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Pulled Apart By Horses is a name most music fans are familiar with. I first came across them in 2010, hearing them on the radio whilst sat in a popular deli chain. After following them on social media I then discovered they were going on tour with my favourite band of the time, Blood Red Shoes. Zooming pretty swiftly into the near future, they were playing Reading and Leeds, touring Australia and playing SXSW.  With lots of ticks on their bucket list, PABH are currently working on their fourth album. I spoke to Tom Hudson, vocals and guitarist, to chat about their journey from secret house party shows to playing Australia.

“When we started the band in 2008, my main goal was to write and record an album and have it released properly as I’d never had the chance to do that before.” They certainly got more than they bargained for, starting with a DIY tour of Spain with a band from Madrid called Rosvita to working their way up the Reading and Leeds line-up and eventually making their way to the main stage.  Not to mention recording their second album with producer Gil Norton (Pixies, Foo Fighters), supporting Muse, playing Australia and SXSW in Texas! 

So where did it all start? How does an alternative band from Leeds get to play Australia? Tom tells us it started off pretty humbly for PABH. “In the first couple of years we would play house parties all the time, they were so fun! Just playing in someone’s basement in Hyde Park- covered in sweat, drunk at about 2 in the morning with one mic going through a guitar amp, a cobbled drum kit and whatever else we could salvage. We played this house party in Sheffield once where it got so hot that in between songs we would take it in turn to open the fridge and climb as far as we could inside to cool off for a bit.”

Getting the support of your local BBC Introducing show is a huge achievement for a lot of bands starting out, or even better to play on the BBC Introducing festival stages. Like most bands, this was the same for PABH. “I think the BBC Introducing Leeds & Reading stage for us was a goal at the time. Something to aim towards and strive to, mainly so we could blag free tickets to Leeds Festival.” 

So they signed up for the Futuresound competition where bands would play at The Cockpit and get selected to play on the Introducing stage. “A week before we played that show we found out that Huw Stephens had kindly selected us to play anyway.” Being the true gentlemen that they are, the band still played Futuresound but treated it as more of a party. “By the end of our set we had loads of people on stage playing the same riff on guitar, me and James (guitarist) were the only ones that weren’t playing. James was playing a Guitar Hero controller and I was pretending to swim on top of the PA.”

Fun aside, Tom and PABH hold a lot of gratitude for the Introducing stages: “It really kicked started our festivals for us, we managed to play Reading, Leeds, Latitude and Glastonbury thanks to them.”

For a band that state their first 4 years as a band was one big tour, it’s intriguing to know how they managed. Whilst touring is in the job description for a band it’s not always as glamorous as you would hope. Tom tells us more: “You kind of get into a bit of a rhythm with things after a while, you kind of stop caring what happens around the show and just focus on the gig. The only tough thing would be trying to find accommodation, to just sleep on people’s floors. When you’ve been doing that for months on end it eventually makes you feel a bit broken. I guess one of the things that got us through it and still does to this day, is having a mutual sense of humour.”

Another early goal of the bands’ was “to get some gigs that weren’t in Leeds”. This was massively exceeded when PABH played in Australia in 2011 at Golden Plains festival which then led them onto the Soundwave tour in 2014. “I didn’t ever imagine we’d end up playing some shows at the other side of the world. Last October we were asked over again to play a run of shows. I still feel like it didn’t happen, probably due to alcohol and jetlag.”

PABH have stayed true to their roots, still living in Leeds and supporting the local music scene.  “There is a lot of competition, but we never really saw it in that way. A lot of the bands in the local Leeds music scene don’t really have that competitiveness in the same way. It feels more like you’re just peers helping each other out, sharing the same world, it’s more of a community. The same goes for tons of other bands we’ve become friends with.”

So what’s changed for PABH since breaking through from BBC Introducing? “I think we’ve got our s*** together a lot more, probably due to having a road crew and management, and we’ve become a lot more focused on pushing ourselves. Even though it’s not necessarily DIY to have management, agents, press people and radio pluggers I think our core is still DIY.” PABH make sure they are involved with every discussion and decision. “We record our own demos, we produce our own album artwork, merch artwork and still book some of our own shows. We just need to pop down to London, as it’s the centre of everything, every now and then for meetings.”

Along with being extremely busy with the band, Tom also creates artwork and videos under the name Snake Arrows. Tom and bassist Rob have overseen the band’s artwork for all of their album and single covers. “I’ve had a passion for art as well as music and I tend to swing from one to the other a lot. Now I create music videos, animations, posters and album artwork for different bands as a bit of a hobby. We’ve produced a couple of our own videos too, a lot of the time it works out a lot cheaper but ends up being a lot harder in terms of editing as it’s yourself and your band. It’s hard to look at things subjectively.”

With the fourth album underway, Tom lets us in on its progress: “I think we’ve kind of come full circle with this album. We’ve still got a lot to prove and a lot of new things we want to explore but in terms of energy and gut instincts. I feel like we’re going into this album without overthinking and over analysing stuff to much. Things sound different and exciting for me but obviously still have the same driving PABH core behind it. I’ve been listening to a lot of old garage rock records and psychedelic stuff and have also dusted off the old Bowie, Beatles and Stooges records.”

With the band’s original drummer Lee leaving the band last year, PABH have now gained new drummer Tommy which seems to be a good experience all round as Tom explains: “Since Lee left early last year we've been re-discovering who we are as a band and I feel like we have a new bit of energy infused into us.” 

For the last album ‘Blood’ PABH worked with Sony Red on a development deal. “We were given the money to make the album, but out of that money we had to split it up and decide what to put it into (producer, studio mixer, mastering engineer, distribution, printed and online PR etc.) so we had some control over it but it was hard to decide how much to invest into each thing.” 

The band’s own label ‘Best Of The Best’ was created to release the album but they don’t plan on releasing anything else on the label. “Big labels kind of scare me but it’s all about who you work with really. When we worked with Sony Red, we worked in an old pal called Ali Tant who we’ve known for years so it wasn’t all that scary in the end.”

PABH have also been long term members of the Transgressive roster. “We didn’t end up doing ‘Blood’ with them partly down to them already having so much going on at the time and also due to us wanting to change things up a bit. The thing with working with an indie label is that they’re normally fans of your music before you even work with them so you already have that trust and passion set in place before you even do anything.”

Finishing off the interview in true Unsigned Guide style, I wanted to know what advice Tom could give to upcoming bands and artists. “I would say an important bit of advice is to go with your gut, we’ve made the odd mistake here and there mainly because we didn’t really follow our instincts at the time. Trusting your gut has helped me in tight creative situation, career decisions and all sorts of stuff. If you’re staying close to what you want to do then you’ll be a lot more fulfilled creatively. If you make mistakes then it isn’t so bad as you can learn from them, but when it’s somebody else’s mistake, things can get messy. I sound like a f***ing fortune cookie or something.”

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