Nathan Winneke

Nathan Winneke (born January 15, 1977) is the lead vocalist, former bassist, and former drummer of Lake Forest, California based experimental band HORSE the Band. Nathan claims to be a Taoist, and translates his philosophical religious views into his music accordingly, as evidenced by a rather about-face and almost bipolar vocal and lyrical style. His writing style consists of highly metaphorical and absurdist lyrics, often referencing various Nintendo and comic book characters as a rather unusual basis of comparison to actual persons and events that have taken place during his life. Nathan is also the leader of an online "cult" named "The First Church of The Mechanical Hand", in which he regularly wrote nihilistic and absurdist articles about the worship of a fictional deity, "The Lady of The Mechanical Light". In its beginning stages, the cult was of private membership, only open to people of the male gender. Nathan has two alter-egos, one being General Beam, which according to Nathan is "like Jim Beam in clothing, essentially"
, and the other being SUPER SAPPHIRE, a mysterious astronomical being which apparently possesses Nathan as described in the HORSE the band song "The Startling Secret of Super Sapphire".

Inspiration for lyrical content

The HORSE song "Purple" contains a sample from and is directly inspired by the motion picture film Mulholland Dr., a favorite movie of Nathan's. He has been heard stating that the song is about "two women having sex and then killing each other" when the band performs the song live.

The HORSE song "Birdo", featured on their second full-length album The Mechanical Hand, was inspired by Nathan's stepfather and his unwillingness to accept Nathan's distaste for eggs as a child.

Their song "House Of Boo" on the same album refers to the ghost house stages in the Super Mario World series of Super Nintendo games, and to an event from Nathan's childhood in which an intruder (according to Nathan, an "11-foot-tall" male) was hiding in his closet and was seen by his mother leaving Nathan's bedroom upstairs. The intruder apparently returned later that night and tormented him and his mother further by somehow hiding in the ventilation system and breathing heavily through the night as they stood back-to-back in the living room area of the apartment wielding knives until daylight. The song is an account of the trauma and fear of the night and or the dark that Nathan incurred as a result. The intruder was never caught by the authorities and thus the story could never be proved.

The HORSE song "Murder", which is featured on their third full-length album A Natural Death, is a reference to Blue Duck, a Native American character in the novel and motion picture series Lonesome Dove. The song is reportedly about an Indian (named Blue Duck) who kills white men on the American plains in the 1840s. Lonesome Dove is a favorite novel and motion picture series of Nathan's. He also owns a Bowie knife named "Blue Duck". The original title of this song was "Murder, by Blue Duck (an Indian)."

The song "Hyperborea", also featured on A Natural Death is a vague reference to the comic / motion picture series Conan the Barbarian, another known favorite of Nathan's. The song's title also may hold a reference to Friedrich Nietzsche (an author whose writings have been directly adapted to a previous HORSE the band song, "The Greatest Weight"). Nietzsche once referred to believers of his philosophies as "Hyperboreans".

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