Debut album Cub has taken on a life of its own in the 18 months since release, with sprawling, psychedelic numbers and sharp grunge refrains alike igniting Wunderhorse’s ever-growing audience. Cub’s campaign and the months following have seen the four-piece graduate from playing in basements and pubs to filling Glastonbury’s Woodsies tent and selling out Kentish Town’s O2 Forum months in advance.
Across the mammoth tour leading up to and following Cub’s release, Slater and his bandmates – guitarist Harry Fowler, drummer Jamie Staples and bassist Peter Woodin – gradually and naturally became a fully-formed band, and left the solo era of Wunderhorse behind.
As their crowds have grown exponentially in both scale and ardency, and Cub’s tracks have reached the status of cultural reference points within the younger contingents of their fanbase, it seems harder than ever to recall a time when frontman Jacob Slater believed that his career was over before his twenties had even begun.
Having burned himself out as the teenage frontman of the much-hyped but ultimately ill-fated punk outfit Dead Pretties, Jacob retired to Cornwall to repair the damage that he had caused himself.
It was whilst working as a surf instructor on the UK’s south western perimeter that Jacob rekindled his love of songwriting: this time spinning introspective, considered compositions which transcended his younger years and went on to form the foundations of Wunderhorse.
The week prior to Midas’ release will see Wunderhorse take to the stage at Reading + Leeds, following a co-headline spot at Dot to Dot festival alongside Mercury-nominated duo Jockstrap.
