[Cover photo credit to Dana Trippe]
San Diego Psych/Blues-Rock trio Lead Pony will release their debut album Vultures on July 14, 2023 and celebrated the announcement by revealing the title-track single + video. The band will also be performing at the North Park Music Festival, May 27 in San Diego and have announced a release show celebration on July 13th, 2023 at the Music Box.
Jesse Hofstee, Hillary Laughery and Dylan Stallard started working together without particular goals, released their debut EP, Eclipse, in 2017, the double-single, Two Love Songs in 2018, toured and had song placements. But 2019 took them in various directions, punctuated by pandemic separations.
After bassist Seancarlo Ohlin joined the band during the summer of 2022, the band decided to focus on a full-length record and set about creating a sound world where these songs “could really live.” That world became their imagined version of ‘70s New York City created through interwoven stories. The album was produced by Trevor Spencer (Fleet Foxes, Father John Misty, Beach House).
Hofstee comments on the “Vultures” single:
’Vultures’ is a story about someone leaving their hometown to go to the city and ‘make it big’. It’s about change, taking risks and finding yourself, but also a cautionary tale about the vultures that will take advantage of people that are finding themselves, and send them in the wrong direction. It was one of the first songs we wrote for the record that started to lay the groundwork for the sound and idea of this being a record about the city.
Working on the album, the band focused on the groove of each song as the backbone. Once established, new sounds were explored using classic instruments like Juno synthesizers, layered Mellotron sounds and fuzzy phased out guitar lines. The song lyrics are “vignettes of stories and ideas that at times are personal but took on a feeling that was bigger than the band.”
