The Horse You Rode In On was originally formed in the fall of 1988 in Rockalnd County NY. Three members were from the band The Raw Tones and two were from the band Nervous Habit and one was from
the band Hard Up. At the time the Horse formed it was because all the above bands had broken up at the same time and they were all friends and played in the same clubs. Rockland county at the time was a melting pot of different types of bands and Nyack was the town where everyone played at clubs like The Office, Cheers and The Coven. The last Raw Tones gig was booked and the lead singer Hue was not available or had already left the band so Chuck DeBruyn filled in for the gig on lead vocals. On the way back from the gig the guys past a bar called The Horse You Came In On and thought it was a great name for a band. Chuck called Lance and asked if he wanted to be in this new band with the guys from The Raw Tones and Denise from Hard Up. Chuck and Lance were in Nervous Habit together and Urban Soldier. So The Horse was formed. The original lineup was Chuck DeBruyn Lead Vocals, Denise Brennan keyboards & sax, George Catania on drums, Joel Finn on bass, Willy Jensen guitar, and Lance McVickar on lead guitar. The band was together for about about 2 months and then Willy was kicked out. The Horse went on playing gigs in almost every bar that had rock bands in Manhattan such as The Bitter End, Kenny’s Castaways, CBGB’s The China Club, Nightingales, McGovern’s, The Cat Club, Woody’s and many others while also building a local following in Rockland playing at it’s home base club Cheers in Nyack which had a talent night every Wednesday hosted by Jeff Rubin and the Loosers (Jeff, George and Joel) and if the Horse did not play as a band some form of the members would be playing tunes with the house band. It was always a blast on Wednesday and that is where any local band would break in their new stuff or try their hand at some cover tunes. There was not a local band that did not play at Talent night.
The Horse recorded their first demo at Evergreen Studio in Manhattan where Lance got his start as a recording engineer. They signed a management deal with Sid Weiss management based out of the city. Joel submitted the new demo tape to the New York Music awards, sort of a local annual NY Grammys show that was held at the Beacon Theatre.
Amazingly enough The Horse was nominated and then went on to win The Best Unsigned Band Award in 1989 over about 500 other local bands. The Ramones played at the awards ceremony and some of the other winners that year were Living Color, Lou Reed, Debbie Gibson and more.
The Horse then went back into the studio and recorded more songs and made their first full length CD. They got airplay on K-Rock a NYC radio station on Vince Scelsa’s show “Idiots Delight” with their version of Simon and Garfunkel’s Mrs Robinson that the Lemon Heads then went on to have a hit with a similar more straight ahead version.
The Horse then kicked out Denise because she wanted to sing more lead vocals and the rest of the band wanted her to do less. The remaining four members added a sax player Jeff Cox to the line up. With that The Horse left some of their goofy live show behind them and lost some fans for a while in the process. They started writing more serious new material and started playing larger shows opening for or playing with bigger bands like The Spin Doctors, Alice in Chains, The Smithereens and others.
George the drummer moved to Pennsylvania and did not show to a gig at Nightingales in the city and was only occasionally showing up to practices. Chuck demanded auditioning other drummers. Jim DeMaria from the speed metal band Rip House auditioned and the band did not go with him at the time and the rest of the band did not want to kick George out. So Chuck quit the band and the remaining Horse members became The Glue Factory. George did not show up to the first Glue Gig as he did once or twice with The Horse, and Chuck was there and ironically played drums for the gig.
That was the end of the Glue Factory and any semblance of The original Horse.
Since then though once a year when it’s time for turkey and giblets
The Horse You Rode In On leaps out of the darkness that is the day to day grind to rock once again at a local bar and play it’s annual reunion gig. They have been doing it now for more than 13 years with the addition of The Blowing Chunks horn section who’s members are from another dismembered Rockland county original band that the Horse used to play a lot of gigs with called Kablamachunk. Pete Bohovesky John Rarick and John’s son Max. Jim Demaria has been the drummer
for all the reunion gigs.
Perhaps now it’s time to put the old beast out to pasture.
Oh but wait The Horse is not dead yet! With a new CD out called “beating” as in beating a dead horse, there may be a little life left in the old beast yet.