Dead Pony, formerly known as Crystal, is a band from Glasgow, Scotland, formed in 2015. Initially a duo comprising Anna Shields and Blair Crichton, the pair formed Crystal with three of their university classmates. Two years later, Shields and Crichton formed a new quartet with Lizzie Reid and Aidan McAllister and released numerous singles as Crystal, before Liam Adams replaced Reid. The band won a competition to support Paolo Nutini at a BBC Scotland’s Hogmanay concert and released the singles “Passed Down” and “Sugar Sweet” in 2017. The band diversified into blues rock and then into grunge; around this time, Clarke, McGarrity, and Taylor left. Shields and Crichton would later form a quartet with Lizzie Reid and Aidan McAllister. In 2018, they released “Heaven”, a track written from the perspective of a theist questioning their belief system, alongside a music video. The group released “Sex Rich” in January 2019 and re-released “Sugar Sweet” in April 2019. After winning the Pirate Prodigy 2019 contest, they released “Speak of the Devil”. Reid then left the band and was replaced by Liam Adams in late 2019.
In April 2020, the band renamed themselves “Dead Pony”, which was the original title of their then-unreleased track “Everything is Easy”. The song is an attempt at conveying the feelings of betrayal the band had felt as children when they were told that Santa Claus was fictional. By changing the name of the band, Shields and Crichton sought to tighten up its image. “Everything is Easy” was released on 1 May 2020, their first release on LAB Records. A subsequent track, “Sharp Tongues”, focusing on rumours and those who start them, was released in July, with a self-shot music video released that September. In November 2020, the band were nominated for “Best Rock/Alternative Act” at the Scottish Alternative Music Awards, an award won by Fauves; they were later nominated for that award ceremony’s Sound of Young Scotland Award in 2022, which was won by Berta Kennedy.
Later that month, the band announced that they were working on an EP and released “23, Never Me”, a punk rock track about ending unhealthy friendships. Euan Lyons replaced McAllister in mid-2021. The band then released a further single in March 2022, “Bullet Farm”, which was based around a riff from a chase scene in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). That June, they released “Zero” and announced their debut EP, War Boys, which was entirely Mad Max-themed; they released the EP’s title track and then the EP that September, followed by a cover version of Nelly Furtado’s “Maneater” in December.
In June 2023, they released “MK Nothing”, a track Shields wrote after dreaming of a woman brainwashed by MKUltra to assassinate villains, alongside a music video. This was followed by “Mana” in July, a track describing survival in a post-apocalyptic ghost town, “Cobra” in August, a combination of rock music and break beats, and the lost love ballad “About Love” the month after that. In November, the band won the P&J Live Spotlight Award at the Scottish Music Awards.
The band announced their debut album, Ignore This, in December 2023, alongside the release of new videos for “Cobra” and “About Love”. The album got its title from the band’s experience of being ignored, and was recorded during two weeks in a Scottish Highlands cabin, during which time it rained constantly. On the last day, they wrote the self-empowerment track “Rainbows” after the rain stopped and they saw one in the sky; they released the track as a single that March, followed by its music video the month after. Ignore This was released in April 2024 and featured “MK Nothing”, “Mana”, “Cobra”, “About Love”, “Rainbows”, four interludes, and seven other tracks. Designed to evoke surfing between VHS tapes, the album charted at No. 8 on the Scottish Albums Char and was nominated for the Scottish Album of the Year Award. The band released a further single, “Everything Burns”, in November 2024, followed by a video for it the month after.
