See A Thousand Horses Strip It Down for Three ‘Southernality’ Songs
“This is how we started, so for us, it’s getting back to what we’ve always done when we formed the band,” says Michael Hobby, singer for A Thousand Horses, who help us launch our new performance series Rolling Stone Country Sessions, powered by Ram Trucks.
Filmed at a remote farm north of Nashville, Rolling Stone Country Sessions spotlights some of country music’s most buzzworthy artists through intimate performances and interviews. For A Thousand Horses, who tour as a nine-piece ensemble with backup singers, that meant stripping it down to the four core members — Hobby, guitarists Zach Brown and Bill Satcher, and bass player Graham Deloach.
“We like the acoustic set. We like to break it down,” says Deloach.
Adds Brown, “It’s cool for people to hear a song stripped-down and get to hear the meat of it and hear the lyrics.”
“It’s how it was written,” echoes Hobby. “That’s how it sounded the day we wrote it.”
For their session, A Thousand Horses perform their Number One song “Smoke,” the sultry “(This Ain’t No) Drunk Dial” and new single “Southernality.”
The hard-charging anthem about having pride in your roots is also the title track to their debut album.
“It’s about the lifestyle of growing up in the South and being proud of where you come from, no matter where it is,” Hobby says of the song.
The band is currently on tour with Jason Aldean throughout the summer, bringing a type of country-rock music that, Satcher says, is unique to the Horses.
“Since the beginning, we’ve done our thing and focused on us,” says the guitarist. “We write the music we love and play the way we want to play.”
Look for another installment of Rolling Stone Country Sessions next month.