For Pop Punk!
For Pony! Richard’s classic catchphrase caught on more than LFG creatives ever imagined. Readers of the latest Top Comments may have noticed a comment from a reader named For Pony. And if you’re like me, you might be curious who this obvious Looking For Group super fan was. Well, after a little research (literally clicking on their name on Facebook), I discovered that For Pony isn’t a person. They’re a Scottish pop punk band.
I reached out to vocalist Gav to chat about the band, the band’s name, and the Scottish LFG fandom.
Before we begin, Gav, the band’s Facebook page lists you as Vocals + Foreskin. Now, I know what Foreskin means in North America. Am I missing a second meaning in the UK or a musical context?
This is a sign of the kind of band we are more than anything… A while back I set our spotify profile to have a funny picture of our bassist, Grizz, as the background. This is most likely his retaliation for that, or something I have done to him on stage… who knows, we like to mess with each other. And honestly I have no idea how long it has been there but it has certainly made me laugh. There will no doubt be some form of retaliation in his near future haha!
With that out of the way, let’s talk about the name of your band. I imagine you sat down with your band mates one day, said “We need a name!” How did you end up on For Pony?
Way back in 2007 myself, Sponge and Martin had just left another band and started a new project and we were eager to rush into our first gig at just a few weeks notice. Struggling to think of a name there was one that just kept coming back to me, “For Pony!”, obviously taken from Richard when he and Cale are getting attacked by elves. The guys loved it too and we went with it even though nobody else really got it, but it was fun to shout out, this lasted for about a year then we called it a day. But a few years later in 2012 after myself and Olly were jamming a few songs that I had written with “For Pony!” and we decided it sounded good, that we should keep it going, update the songs a bit, take the name on again and make it part of who we are. We often talk about having “pony love” for each other and we even have a song called “Ponies are awesome”, so we have really leaned into it. It’s also a nice reminder not to take ourselves too seriously.
What does Looking For Group mean to you?
LFG to me is a brilliant comic that I came across from reading CTRL-ALT-DEL and Least I Could Do. Not being a WoW player I didn’t really think I would get it at first but quickly realised that didn’t matter. The humour/art were on point and it became part of my weekly readings. So to me its a reminder of back when I was younger and all my time was spent absorbing online content in whatever way I could get it from memes, comics and funny videos. All these years later I still find myself going back and seeing what is going on and even watching the older animated shorts so it’s a nice nostalgic link back to simpler times. My hope is that one day either Richard or Tiny Dick will sing ponies are awesome in his own style like in slaughter your world.
How does the rest of the band feel about Looking For Group?
Embarrassingly… I don’t think they are really aware of it other than knowing it’s where the name came from and from when we were given a Richard plushie to take on stage with us at a gig by a friend.
I like pop punk but doesn’t speak musician. I’d say you’re like Enema of the State era Blink-182, with an emphasis on fun, playful, catchy beats. As someone who can say all of that better, how would you describe your band?
That is exactly what we are going for. We are all huge fans of Blink 182, Bowling For Soup and silly pop punk like that. Our stage shows consist of trying to interact with people, have a laugh and not take it too seriously. Every time we write a more serious song a silly one is not too far behind and we try and keep chatter between the serious ones fun. We are immature, lighthearted and our goal is to have a good time with anybody who is willing to indulge us. We actually have a song called “Don’t Blink” which is a parody mash up of loads of Blink 182 songs that hopefully we will have recorded and released soon.
Where can your fellow LFG fans find out more about For Pony?
We are currently working on new material, recording new demos and working to build up some content for social media while our guitarist Chris adopts to life with his first child and our Drummer Olly awaits the arrival of his 3rd child. All going well, we should be gigging again by September with new material and content.
People can find us by searching ForPonyUK or using this link: https://linktr.ee/forpony
