Horse Bitch Is So Hot Right Now: Why We're Obsessed With This Denver Band

It's a warm day at Morse Park in Lakewood; spring is finally breaking through the dregs of winter, and the members of Horse Bitch are sitting on bleachers along the baseball field. A soft "awwww" breaks out as a dad and his son cross the field for a batting lesson. "Horse Bitch loves kids," jokes Riley Merino, who plays guitar and keys as well as vocals.

"I wanted us to meet at Chuck E. Cheese today," says David Knodle, who takes on guitar and lead vocals, with an ironic smile. There was also talk about Dave & Buster's, but that would be too loud. So Morse Park it is, and the band's members — including Adam Cabrera (bass, vocals), Alec Doniger (drums, vocals), Olivia Shaw (fiddle, vocals), Caleb Amelunke (pedal steel) and Ashley McKinney (tambourine, vocals, and most important: bubble machine) — all came prepared with lollipops, mint gum, a juggling set, a plastic lightsaber and Spike Ball.
It feels like high school again, hanging out in a field, talking about music, a very bizarre landlord and, oddly, kids. (Should Horse Bitch open for Kidz Bop at Red Rocks? The vote is yes.) The bandmates are perpetually riffing off one another, as satirical in person as they are in song — an attribute that earned Horse Bitch a 2024 Best of Denver award for Best Out-of-Pocket Lyrics. They're rowdy as hell on stage, too: Under the sweltering heat at the last Underground Music Showcase, they put on a raucous performance that roused the audience from their sweaty lawn chairs and out into a mosh pit. The musicians were practically moshing on stage as well (at least, as much as they could with instruments), before they collapsed in a heap at the end of the show.

Immediately after that concert, I bought a Horse Bitch shirt. When I later admitted to Merino that I got chili stains all over it, he replied: "That's awesome to hear! They really are designed to be a canvas for chili, beer, snot, blood and what have you — you’re one of the few using it correctly." That's just the sort of answer you'd expect from a band that flies by the seat of its pants, usually crafting its setlists just before heading on stage. On March 15, Horse Bitch will be at Globe Hall, joining Gestalt and Tiny Tomboy for St. Patrick's Day shenanigans. "Gestalt's some of our besties," says Merino. "Such nice boys. We're close with a lot of people, like our friends Tiny Tomboy."

The band started in 2020 as a duo with Knodle and McKinney, who met while studying at the University of Colorado Denver, which all the members attended except for Amelunke, who just joined last September. McKinney was friends with Knodle's sister, the muse for the band's moniker, and she and Knodle released the band's first album during the pandemic. More horse bitches entered the fold when Merino, Cabrera and Doniger joined in early 2021, with Shaw jumping in later that year.
After five years, Horse Bitch has become embedded in the local circuit — so naturally, its members are also in other bands: Doniger plays with Pink Fuzz, and joins Merino and Cabrera in Tomato Soup; Knodles and Shaw perform with Brianna Straut and Johno Leeroy, with Knodles also lending his chops to Extra Gold; Amelunke is in the Salesmen and Vigil Vigil; and Shaw has her own band, Dream of Time.

Like most of the more creative acts on the scene, Horse Bitch defies a genre — and in general, musicians like to define their genre about as much as dogs enjoy a vet's thermometer. "What does the word 'core' mean when you're talking about genres?" Doniger poses to the group as we all suck on lollipops.

Everyone begins listing random "core" subgenres: hardcore, slowcore, normcore. Cabrera is clearly into metal, because he lists the most. "I think it just means that's what the music is at its core," he says.

"We should change genres to being 'pit' instead of 'core,'" Merino proposes. "Yeah, we're hardpit. We're just trying to abolish 'core.'"
Whether pit or core, there's still a big line between pure silliness and raw grit in music. Horse Bitch snorted that line.

The band's unique sonics are like a game of musical chairs between Johnny Hobo and the Freight Trains, Pinegrove and Neutral Milk Hotel, with lyrics that are as introspective and deep-feeling as they can be tongue-in-cheek, recalling such artists as the late Daniel Johnston. So it's not surprising when Knodle says he's a big fan of Johnston as well as Stephin Merritt (of the Magnetic Fields), or that Amelunke saw Neutral Milk Hotel on its reunion tour a decade ago. The bandmates' varied tastes cross-pollinate across Horse Bitch's latest album, UVA, which was released independently last September. Each song is a standout, particularly an Irish-esque fiddle banger, "Mountain Climbing," as well as the swelling folk-punk tune "Pirate Ride."

"Pirate Ride" demonstrates Knodle's keen ability to balance sonic energy with lyrical themes that are both poignant and sardonic. "It's actually about a few things," he says. "The sad part is about a friend who played on my baseball team whose dad killed himself; it was just a really depressing thing that happened when we were twelve. They went on a vacation to Disneyland after it happened, and I was just really struck by it — they posted these photos on Facebook, smiling. And it was one of those feelings that stuck with me.

"The other part is, at the time, we were also in a dispute with our landlord," he adds, and his bandmates laugh. "She stole my pingpong table; she wouldn't get rid of the black mold..."

"And she made me move my shoes," Merino interjects.

"Yeah, that was the most fucked-up thing," Knodle says, shaking his head. "Most people don't put shoes in the corner!" Merino recalls her saying.

"We say the address of the house in the song," Knodle adds, referring to the final lyrics: "Yo Ho Ho, it's a pirate's life / Yo Ho Ho, these are tenant's rights / 1865 Glen Moor Drive."
The house is near Morse Park. Knodle recently rolled by there to pick up a package and encountered a "Lord of the Flies situation," as he puts it. "There were like, fifteen fucking kids in there," he says.

"And there was a leader, right?" Shaw says with a laugh. "There's always the older leader kid."

Merino and Doniger begin humming "Kids" by MGMT. "This eight-year-old answers the door," Knodle continues, "and it was a situation of like" — he heightens his voice — "'Let's bring these guys to Tommy!'

"And then Tommy shows up and he has, like, a half mustache, you know. And he goes, 'Hey guys, what's up?'" Knodle told him that he had a package there and recalls, "Tommy hands me this package that's just ripped open, and he's like, 'Uh, we opened it.'

"It was a sex toy," Knodle jokes.
Sounds like the inspiration for another Horse Bitch song. The band is always working on new material and practices weekly. Other tunes from its latest album, such as "Leslie<3," were just driven by joking around. "Everyone thinks it's a real story," Shaw says. "It's just me and Dave bullshitting over audio text messages. And then it came to its full form with me, Adam, Alec and Dave on a really drunken, tequila-fueled Friday evening." Leslie is a scorpion, she explains. It makes the song even more amusing: How would scorpions inhale whipits, which the titular character really, really loves? (And lies about, like most whipit users.) As that Best of Denver award notes: "No one writes lyrics quite like Horse Bitch."

As for the band's greatest achievement, the members agree on one word: friendship. That's an oddly earnest response from this crew. Then Merino adds, "Actually, I'd say it's all the money we've made. We have a nice offshore account set up now."

It's dusk at the park, and the friends have gotten out their Spike Ball set. No one is very good at it. That's exactly why they need to keep playing music. "Our music inspires our Spike," Shaw explains.

"Yes," Cabrera agrees. "We play the music to enhance our Spike Ball."

Support Horse Bitch's Spike Ball skills at Globe Hall, 4483 Logan Street, 8 p.m. Saturday, March 15, with Gestalt and Tiny Tomboy. Tickets are $23.60.