George Ward
Freelance journalist and online editor for CLUNK. Can be found out and about in Bristol, finding cheap records or having a pint on King Street.
With her new album ‘Metalhorse’ out this Friday, we chatted with Tor Maries, the musician behind the brilliant Billy Nomates
Billy Nomates is the project of Bristol singer/songwriter and producer Tor Maries. Her last album ‘CACTI’ dropped in 2023, and since then, Tor has been busy writing, both for her new album ‘Metalhorse,’ out on 16th May via Invada Records, and for a stage musical, ‘Mary And The Hyenas’.
Very sadly, during this intense writing period, Maries was caring for her dad, who passed away last summer from Parkinson’s disease. Balancing her work and personal life was a challenge, but Tor tells me that “the writing became super, super important and very much escapism because the reality of that day to day was so difficult.”
‘Metalhorse,’ the new album, is somewhat of a concept album, centred around the idea of a dilapidated fairground. Inspired by her work on the stage musical, Maries began by writing a narrative around this fairground concept, but found this made her “so narrow minded about the story making sense that (she) stopped writing songs”.
Instead of scrapping the concept, however, it lives on loosely as an idea throughout the record. “I really like when a concept album allows you to do some of the work,” Maries describes. “I like the idea that there’s enough there for you to work with and apply it to like a chapter of your life… or maybe an industry that you work in.”
The fairground concept is subtly scattered throughout the project, with the sound of organs and Leslie speakers firing up in the background as ‘subconscious elements’. “It’s all there, but it’s not supposed to be as on the nose as “welcome to the fun fair!” And there’s no ringmaster outfit to go with it!”.
‘Metalhorse‘ was recorded in Paco Loco studios in Seville, Spain. I ask Tor where this decision arose from: “The very, very honest answer is that it was a really affordable studio! And it’s by the sea and the weather was nice. When you’re looking at doing it in London for two weeks and paying double the price in the grey rain, it was a bit of a no-brainer.”
Working with Paco Martinez, the man behind the studio and the “Spanish Steve Albini” was an incredible experience, with Martinez being “hands-on with letting (them) experiment with things in his studio.” While Tor was happy to meet at midday and walk along the beach, producer James Trevascus run a tight ship, calling for earlier starts, something which Maries does admit is needed.
In a wonderfully strange turn of events, when Tor was describing to Martinez that she wanted her vocal style to be inspired by The Stranglers frontman Hugh Cornwell, Martinez nonchalantly mentioned that he was a close friend of his and that he would be in the studio the next day.
“And so, sure as shit, the next day he turns up and we just asked him and he was like, “yeah, cool”. He’s one of my dad’s biggest influences and the voice of my childhood and I didn’t even ask for it, it just fell out the sky. Whatever was happening that day, it was supposed to happen.”
When speaking of musical influences, Maries is refreshingly honest: “I constantly live in the 80s and Greatest Hits Radio or Absolute 80s is the constant thing in the background of my life. I wish I could say like it was something super cool.” As well as the music of Joe Jackson, whose album ‘Night And Day’ was a huge influence, Tor mentions Gorillaz’ ‘Plastic Beach’.
“I just like that idea that you can take someone somewhere and then you decide where they go and how they feel and then you can leave them how you want to leave them feeling. Even though it’s not so much a musical influence, it really influenced how I approached what I could do for a listener.”
After her work on ‘Mary And The Hyenas,’ Maries has been fascinated with world-building and narrative storytelling. “There’s something quite appealing about that, maybe because the world’s so fucking dreadful, you know? So it’s nice to get lost in a world, even if that world’s on fire as well, it’s still a different one to this.”
Billy Nomates, as the name suggests, started as (and still is in many ways) a solo project. While Maries had worked with other musicians before, like Billy Fuller on ‘CACTI’ and her brother on the drums, ‘Metalhorse‘ is the first album written with other musicians that have joined her in the studio. Or at least that was the idea.
“We had to end up putting bass in later due to my bassist having her own misfortunes. So, the intention was for that, but it didn’t quite pan out that way. I suppose in terms of composition, it’s the first I’ve thought about how we will do it live together.”
“People that know me wouldn’t say I’m a team player! My whole perspective has really changed on collaborative working. You have to find the right people to work with and when you find them, it’s a brilliant thing. I still have a real selfish need to create music in its beginning stages by myself. It does all come from a quiet inner thought and a quiet place that I don’t know that I can fully access with a band.”
Opening up the sound of Billy Nomates’ live show was even bigger of a step than opening up the sound in the studio. Famously, Billy Nomates is a solo project, with the only member on stage being Tor Maries herself. You may recall that after her Glastonbury performance in 2023, Maries suffered a huge amount of misogynistic abuse online, for the bizarre reason of people being angry that she didn’t have a band.
“The thing is with all of that – I’d had backlash for years. That was just the moment that seemed to go out into the world. It’s happened to me for years; at the end of shows, people saying “Where’s your band? Why haven’t you done this?”
And that’s fine because it’s supposed to be like that! So, my frustration at that moment was that I couldn’t really vocalize that this had happened for years and it was all right! But it was also a moment of “do I want to try other things?” And actually the answer was yes.”
For now, Billy Nomates is a bit of both. For some shows, Tor will perform solo, for others, she will bring a band. “I’m still building two very different shows within the same context, which is quite exciting for me and keeps me on its toes. It’s important to me that people still see the origin of Billy Nomates and how I do it… to be able to do a blend of both for me is like the ultimate dream.”
This looseness is very exciting, both for her fans and for Maries herself, who believes that it’s all “in the spirit of progression and the spirit of it being able to move and not boxing it in.”
“I’m not dogmatic about it being solo. I know I’m ‘Billy Nomates’ but that’s just the origin of it. That’s my villain origin story!”
New album ‘Metalhorse’ is out this Friday on Invada Records.
Listen to ‘Plans’ here: