Melodies, musicians, and meditation with Ypsi trio minihorse

MUSIC INTERVIEW

Minihorse

Ride on: John Fossum, Ben Collins, and Christian Anderson are minihorse.

The rock trio minihorse was featured in Detroit Metro Times' “12 Detroit Bands to Watch in 2018," with the qualifier that the trio is actually from Ypsi.

The band is comprised of Ben Collins on lead vocals and guitar, AADL’s own Christian Anderson on bass, and John Fossum on drums who create loud, fuzzy songs that are rich in melody. Collins' lyrics are reflected in minihorse’s responses to my questions: vacillating between insightful self-reflection and cheeky humor. Take the standout track “Blueblack” from last year's Big Lack five-song mini-LP: “The mailman’s dressing in all black / at least that’s who I think it is through the pinhole. / That’s him tilting his head back / I think I should let him into my VIP.”

Over tea and biscuits, we talked with minihorse about the band's forthcoming debut LP, inspiration, meditation, and mental health.

Q: What projects are you working on right now? 
Ben: We’re making a full-length album at the moment, and it’s almost done. Big Lack was the five-song EP. The full-length is nearing completion I want to say. We’ve got a lot of it down; we’ve probably whittled it down from 30 possible songs to 11 or 12 songs. Maybe 15 to 20 are recorded, and we cut out a bunch of songs that didn’t sound good. Those will be the b-sides.
Christian: As for our record label, we’re on Friendship Fever records out of Sacramento, California. 

Q: When is the release date? 
Ben: We don’t have one yet.
Christian: Things are perpetually …
Ben: I thought it was about 90% done for a year. Now it’s about 90% done.
Christian: Super 90% done.
Ben: I keep going back and remixing stuff. You have to know when to call something done. That date is approaching whether or not I’m happy with the record. It doesn’t matter. 

Q: Art in that way is hard to complete because you feel like you’re saying you’re never happy with it.
Ben: I don’t think I’ve ever put out a record and listened to it within a year and thought it was any good at all. I hate everything I’ve ever done.
Christian: That’s particularly true, the dissatisfaction, because it’s something that isn’t tangible. You could say it about writing, painting, or making a film. It’s mostly that way with music because there's nothing physical about it. With music, you cannot touch it. That’s why, if I try to write a song, it’s very frustrating to me because I don't have any control over it. Maybe real musicians do.
John: Classical composers might have an idea of the key something is in. That’s not how it works with rock music. A melody will pop into your head and you have to find it.
Christian: It’s finding the songs, really. The handful of songs I’ve ever written have come fully formed out of nothing. And sitting there like “daaahhhh” and something just comes out. It’s very strange. I’m at the mercy of whatever that is.
Ben: But then if I threw away every song I've written that wasn’t fully formed when it came to me, I’d only have two songs. I don’t have fully formed lyrics; they come later with the melody. The joy of the moment is when everything comes at once. When it doesn't happen that way, it feels like work.
Christian: Isn’t it weird that there’s the “joy of the moment” and art comes out of that, but I would rather be sleeping or playing video games or doing nothing. 
Ben: I don’t think you’d rather be doing that stuff, I think you just do that stuff. I read a psychological study that people tend to do things that are easy when rated on an objective scale, meaning they enjoy doing it or not. It’s a baffling point to think about it, but it’s true. You’ll do the easy thing even if it’s something that’ll make you feel worse. It’s one of the most relevant things to our time. Like how many hours today have I spent looking at pictures posted by shitheads? Then you do this thing afterward, you create this narrative after doing whatever it is you were doing: ”Because I did this thing, that’s what I like. Why wouldn’t I like it? I was doing it! I guess I really like looking at Instagram.” 

Q: In terms of inspiration, it just comes to you sometimes like if you’re walking down the street, and you’re looking at the trees, does the melody just come?
Ben: I was throwing up when I came up with “Blue Black.” I think I was drunk. I was literally in the bathroom and just was so nauseous. Your brain is detached. Throwing up is a beautiful state of bliss if you forget about the food going backward. I literally thought of that whole first chorus and melody when my breakfast came up.
Christian: I just read Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch. I got it from my local library.
Ben: That’s a great book and you can read it in about 15 minutes. I think meditation is very helpful for being in a creative state of mind. And I wish I could call it a practice because I’m not regular enough to really do it, but I’d say I follow what I’ve heard about transcendental meditation. I didn’t spend the thousand dollars to take the class, but I know people who have and they’ve shared the secrets with me. Also, I Googled it. I do general mindfulness meditation. I’m also building an app that helps guide your breath through biofeedback. But you won’t meditate and have an idea. It’s the way to clear out the big clown suit, I think Lynch calls it. The “suffocating rubber clown suit.” 
Christian: That book was so valuable that I was thinking about buying it so I can pop it open every so often. With David Lynch, his meditation thing isn’t to get the creative idea, but to feel present, and when he is done with that, he is able to be more receptive to the elusive thing we’re talking about that we don’t know where ideas come from. Clean yourself out to be receptive. I meditated over the summer and it was great. But then I stopped. I got busy and such. But it’s all about thinking about breath. And pizza.

Q: Do you have a mindfulness practice, John?
John: In the last 19 days, yes. 
Christian: Twenty days ago [New Year’s Eve] he was a mess. Nineteen, that is Stephen King’s number.

Q: When many people hear their recorded voice, they think they sound like fools. Do you ever feel that way? 
Ben: Yes, absolutely. Sometimes I rely on other people telling me if stuff is good or not. John is a victim of my self-consciousness. I showed [John] something last time, and said repeatedly that I’m not sure if this is going to be good.
John: I told you to just play the song. You sounded really frustrated. I know what you're going to say, so just play the song.
Christian: You have in your head this idea and it’s very precious to you and you want it to be just right, and it never is. I personally don’t want to put the effort into it. I want it to be perfect when it comes out and that’s the opposite of being an artist.
Ben: That’s something that almost makes music compelling in the same way that gambling is compelling. You know, you get the feeling like pulling the lever and hitting a jackpot. You have moments, and when you snap out of it, lyrics, harmony, and melody are perfectly formed. Then you record it quickly, record a demo, and that’s it. That's the final version. That’s what happened with “Drink You Dry.” And then you spend ages chasing anything relative to that, which then comes along maybe once every few years. It could be that easy, then it isn’t for years. That drives the depressive qualities of songwriting. Maybe it’s true of other creative pursuits, too.

Q: How common is it for musicians to mentally decompensate? Like Syd Barrett. What is this state?
Ben: So, what is mental illness and how common is it? 
John: It probably isn’t any different from the rate of an average person.
Christian: I don't think musicians are necessarily prone to it.
Ben: There are personality traits that could predispose someone to certain ailments, and sometimes different types of abuse can cause people to retreat into songwriting. Elliott Smith is an example -- self-medicating through songs. Maybe you see mental health struggles or mental illness not because of music, but music as a consequence of the same root cause. 
John: Or maybe even more compelling art made when musicians, like Elliott Smith, Syd Barrett, have been on the brink of stuff.
Ben: Then to go back to David Lynch’s point; it’s bad for your creativity to be in a state like that. He said suffering may be great for the characters you write, but it’s damaging for creativity.
Christian: It’s never worth it to court misery for the sake of making art. People want to romanticize it.
Ben: I think it’s portrayed that way to set up an expectation. You get these narratives built around propping up and creating legends out of death, like Kurt Cobain. People who died out of the 27 Club. Think about these people and their untimely deaths. If those people were able to ask for help, they might still be here.

Q: So at this current moment, what are you listening to?
John: I was listening to Brian Eno.
Ben: Sunbathe, which is a Portland-based band we played with in Hamtramck at Trixie’s. They’re great. I listened to some Shigeto today.
Christian: I saw Shigeto playing drums on KEXP in Seattle, he did his awesome solo thing playing drums.
Ben: I’m also listening to the Bay City Rollers.
Christian: I’m listening to a band called Sunforest. They had a few songs on the A Clockwork Orange soundtrack. They’re a psychedelic pop band from the mid-'60s and “I Want to Marry a Lighthouse Keeper” ended up on that soundtrack. 


Sairah Husain is a desk clerk with the Ann Arbor District Library.


Minihorse plays Ant Hall, 2320 Caniff Avenue, Hamtramck, on Friday, March 2, with Bevlove, The Blueflowers, and Sidewatcher. Visit minihorse's website or Facebook page for more info.