As its title suggests, Cleveland pop-punk trio Heart Attack Man’s fourth record Joyride the Pale Horse isn’t a particularly stoic look at the impending apocalypse and all of its increasingly visible horsemen. Instead, true to the band’s decade-long history, it takes the bad news in stride, even with a bit of humor. Across these 12 tracks, Heart Attack Man continue to deepen their serrated take on power-pop by balancing it with a low-end post-hardcore sound inspired by not entirely un-apocalyptic ’90s bands like Failure, Quicksand, and Hum.
And while more of those sonic influences may be open to interpretation, we thought it might be interesting to hear how inspiration struck the band outside of music, whether it be from religious texts that lent the album its structure, “cool and unsettling” sci-fi that informed its mood, or even the personal tragedies that affected frontman Eric Egan’s headspace during the record’s recording period. With the record dropping tomorrow, check out what he had to say about five of the band’s non-musical influences below, and pre-order the LP here.
Fantastic Planet
We had this movie playing a lot when we were tracking the record. For those unfamiliar, it’s a French animated science fiction movie from the ’70s. The animation is really cool and unsettling, and it really helped set a certain mood for when we were tracking. We like to have movies playing in the studio, thanks to our producer Brett Romnes suggesting it years ago in the studio with him. Even if the sound isn’t on and no one’s actively paying attention, it just helps keep the space engaging in a way.
The Book of Revelation
This record isn’t a religious record, by any means, but the “Pale Horse” of Joyride The Pale Horse is in reference to the four horsemen of the apocalypse. The idea of the end times and prophecy is fascinating to me, and considering the record explores an overarching theme of death from different angles, this felt like a fitting way to creatively tie it all together.
Loss of a friend
On a personal note, a childhood friend of mine passed away last year. It wasn’t the first time I’d lost someone I knew, but this friend of mine wasn’t much older than me, and I have a lot of core childhood memories that I made with him, so it affected me in a way I hadn’t known before. I’ve felt a lot of complex, at times dizzying feelings around it, and it definitely had an effect on my headspace with this record.
True crime fiction
The whole year prior to tracking our record, I was in a big phase of chugging through true crime books. I’d never been a voracious reader before, but something just clicked one day and I’ve been in my reading era since. I’m mainly a nonfiction reader, and true crime was just really doing it for me leading up to and shortly after tracking our record.
Mr. Ballen
On the topic of true crime, I’ve become a big fan of Mr. Ballen, thanks to being introduced by my girlfriend. I’d never been much of a podcast enjoyer before, but I got really into his podcast and YouTube channel. As I said, the overarching theme of our record is one of death, and while none of our songs are about any particular case or anything like that, I do think reading and listening to this genre of media had an influence on how our record came out and helped me get in the zone to confront where the creative process took us on this record.
