After 20 years of sold-out crowds and hit albums, Band of Horses continue to be a force to be reckoned with.
Ahead of their Aussie tour, we caught up with frontman Ben Bridwell to dive into it all.
2024’s been a massive year for the group, just coming off a tour with City and Colour, playing a number of shows across the US.
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“We’ve had a really good year,” Bridwell notes. “Over here, there’s been a lot of package tours. There’s a trend towards that kind of stuff in the summer for teaming up with bands.
“The City and Colour guys were fantastic. It was just really lovely to tour with people that are also grateful to be out there.”
For a group like Band of Horses, touring takes up a fair chunk of the year, so when somewhere like Australia pops up on the ticket, there’s a lot of time to kill.
“I used to really love to work when coming over to Australia and stuff like that, where you have more days off because it’s all flying places, seems like a lot of time in hotel rooms.
“I’m not really that social. I don’t like to get out all that much,” Bridwell adds with a laugh. “Maybe this time, I’m going to try to get back into some good habits, because we do have a good chunk of time out there.”
For any music fan out there, the tour life is one of the most interesting avenues; riders, tour buses and plenty more really help with the gig grind. Bridwell notes that on the road, the group have found some fun ways to keep it all fresh and interesting.
“You have to break it up. We have something called ‘Roadie Friday’, basically it’s like, when all the crew members you got a night off, or you have a day off the next day, right? So the bus can get a little bit rowdy with them partying, and you gotta break out the jams, and let everybody take turns with the stereo.
“Usually it takes something like that, breaking from the same old same of like, okay, you hop on the bus. I find those are the moments you get to hear about a lot of bands from just people with different walks of life and stuff like that, where I usually discover a lot of good stuff. I’m always looking for new stuff, and my kids are constantly throwing new stuff at me as well.”
Band of Horses aren’t strangers to our great lands, having jetted over a number of years in the past, playing Big Day Outs, plus shows at venues like The Corner, The Forum and Palais.
“I loved The Corner Hotel, but playing Brizzy and stuff like that was so cool. I think we’ve played Brisbane maybe twice. I’m always like, “what the hell happened? What did we do that was so bad they hadn’t invited us back?”
“Going to Perth as well, and getting to go over to play with the quokkas. We have really good friends in Australia, so we’ve been lucky to, like, play with them and travel with them as we’re out there. A lot of the fact that we have familial vibes when we get there is kind of the biggest thing.”
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The band are en-route to hit the stage with the iconic A Day At The Green Festival, alongside The Teskey Brothers and CMAT, to name a few.
“There’s moments where we also get to stretch our legs a little bit at festivals. You’ve got to convert some of the masses our way.
“I don’t like for us to shoot ourselves in the foot, though, when there’s a lot of people that don’t know the material or know us very well, so I try to just make sure that we’re playing the best stuff we got at that for that vibe of that day.
“But I’m so glad to get back to Australia, it’s been too long.”
Band of Horses play A Day On The Green in January 2025. Grab your tickets here.
