Inside the world of feeble little horse and their faithful Equestrian fandom

feeble little horse appear in our 2023 summer issue, which you can buy here.

Sometime last year at a house party in Pittsburgh, inspiration struck feeble little horse. A rotation of 20-somethings guitarist/producer Sebastian Kinsler’s roommate had invited over were cycling through the house, many of whom were strangers to the band, but they were eager to write an opener for their sophomore album, Girl With Fish (out tomorrow, June 9). They penned “Freak,” and by the time they finished, it was only 8 p.m. — so inevitably they got the itch to also whip up a slow jam, which ended up as “Heaven.” 

“We were in the kitchen. They’d come in to take shots and then they’d leave, and we could record a new vocal before they came back to grab another mixer from the fridge,” Kinsler says. 

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“We’ve never been good at planning when to make songs,” singer/bassist Lydia Slocum interjects.

While none of those partygoers seemed to identify as Equestrians — the working name for the band’s fandom — they’re one of the buzziest groups in indie rock right now. Despite forming just a little over two years ago, the noise-pop four-piece have quickly ascended from playing house shows for fellow University of Pittsburgh students to becoming Pennsylvania scene staples with a legion of fans who travel across state lines to see them. Once the beloved indie label Saddle Creek re-released their 2021 debut album, Hayday, in 2022 and the band started playing shows with acts like waveform* and Sidney Gish, an entire Equestrian Club of critics and DIY fans was formed. 

It all felt surreal for the group. Guitarist Ryan Walchonski has since moved to D.C. to work a day job, and the rest of the band, including Kinsler and drummer Jake Kelley, are still in school at Pitt, while Slocum finishes up at another university in the city. But it’s largely been a whirlwind because this group of self-described weirdos can’t believe that they found each other and instantly felt the synergy they do as artists. Together, they’ve created a kinetic, erratic yet blissed-out sound that only comes from a band who see their at-home recording setup and basement practice space as a playground of sorts.

[Photo by Micah E. Wood]

feeble little horse began with Kinsler and Walchonski when they were no longer interested in their solo ventures and the garage-rock band they were in. Kelley eventually came on, and the trio crafted 2021’s modern tourism EP. But even before they released that more fuzzed-out, emo-adjacent project, they were busy working on what would become Hayday. 

The record was ultimately finished in a span of only two days, when a mutual friend introduced the band to Slocum and a recent breakup propelled her to deliver razor-sharp, deadpan witticisms on the tracks, which turned out to be far gnarlier than their first EP. “It felt unreal. I was like, ‘That didn’t actually happen. We didn’t actually spend two days making a whole album,’” Slocum says. “It was very exciting, especially for me because it was such a new thing. I never thought that I could be in an actual band.”

Prior to that experience, Slocum only wrote songs with friends from her girls’ choir to laugh at — ridiculous ditties about brushing your teeth, bees or even a hyperpop song about Santa Claus and all of the inappropriate things the narrator wanted jolly St. Nick to do to her. So when she was tapped for feeble little horse’s vocals, it was all “just for fun.” The dirty Christmas song might never make it as a feeble little horse B-side, but there are certainly traces of her unrestrained quirkiness and cunning bluntness all over the band’s songwriting — and she knew it was something special. 

The way Hayday has been embraced, she explains, confirmed feeble little horse weren’t so crazy in thinking they were onto something with the brash shoegaze sound and tales of early 20-something hilarities that they created. That excitement and confidence they found together is what they’re holding onto. 

“When we’re all together, it’s like, ‘Why wouldn’t we just make a song?’” Slocum says. “There’s never really a question of, ‘What are we going to do?’ We’re just going to make songs.’” 

“Nothing else we could do would be as fun,” Kinsler adds. 

That’s what led them to the release of Girl With Fish, one of the most delightfully delirious indie albums of the year. Opening with reverb-heavy guitars and Slocum declaring, “I know you want me freak/Sport star honey/Be on my team” on the infectious “Freak,” it’s like the sassy seduction number is also a promise from the band to deliver fun, unbridled noise. 

“I think we’re genuinely really weird. It just comes out, and it’s like, ‘There it is!’” Slocum says of the band and their strange-cool brand of guitar music — only for Kinsler to joke, “I think we’re supremely normal. We could have done this music in the ’50s, and it would have gone over.”

[Photo by Micah E. Wood]

The band clarify, though, that even if it goes unsaid, they would rather cut back later than ever hold back to begin with. Walchonski explains, too, that there’s never any intention of how something should sound — it simply comes from how they’re feeling in the moment and supporting each other’s experimental choices. 

Girl With Fish found them exploring a whole myriad of creative choices. Kelley loves the fact that they used Kinsler’s closet as the vocal booth, while Walchonski thinks it’s funny they turned off every appliance in his apartment to make “Paces” — even moving the refrigerator away from the wall to unplug it. In fact, it was so quiet that anytime somebody walked by in the unit above them, they had to start over. 

Moments of loudness were just as exciting, from the house party several tracks were born out of to Slocum’s favorite memory of the guys’ practicing screaming along with her because she was nervous to yell on a song for the first time. 

Even with their buzz, their recording process puts into perspective what the stables behind feeble little horse are really like. After all, they aren’t all that far off from the house show circuit they emerged from.

“Before I moved to Pittsburgh for college, I saw a meme about dying from secondhand smoke inhalation at a Pittsburgh basement show. I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I can’t wait to get to Pittsburgh and see this stuff!’” Kinsler says. The pandemic stunted those plans, but by late 2021, he and the group were playing those shows themselves. First at a local alley where onlookers sitting on rooftops witnessed Slocum on bass for basically the first time and heard way too high of reverb, and later at hometown favorite house show venues like The Bushnell. 

A year later, they had a now-famous dinner on tour at a halal restaurant in which they promised not to sign to a label — only to do so a month later. Even still, when they’ve gotten a bit more serious, some of their favorite memories as a band thus far include Kelley and Slocum’s endearing pastime of pushing her around in a shopping cart or running maniacally through Brooklyn streets while on the road. Even a story about Kinsler blowing out one of Kelley’s tires as soon as he took over the wheel, after making Kelley drive for hours — only to then make him change it and berate him while doing so — is met with laughter.

While the band may be short-lived, it clearly means the world to the foursome. Even when they go thrifting together, feeble little horse are always on their mind. Now, their practice space is full of horse-girl-core pieces Slocum curated to deck it out; a drawing of their mascot, Sherman the horse, floral wreaths, cherubic art, even a wooden gun and rabbit’s head. You can imagine the group in there, inspiration abounding with each inside joke and chaos thrown into the production. They’ve become Equestrians themselves.