First of all: How are you, guys?
Aloha… we’re doing great! And how about yourself?
I’m fine, thanks!
Now, what is the “The Evil Pony’s” line-up? Can you give a little presentation of everyone of you?
Well we’re a four piece band in standard rock formation as they call it.
We have Manu Vermeersch on vocals and poetic skills. Willem Depraet plays lead, solo and other guitars, all at the same time! He’s also responsible for most of the musical ideas. Sven Bauwens hides his guitarplaying skills on bass and helps out on music knowledge. And finally we have Steven Mervielde on percussion. He started playing the drums especially for The Evil Pony’s.
It all started with “The Evil Pony’s Bitches”, an odd group name that later became “The Evil Pony’s”.
Can you explain the choice of this band name? What is it suppose to mean?
Ha… We remember it as it happened yesterday! Manu always wanted to start a metalband called “Evil Monastry” and Willem had some kind of connection with a Pony… well, we will not go into details. Bring together Evil and Pony, make it plural and you have The Evil Ponies. But for graphical reasons “Pony’s” is much cooler, so we made up a story about an original bandname which was The Evil Pony’s Bitches… it really is not a writing mistake.
Now, can you describe the peculiar music style of “The Evil Pony’s”? You call it polder rock or Eekloosch metal and Meetjeslandsch metal by extension. It definitely is a crossover genre I rarely if ever heard of, before I met your band.
So you put together four people with different music taste (at least guitars are something we all like) and only a limited knowledge of playing their instruments and what you get is our music style. We try to borrow everything in music that we think is cool and blend it into a groovy, hit sensitive metallish song. As long as we like it, it’s ok!
You seem to have a “je m’en fous”-image and the only thing I can think of (when I see you guys live on stage): “Oh man, these crazy lads are having a tremendous time!” Yet, I somehow have the idea that you find it a great honour and enjoy the fact that you are becoming more widely known. I even heard you on Studio Brussel, the biggest radio transmitter of Belgian youngsters!
Of course it all started as a joke. Starting a band, just to get away from girlfriends and work, it’s every man’s dream. The only reason we play in this band is having fun. And we want the audience also to have fun! We love doing our thing on stage and I think this is something that our fans enjoy.
We never dared dreaming that we would be playing this much live and even getting airtime on the radio. And so it became a challenge to get as far as possible, without losing the fun. You never know what will be next.
Never thought of going a bit further or broader? Like shaping the band’s music to a more earnest genre and atmosphere? You absolutely have the instrument skills – and I would almost forget the sometimes divine grunts of Manu – to form a classical heavy or thrash metal ensemble. Are there actually sideprojects of “The Evil Pony’s” band members?
Hehehe, we do our best to keep The Pony’s… well The Pony’s. We will never make very complex music and we’re just fine with that. That’s just the fun about the band.
If we want to get serious, indeed we have some sideprojects. Steven is the bassplayer of The Difference (great heavy doom band, certainly check it out) and Willem releases his demons with Heidrun (black metal straight from hell or valhalla or wherever these guys dwell in their free time). Sven is a superb guitar player who has a lot of (ex-)projects (Run4H, Dead Hand Draw, Heresy…). Manu has an exclusive contract with The Evil Pony’s. We don’t want to share his competences with anybody else!
What are the greatest influences? Besides the export beer: I’m referring to the music.
Belgian Asociality is for sure a band we look up to. And Johny Turbo remains a hero for us all. But when it really comes to music, there are many bands to refer to. As we all love music, we all will take influences from our daily listening to music.
What is the most beautiful compliment you got for your newest album “Mee Een Muile Gelijk Ons Ist Alle Doagen Keirmesse!”?
The greatest compliment is to hear people singing along with your songs during a gig. Then you know that they actually listened to the album for a couple of times (or that it’s really catchy). And the fact that people say that even the music isn’t that bad at all, tells us that mission is accomplished.
I certainly love the renewing of the song “Schuppe” on this first full-length album. Yet, I miss songs like “Neem mijn lief” or “Krügercomplex”, some of my favourites. The punk influences in the Pony’s style almost guarantee sing-a-long tracks. What is your all time favourite “The Evil Pony’s” track?
Well, for “Neem mijn lief” we have a simple explanation. It is a song protected by Sabam and we refuse to give and money to them (check the No S’Bam logo on the CD). Krügercomplex needed some reworking and it was not strong enough yet but it will return in our playlist! And maybe on the new CD.
What are the perspectives of “The Evil Pony’s”? What do you want to achieve the coming years from now?
The next step is an acoustic session in café De Bakkerei in Eeklo on the 19th of March “The Evil Pony’s Zonder Ellentriek”. That will be quite a challenge so we will put some effort on that.
And in the mean time we are writing new songs so we hope we will be able to offer you a new CD soon! And new t-shirts! And more gigs… so you guys are not rid of us yet.
Thanks a lot for the drop in! Good luck in the near future: Have lots of gigs, chicks and beers!
The pleasure was totally ours! Got any more beers?
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MERCI!!