The last year and a half has been a period of extremes for Tor Maries, aka Bristol-based songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Billy Nomates. The tour of her previous album, 2023’s critically acclaimed CACTI, culminated in a Glastonbury performance that received enough misogynistic abuse online for Maries to request that the footage be taken down. In reality, though, that was the least of her worries.
Behind the scenes Maries was in the process of deciding to manage herself, evolving Billy Nomates from a solo project into a band, and looking after her dad, who had entered end of life care with Parkinsons. The following year brought devastating news when her dad died in July. All the while, she was working on her upcoming third album Metalhorse – a change of direction galvanised by the challenges surrounding it, and her favourite body of work to date. “From the second I started working on this album, every other month has brought this massive life shift that has either been weirdly magical and brilliant, or quite the opposite.” Maries says. “What I’m really looking for, now, is something in between.”
Produced by James Trevascus and recorded at Paco Loco in Seville, Metalhorse is the first Billy Nomates album to be made in a studio and with a full band. Enlisting bass player Mandy Clarke (KT Tunstall, The Go! Team) and drummer Liam Chapman (Rozi Plain, BMX Bandits), who round out Billy Nomates live, the trio were booked into Paco Loco just three months after Maries’ dad passed. “We were so close and our bond was music,” she says of their relationship. “That was my safety and protection in the world. Even in the care home, as things were getting worse, I’d visit him and he’d ask me what I was doing. I’d show him the new demos, or I’d have been on the radio or something. It sort of saved everything from being shit, because we had this positive thing to talk about.
Veranstalter. Prime Entertainment
Behind the scenes Maries was in the process of deciding to manage herself, evolving Billy Nomates from a solo project into a band, and looking after her dad, who had entered end of life care with Parkinsons. The following year brought devastating news when her dad died in July. All the while, she was working on her upcoming third album Metalhorse – a change of direction galvanised by the challenges surrounding it, and her favourite body of work to date. “From the second I started working on this album, every other month has brought this massive life shift that has either been weirdly magical and brilliant, or quite the opposite.” Maries says. “What I’m really looking for, now, is something in between.”
Produced by James Trevascus and recorded at Paco Loco in Seville, Metalhorse is the first Billy Nomates album to be made in a studio and with a full band. Enlisting bass player Mandy Clarke (KT Tunstall, The Go! Team) and drummer Liam Chapman (Rozi Plain, BMX Bandits), who round out Billy Nomates live, the trio were booked into Paco Loco just three months after Maries’ dad passed. “We were so close and our bond was music,” she says of their relationship. “That was my safety and protection in the world. Even in the care home, as things were getting worse, I’d visit him and he’d ask me what I was doing. I’d show him the new demos, or I’d have been on the radio or something. It sort of saved everything from being shit, because we had this positive thing to talk about.
Veranstalter. Prime Entertainment
Billy Nomates
