Spanish Horses sign to So Young Records and share the single Hey Man (Hey Man!)

Spanish Horses have signed to So Young Records and marked it with a new single, Hey Man (Hey Man!). The label is the record arm of the magazine that has spent a decade picking early on British guitar bands, and the signing arrives at a point where the band already have festival bookings on the calendar.

The song came together quickly. It started as a voice note, then went into the rehearsal room, and the band say the writing process was fast and easy and that they laughed their way through it. What emerged is being pitched as a call to arms built for the room rather than the headphones, and it leans on the energy of their live set.

The band are blunt about what the track represents. They describe it as a musical statement that flipped a switch for them, and say the song is where their sound was finally located, arriving as something close to a eureka moment rather than a slow refinement.

Two shows sit either side of the release. Spanish Horses play End Of The Road Festival this weekend, the Dorset event marking its 20th anniversary this year, which puts them in front of an audience considerably larger than their headline draw. The festival's stage times have already been published.

They follow that with a free-entry show at Helen of Troy in Soho on 8 September. A no-ticket London date immediately after a festival slot is a straightforward way to convert a field audience into a room audience, and it fits the pattern So Young has used with other acts on its roster.

For a band at this stage, the sequence matters as much as the song: a label with reach in indie and guitar music, a festival appearance, a free London show and a single the band themselves consider their arrival point. Hey Man (Hey Man!) is out now, and the release sits alongside the week's other new music on the release calendar.