Horsell Common - Ray Guns, Martians and Kurt Cobain in a Satellite Wonderland

Horsell Common for those who don’t know is also the name of a huge privately owned piece of nature land in the UK. Formerly a burial ground and also famous for the place where H.G. Wells’ ‘Martians’ landed, we asked HC guitarist Mark Stewart if they were a bunch of greenies or if there was a darker connection

“Well a few years back we were a few weeks out from playing our first show and we didn’t have a name, we really didn’t see it as a priority and at that stage and we had been writing for about 12 months. It was a show at The Metro in Melbourne and the promoter wanted a band name so they could advertise, we were doing everything we could to avoid them because we couldn’t think of a name we liked and we were also trying to come up with a valid excuse to cancel the show because we didn’t think we were ready. A few days later our drummer Leigh was listening to the War Of The Worlds soundtrack and flicking through the booklet and saw the chapter “Horsell Common And The Heat Ray” and liked the name and mentioned it to Luke and I and we both thought it would be suitable for at least this first show. At the time we had no idea we’d be stuck with it, I think we like it more now than we did then and every so often we get an email from someone who lives near by there asking us why we picked it for a band name which is great for a laugh.”

Life on the road is grueling for many. The money is scarce and creativity can wane. HC seem to be growing stronger and stronger and the fan base is devout. This is how Mark summed up writing and living on the road. “Unless there is some kind of deadline that we have set ourselves and we’re scrambling to have material ready then we tend not to worry about writing on the road, music that is. Lyrics I try to keep as constant as I can, it’s also a great excuse to get out of driving when we are traveling. As far as interesting moments outside of gig time, yeah there’s definitely a few but as far as I’m concerned I don’t think we get into too much trouble on tour but whenever we are catching up with friends bands it always seems to be us telling the stupid stories” Is there really no money in touring? “Every now and then you get decent money for a show but usually it’s barely enough to get to the next show, and you accept that very early on because it’s not really a big deal. Most of the time it’s a case of the more you get paid the more you spend on the show itself, weather it be on promo, travel, lighting, sound etc. Sometimes there is a little bit left over and you treat yourself to a night on the piss and those are the nights where you usually come away with an awesome tour story. So please finish this sentence. Horsell Common will go down in Australian music history for ________________? “Doing the most amount of tours in the one year. I think we did nine different tours last year. Is that a lot? It sounds like a lot to me, I know it felt like a lot.”

Would you ever just be a 100% studio band? “I doubt it, something would have to be stopping us from touring and even then we’d probably call it quits anyway. Personally I do find it a little tough to do both at once, if we are touring the last thing you want to think about is writing songs and vice versa. If we are writing and its really clicking all you want to do is stay in there and keep making music.”

I wondered if Horsell Common would revisit themes again as they did on Satellite Wonderland. “No I don’t think so. At the time I was a little over writing about myself so I thought a concept record would be a good idea. I also thought it might make me a better writer as writing lyrics has always been a bit if a chore for me in the past. I really think it worked, I loved writing those songs and I’m really motivated to write for our first album too. So yeah, lots of different things to sing about on our next record which will make it a lot more personal and a lot more honest… it’s a bit scary but the new stuff is sounding great so far.”

So this three piece are a tight little family within themselves. Could HC go from three to four or more? “We have thought about doing that and once we actually tried it with a friend of ours but it didn’t quite work for us. I think there is a lot more to it than just the music though, there is a lot of time to kill in between shows and if we were are ever going to add another member we have to be sure that we can get along with them in downtime too. We might try it again in the future but any addition would probably be another guitarist and I kinda like being the only guitarist, at least for the moment.”

As life evolves, so too can musical creativity. Some bands such as the Beatles went through many metamorphoses whilst others like AC/DC go with the ‘if it aint broke, don’t fix it’. Will HC stay true to its roots or will there be a Sgt Peppers lurking around the corner one day? “No I don’t think we are good enough to stick to the same formula every time and still keep people interested. Before we did Satellite Wonderland we had just finished a shit load of touring and we felt we had become a decent live band and all we wanted to do was capture that on record. This time I think we might go in the other direction and layer the songs a bit more, pay more attention to the vocals and try a few different things.”

What is the one single achievement so far that as a band, you feel most proud of and why? “We played with Silverchair the other day, that was pretty amazing.”

Here at Dwarf HQ seeing that the boys from Horsell Common were obviously fans of HG Wells, we cranked up the Time Machine and asked Mark to choose a famous musician to be re-incarnated as. “Definitely Kurt Cobain, He had a massive impact in a relatively short space of time.”

So there you have it. HC are just about everywhere at the moment. Check out the links to the usual places. If you can’t find a HC gig near you, then YOU deserve to meet a Martian with a ray gun.

Horsell Common play Moonee Valley Youth Week, April 22nd, Queen's Park, Moonee Ponds, VIC

Share this article on Facebook