An interview with Lardpony

Lardpony are the Derby-based crafters of excellent indie-synthy-pop-type-songs. Are they on the verge of something huge? Like an angry, yet geometrically unconventional, seal?

We sent The Robot Luke Elliott to track down the band's leader, Tom Morton, and find out.





Goaste: Who are Lardpony, and when did they form?

Tom Morton: Lardpony are currently Tom Morton (me), Kristian Podhorodecki, Nathan Wilson and Mandy McKirdy. But once, long ago, Lardpony was just me. Tom.

It all began some time in 1998. I used to write songs or - more frequently - turn a tape recorder on and make them up as I went along. I used the name Lardpony based on a doodled horse I'd done in maths. Five years later, I decided to book a gig, then realised I'd need help, so I seduced three other musicians, and blackmailed them into joining me. Later, one of them left and was replaced, but that's not really very important.

G: Who are your influences, and what sort of stuff did you grow up on?

TM: When I first started writing songs, I think I was too shit to have influences. Nowadays it's probably things like The Shins, Hefner, The Flaming Lips and various indie-pop sort of stuff, although that doesn't always show up too much in our songs. I grew up listening exclusively to The Boo Radleys after a short, ill-advised love affair with Meat Loaf

I'm not really sure who influences Mandy and Nathan, but Pod [Drummer Kristian Podhorodecki] is 80% Brian May of Queen and 20% Jimmy Chamberlain of The Smashing Pumpkins. He's a guitarist turned drummer, possibly slightly against his will.