Nice Horse doesn't hold back
Calgary's Nice Horse rides into post-pandemic life with hot new singles and a podcast
By now, it would be nice if the all-female lineup of Calgary's Nice Horse wasn't such an anomaly in the world of mainstream country music.
It's true that the genre has accommodated an increasing number of talented female artists in the past decade. But, as their official bio points out, Nice Horse is an all-female, self-contained band that play all the instruments, write the songs, as well as offer those rich, multi-part harmonies they have become known for. Sadly, this is still a rarity in country music.
In fact, five years after Nice Horse burst onto the scene, drummer Krista Wodelet can think of only one other Canadian band — upand-coming teen act Small Town Girls from Tillsonburg, Ont.— that fits the description.
“You look at the nominees for (Canadian Country Music Association awards), you look at the Country Music Alberta awards, and there's just not a lot of female groups out there,” says Wodelet, in an interview from Calgary.
“There are a lot of female-fronted acts. There are a lot of solo projects. But just not a lot of women playing lead guitar and bass and drums and banjo. It would be really great if we could see more of that.”
Since releasing their debut There Goes the Neighbourhood in 2017, Nice Horse have garnered three Canadian Country Music Association nominations and five Country Music Alberta Awards. They have produced a slew of successful singles since 2019, including last month's wistful Good at Missing You.
So one would hope the band doesn't have to put up with the sexist assumptions and dopey remarks (“The only problem with the band is I can't decide which one of them I want to kiss first!”) they endured early on in their career.
Not that they ever really put up with them. At least, not quietly.
The band's 2018 banjo-fuelled single Mansplainin was a defiant anthem that came complete with a darkly comic video that poked fun at sexist advertising of the past. It was at least partly inspired by the band's early dealings with industry types and audience members, who seemed flummoxed by the idea that females could play on stage without the musical help of men.
Cowgirl, which became a Youtube hit this summer, is a less pointed but equally catchy rallying cry that promotes openness and inclusion in country music.
On the band's podcast, The Road Case, Nice Horse often welcome female guests from the industry, many of whom have similar war stories to share. The podcast is part of Be Nice Nation, a “lifestyle brand, community, and media empire” the band created during the pandemic that finds them partnering with organizations and spearheading initiatives that support women's rights, the LGBTQ+ community and mental health wellness.
It gives Wodelet, vocalist-bassist Brandi Sidoryk, guitarist Tara Mcleod and vocalist-guitarist-banjo player Katie Rox a chance to work with communities and issues that are near and dear to them.
But there was also a practical motivation for starting it.
“One of the reasons we really wanted to develop Be Nice Nation was because we don't want to have to be constantly hammering these things we believe in into our music,” Wodelet says.
“When they come up, they come up organically and that's great. Cowgirl, obviously, is really alive with our values. It's not about what you wear, or where you come from, or who you are or who you identify as: Anybody is welcome in country music.
“When these things come up in our music — and they do, obviously, because we believe in them — that's great. But we wanted a place where we could purposely be spreading these important social justice messages, even when we're promoting a single that doesn't have a political bent or social justice angle. Because it becomes insincere after a while. If you're putting out message songs one after another, I think that becomes exhausting.
“Music for us is also fun, and we don't want to always be sitting down to write and thinking, `What feminist message can we force into this one?' Sometimes we just want to write a song.”
As anyone who has caught them on stage already knows, Nice Horse can match any band when it comes to energetic, freewheeling live performances. It should serve them well this week during a pair of Stampede shows: the King Eddy on Friday and Nashville North on Saturday.
Since 2019, the band has released six singles distributed by Warner Music. Most come with an elaborate music video, which has clearly become an important plank in the band's marketing campaign.
Cowgirl is an animated video that features the band engaged in battle with a giant robot. The hard rocking Hot Mess features drag performers Trixie Mattel and Jezebel Bardot. The innovative video for High School, co-directed by Wodelet and Sidoryk, was shot during the pandemic using green screens and has the band coming to life in the pages of a yearbook.
Nice Horse formed after the original four members — guitarist-vocalist Kaley Beisiegel was replaced by Mcleod in 2018 — got together for a songwriting vacation in Hawaii. Initially, it was meant to be a side project for the musicians, but quickly became the main focus. Like all well-functioning bands, Nice Horse has since become “greater than the sum of its parts,” Wodelet says.
But those individual parts are certainly eclectic. The four members bring very different musical backgrounds to the band, which may explain its unique chemistry.
Mcleod also plays in the heavy metal act Kittie and performs as part of Classic Albums Live. Prior to Nice Horse, Rox was probably best known for fronting industrial rock band Jakalope opposite Skinny Puppy founder Dave Ogilvie. Sidoryk is a classically trained opera singer and founder of the electropop act Sidney York. Wodelet has a master of music degree in orchestral bassoon from the University of Southern California and has performed with orchestras throughout North America.
“These are the things we bring when we pick up our instruments, and it's what we bring when we write songs,” Wodelet says. “Although we're operating in the country genre, we have this constant — I don't want to call it a battle — but sort of a push-and-pull with management and with A&R where we're always exploring the edges of what country music is.”