For Jacob Slater, the frontman of Wunderhorse, chaos isn’t just part of the job – it’s the lifeblood of his art. “We like it when things go wrong,” he says with a hint of amusement. “When Jamie’s snare drum breaks or the amps cut out, there’s this moment where you want to disappear. But then you realise – this is where the magic happens.”
If that embrace of the unexpected explains Wunderhorse’s blistering live shows, it’s also a metaphor for Slater’s circuitous journey through the entertainment industry. Slater first rose to attention in the mid-2010s as the lead singer and guitarist for the teenage punks Dead Pretties. Their furious performances in London’s dingy basement venues (most notably the Windmill Brixton, proving ground of many established indie bands such as Sorry, Black Midi and Shame) were the stuff of legend, but internal conflict and personal issues saw the band break up in 2017, leaving only a Facebook post and an excellent goodbye single in their wake. Slater retreated to Cornwall, trading the capital’s chaos for odd jobs and surfing in Newquay.
It was there, amid the steady rhythms of coastal life, that Wunderhorse was born. Slater’s new project swapped Dead Pretties’ fury for melodic introspection, drawing inspiration from Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, while retaining his former band’s ability to get genuinely heavy at a moment’s notice. Cub, his debut album under the Wunderhorse moniker, emerged as a testament to Slater’s personal growth in the years since he’d been off the scene.
Before the formation of Wunderhorse, Slater’s West Country exile was interrupted by an unexpected opportunity when he was cast in Danny Boyle’s Disney+ series Pistol. Playing Paul Cook, the drummer of the Sex Pistols, Slater got a taste of life as a member of one of the most celebrated and controversial bands of all time.
Reflecting on the experience, Slater says: “When you say I was in a Disney show, I sort of imagine myself in a Mickey Mouse suit, but it was an interesting experience – a very different world. At the time, I didn’t know if I was ever going to make music again, because it was during Covid.” The experience was a leap into the unknown. “I was definitely thrown in the deep end, but I like feeling uncomfortable and doing stuff that maybe I wouldn’t normally do,” he admits.
As to whether the experience influenced his music, Slater feels that “maybe sort of subconsciously things rubbed off. People do work harder [in TV than in music], and especially working with Danny [Boyle]. He’s very focused and he doesn’t stop till he gets it right. Which I think is definitely a good ethos to have.” He adds: “It was amazing to see people in a creative industry getting paid. But I don’t think I’m one of those people that does one job and thinks: ‘Well, I’m an actor now.’”
Slater’s musical background played a part in his casting. “One of the reasons why they got me in is because I could actually play the drums,” he says. “The other guys had to kind of learn on the job, and I had an understanding of that music already.”
It’s an understanding that is apparent in Wunderhorse’s raucous live shows, which mirror the Sex Pistols’ intensity if not their lack of chops. “That kind of stuff’s always been somewhat of an influence,” says Slater. “If not literally, like, musically, just the energy and attitude of it. We haven’t got a choreographer and a bunch of pyrotechnics and stuff. We like things to fall apart and build them back up again in real time, which I guess is something you can see in the shows from that sort of era.”
Celebrated for its willingness to colour outside the lines, Cub was an impressive, if not entirely coherent opening salvo. Some critics bristled at the rough edges around tracks such as Teal with its scattergun vocals giving way to an anthemic outro that’s maybe a little too Coldplay for comfort: “And there was a fire, it danced in your eyes / A beautiful world and a beautiful mind.”
But for Slater and his bandmates, those jagged corners were the whole point. On their sophomore effort, Midas, Wunderhorse are refining their formula by making an album that is more coarse, not less. “We wanted it to sound like your face is pressed up against the amp,” Slater says, a hint of mischief in his voice. “No frills, no polish – just pure, uncut rock’n’roll.”
For their first record as a proper band (Cub was very much Slater’s baby) the band holed up in Minnesota’s Pachyderm studios, hallowed alt-rock turf as the birthplace of Nirvana’s In Utero and PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me. It was a deliberate choice, eschewing modern comforts for a space steeped in musical history. “We didn’t want it to sound good by conventional standards,” Slater admits. “There’s enough middle-of-the-road garbage out there already.”
What emerged from those sessions is an album that feels like a cry for human connection in a world where authenticity is increasingly scarce. “Everything’s broken, twisted out of shape,” he says. “It’s like we’re all these discarded objects, left to rust on the side of the road to progress.” The album’s strongest moments see the band at their most tender and introspective, with the protagonist of the distractingly beautiful Superman just wishing he could show his friends and family: “The power inside me / Just wish I could show them / The things I can do.”
Wunderhorse draws from a deep well of influences – the Who’s arena-sized ambition, Led Zeppelin’s swagger, Pixies’ knack for making the bizarre feel essential and Fontaines DC’s unbridled romanticism. It’s a cocktail that Slater and his bandmates have honed over a decade of late-night pub gigs and relentless touring, including with the last two bands mentioned above, experiences Slater describes as “hugely inspiring”.
That authenticity comes at a price, of course. The band are refreshingly candid about the financial tightrope walk that is a career in modern music. “Making a living in this industry is tough,” admits Wunderhorse’s drummer, Jamie Staples, who juggles playing in the band with part-time shifts on building sites. “At this point in my life I need to be flexible, but stability? Stability’s a luxury we can’t always afford.”
The economic realities of being an indie band in 2024 are stark and Wunderhorse are not shy about addressing them. Even if the Disney cheque burning a hole in his back pocket means that Slater is “not in the place I once was”, his struggles in the early days of the band were formative. “I was a surf coach. I was a landscape gardener,” he says. “It keeps you hungry – live shows become a cathartic release, a chance to disappear into the music – but there’s also a point where you’re working so much you’ve got nothing left.
Looking back on their early work, Slater and Staples (a fellow veteran of the Windmill scene) can’t help but cringe a little. But they recognise those fumbling first steps as crucial to their evolution. “There’s something pure about those early days,” Slater recalls, a hint of nostalgia creeping into his voice. “Playing with friends, discovering new sounds – it shaped everything we do … but there’s a greater sense of purpose now,” he says. “We’ve grown, and I think you can hear that growth in every note of Midas.”
Wunderhorse are not content to rehash old glories. “We don’t want to feel like we’ve ‘arrived’ somewhere,” says Staples. “There’s always more to explore.”
Midas is out 30 August.
