3:22pm Monday 19th July 2010
By Harris Dee
TIRED PONY: The place we ran from (Fiction Records): Tired Pony is a side project of Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody but fans of the Northern Irish band need not worry – he hasn’t strayed too far off the mark with his new collaborators.
The band is made up of Peter Buck of REM, Richard Colburn of Belle and Sebastian, Jacknife Lee, Iain Archer, Scott McCaughey, and Troy Stewart, while the Editors’ Tom Smith and M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel of She and Him help out on vocals – Zooey is the sister of Bones’ star Emily who plays Brennan.
Apparently Lightbody has held a long time ambition to record a country album and while this will go some way to meeting it, don’t let that frighten you off. If you aren’t a country fan, this is country rock and not a million miles away from Snow Patrol.
Tired Pony began life during idle moments on Snow Patrol’s year long tour for their last album ‘A Hundred Million Suns’, when he began writing songs for an imaginary band.
Then, in early January, he assembled his guest members – if you don’t recognise them all, McCaughey has been an REM full-time auxiliary member since 1994, Stewart is a regular touring member of Snow Patrol and Archer a long time associate and collaborator with the Irish band.
When work began on the album it was soon clear that the country record was being superseded by something far less simple and much moe mysterious. What he called ‘country tinged’.
“It’s inspired by my love of Wilco, Calexico, Lambchop, Palace, Smog, these bands that look at the darkness in America,” said Lightbody. “”I wanted to write a twisted loveletter to the States.”
The album was recorded with everybody sitting around a few microphones and the songs are all first or second takes.
“It felt really powerful and emotional and also really free,” said Peter Buck.” I don’t know if Gary went into it planning it to be something that was to last longer than the week of recording, but it certainly felt at the end of the week like it was a band, and that this was a good place to start. It would be crazy not to pursue this.”
Deschanel’s vocals on Get On The Road and Tom Smith on The Good Book help to lift those songs away from the familiarity of the other tracks, while Dead American Writers will be the first single.
It’s worth a listen for any Snow Patrol fan and anyone else wanting to dip in and hear a beguiling, low-key album of excellent tunes.
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