Lake Forest, CA · mathcore · nintendocore

Horse The Band

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Metalcore with 8-bit keyboard leads — the band that made 'Nintendocore' an actual thing people argue about, chaotic and funnier live than seems possible.

Horse the Band started in Lake Forest, California, in 1998, when founding members Erik Engstrom and David Isen were high school seniors planning a ska and pop-punk act. The early lineup, rounded out by vocalists Adam Crook and Risto Metso, drummer Jason Karuza and bassist Jason Roberts, instead settled into a rougher hardcore-punk sound.

Nathan Winneke joined as a fill-in drummer before taking over lead vocals when Crook left in 2002 to finish his education, becoming the frontman who later paired with Engstrom's keyboards as the band's constant core through years of shifting personnel.

Their music combines metalcore and mathcore with prominent synthesiser lines that borrow the tones of 8-bit video game music, an approach that led to the half-joking genre label 'Nintendocore' being attached to them. The band has pushed back against the tag, insisting it describes the sound rather than the substance of the music.

Albums including The Mechanical Hand and A Natural Death set screamed vocals and abrupt rhythmic shifts against those keyboard leads, following the self-produced Secret Rhythm of the Universe and 2003's R. Borlax. The band toured relentlessly, once playing eighty-five shows in ninety days across seven countries.

The band built a reputation on absurdist humour and unpredictable live shows, and has toured intermittently since, including a self-funded 2008 run through forty-seven countries in ninety days that was documented in a seven-DVD, ten-hour film.

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