Never look a gift horse in the mouth

When I saw the above photo, for Forsaken and Ben Blackmore ft Joker's "Last Saloon Swagger" [SoulMotive] only one thing came to mind. How the hell did they get hold of a horse? Turns out, not in the way you might imagine. Forsaken explains...

Forsaken on how to aquire some horsepower...

"When we decided we were going to release the two wild west tracks, we knew we had to draw for the big pictures for the sleeve. We sat down chatted about it individually, two mates and I thought it's gotta have a horse really. And we need to look like two badmen out of Fistful of Dollars.

I brought up the idea of the horse in a meeting, everyone laughed it off but I think they both secretly wanted it. It was a bit of a joke suggestion, I mean who's going to lend us goons a horse? I mean, whose got horses to lend in the first place?

Avon and Somerset Constabulary.

So as a joke I sent a few emails to the local police force, one girl sent an email back saying she'd got in contact with the horse trainers in Bristol and put me in contact with a Sergeant. So, turns these guys are happy to do it, I don't think they do a lot outside festivals and football matches. Not only that but they don't want anything in return. Serious.

So we turn up on the day with the most ridiculous costumes, roll into their car park, walk straight in the door only for a lot of fucking big dogs to go absolutely mental at me.

Wrong door.

Walk round the side, wondering how the fuck any of us ended up actually going to meet the police, out of free will. The main guy comes out to meet us. He's safe and is chatting to us about what the horses get used for, what times they go out, what we're thinking of doing and says...

'What type of horse do you want?'

What type. Jokes.

We've gone from some comedy suggestion in the pub to deciding which trained police horse we want to use. So blatantly I just said, 'Err, the baddest and meanest looking one you got...'

Man walks out this 10 foot, half tonne steed of justice.

The thing is huge and I get the impression the guitarist Ben ain't too comfortable with this mass of muscle and metal hooves pushing him around and treading on his feet. But we crack on. And after telling us about his kids and other such wholesome things, one of the policemen say 'you guys need those cigars they had back then.'

'Shit yeah, I fucking forgot to get that on the way over here...'

'Well we got some cannabis you could roll in the back.' says the copper.

...

What do you say to that? I wasn't sure, neither did my mates, just a proper awkward silence as we all looked at each other. The copper just bursts out laughing with his mate, like yeah, who'd be dumb enough to bun weed.

Who would do a thing like that?

So we get the shots done, try and control this beast and finish up this surreal experience when the guy says can him and this next handler wear the costumes and get their photo taken with the horse. So we're stood there, with these two coppers dressed as cowboys, taking photos of them with a horse, like we do this everyday.

Need to link them the photos actually..."



Joker on bass...[SoulMotive001]