horse seems less angry and more frustrated when it comes to piracy. \u201cThey don\u2019t realize it\u2019s not cool,\u201d Cooper said.<\/p>\n

An Horse might be a bit down, but they\u2019ll be back in the saddle soon\u2014they\u2019re currently on tour with Tegan and Sara (including a January stop in Winnipeg). Their songs have appeared on TV shows like Friday Night Lights and One Tree Hill. Big things are ahead for these two individuals who are passionate about music and making it, in the basement of a record store or on an arena stage. As for the name? Cooper said it originated with a grammatical inside-joke sweater, about the usage rules for words that start with \u201cH\u201d and the indefinite article. Could \u201cAn horse\u201d really be correct? \u201cIt\u2019s a grey area,\u201d she said, with a shrug.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jenny Henkelman It\u2019s a long way around the world. When indie pop outfit An Horse pulled into Winnipeg in September, 2009, Kate Cooper and Damon Cox were more than a little run-down-looking, a little weary\u2014offstage. Onstage, of course, the guitar-drums duo were impeccable and compelling, both in the UW quad and, I\u2019m told, at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[45,76,454],"class_list":["post-456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-an-horse","tag-australia","tag-indie-rock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}