Artistic inspiration strikes in many forms. Indie rocking four-piece Dead Pony can trace the roots of their new EP to a night spent watching steampunk sci-fi action classic, Mad Max: Fury Road.

‘We’d just watched one of the big chase scenes,’ says guitarist Blair Crichton, ‘and I started playing a riff. In the film, there’s a guy that dangles off the front of the truck and plays guitar so I was emulating that: if you were the guy hanging off the big bus, what would you play?’

Easy. You would play Dead Pony’s ‘Bullet Farm’, the song that was born from that riff. But why stop there? The next day Crichton penned a follow-up track directly inspired by the action in the film.

‘We went to town on “War Boys”, making all the lyrics fit in with the theme,’ he explains.

‘We love that movie, the visuals, the story, everything about it; we felt we could see these songs on the soundtrack,’ says frontwoman Anna Shields, who developed the accompanying artwork by handpainting the EP song titles on to denim for the band to model, biker gang-style. Shields’ bespoke artwork also belongs to some fans in the form of customised T-shirts and hand-drawn sketches. ‘It’s so nice to make something for your fans,’ says Shields. ‘It feels quite intimate.’

This is all part of the Dead Pony DIY work ethic, evident since the Glasgow band hit the ground running in early 2020, drawing a line under previous individual and collective efforts with a new name, new songs . . . and no foreseeable route to being able to share them live. ‘We started at the best and worst time,’ says Shields. ‘We were just a bit more clear about what we wanted and how we wanted to evolve. But we’d been a band for well over a year and a half before we had our first proper gig.’ Said gig was a sold-out hometown show at King Tut’s, followed by a UK tour supporting Twin Atlantic and debut appearances at TRNSMT and Glastonbury where they played the BBC Introducing Stage. Powered by bassist Liam Adams and relative new boy Ewan Lyons on drums, their gigs have, by Shields’ reckoning, ‘got a bit more nuts as the songs have become more energetic and heavier’.

The band are set to continue on that heavy trajectory. New songs are being written with a debut album in mind, but in the medium term Crichton says his basic aspiration is to go on a UK tour and meet all the fans that enjoy the EP. ‘The sky’s the limit. I want to be doing an arena tour of the world, selling millions of albums, the biggest rock band ever!’ He breaks off and laughs at his ambitions. Shields, however, is laser-focused in one direction: ‘I want one of our songs to be used on the new Mad Max soundtrack.’

Dead Pony play Barras Art And Design, Glasgow, as part of Tenement Trail, Saturday 8 October; War Boys EP is out now on LAB Records.