Dead Horse is a thrash metal band from Houston, Texas,[1] which was active in the 1980s and 1990s. Over seven years of touring and recording, Dead Horse developed a style influenced by thrash and death metal. Dead Horse also incorporated elements of country music and Texas culture, on songs such as "Hank" from Horsecore and "Chiggers" from Feed Me.
Contents |
Their first releases, including their debut album, Horsecore: An Unrelated Story That's Time Consuming, were released independently, while they had one nationally distributed LP, Peaceful Death and Pretty Flowers, released through the independent record label Big Chief, distributed by Metal Blade,[2] and manufactured and distributed by Warner Bros. Records. They released the self-financed EP Feed Me in 1994, which was intended as a demo for Interscope Records. The EP failed to garner a major label deal, and primary songwriter Michael Haaga left the group. Dead Horse released the EP BOIL (ing) on Beermoment Music in 1996 after Haaga left, and Scott Sevall from Force Fed took over Hagga's position.
Haaga went on to form The Demonseeds, and is credited on the first release from Superjoint Ritual as bassist and backing vocalist, but the credit is 14 lines below the listed band members, and just below the disc's "Photography" credit. He also released a solo LP, with the backing of Houston-based musicians, entitled "The Plus and Minus Show" released in late 2004. Haaga managed to garner five Houston Press Music Awards in 2005 for this release including Album of the Year, Songwriter of the Year, Song of the Year and Local Artist of the Year. The band broke up shortly thereafter.
In 1999, Relapse Records re-released Horsecore and Peaceful Death and Pretty Flowers;[3] all of the tracks from Death Rides a Dead Horse were bonus tracks for Horsecore while Peaceful Death and Pretty Flowers was accompanied with a track from Feed Me and tracks from their 1990 demo. Additionally, there were hidden tracks on both of the reissued CDs. On Horsecore, the hidden track was the slowed down version of French Fry immediately followed by the real-time version of French Fry. French Fry appeared on the original CD issue as track eight while apparently not on the original vinyl. On Peaceful Death and Pretty Flowers, the unnamed bonus hidden track was a collection of slowed down, spoken voices.
Greg, Scott, and Ronny have since gone on to form the band Pasadena Napalm Division with D.R.I. vocalist Kurt Brecht, whom have released one E.P. and are to release a full-length album in 2012.
In 2011, Dead Horse reunited with a re-release of their last album BOIL(ing), this time with Argo on vocals. The band has played reunion shows in Houston at Warehouse Live, Austin at FunFunFunFest[4], and also in Fort Worth at The Rail Club on December 2 and 3, 2011.