We’ve all heard the jokes: What’s the difference between a savings bond and a bass player? The savings bond matures. What do you call a girl on a bass player’s arm? A tattoo. Three musicians and a bass player walk into a bar. There are so many more jokes.

This is Spinal Tap didn’t invent the irrelevant bass player, but they sure solidified it as a rock band stereotype. Maybe it stems from the charismatic lead singers taking center stage — Jim Morrison’s Lizard King, John Lennon’s revolutionary poetics, Mick Jagger’s swagger. Maybe it’s the blazing guitar solos that get etched in the listener's ears — Jimmy Page’s “Stairway to Heaven,” Mark Knopfler’s “Sultans of Swing,” Elliot Randall’s “Reeling in the Years.” The list is quite extensive. For whatever reason, the bass player rarely enters the rock-god conversations.

Enter Heavy Kid’s, Clint Horton.

Tall and lanky, chomping gum, occasionally hiding under a bucket hat, Horton leans back and sways to the groove that he and drummer Ben Bogan lay down throughout the set. The air of rockstar cool radiates from every pluck of his four-stringed instrument. This is his element, commanding the stage from the shadows in the back.

Heavy Kid is a five-piece rock band from Pensacola, Florida: Brian Gore on vocals and guitar, Joe Whisler and Brian Hual on guitars, Ben Bogan on drums, and bassist Clint Horton, all veterans of the Pensacola music scene since the 80s, who have played in many different bands through the years — The Dead Addicts, Old Gold Finch, The Chumps, Pulsador, and the legendary Woodenhorse. Horton and Gore’s time together spans forty years, beginning when they met at Gulf Breeze High School.

Horton was born in Mobile, Alabama, grew up in San Jose, California, and then moved to Pensacola for high school. After his parents divorced, he moved to California with his mother and older sister, while his father stayed on the Gulf Coast. He and his sister would spend the summers down in the Panhandle before moving back before his freshman year.

His father, Lowell Clinton Horton, was an engineer and musician. In the 60s, he played in a band at Florida State University called The Ramblers. Later, he became an inventor, holding two patents, one for acid-resistant concrete and one for a lifting apparatus to provide unassisted access to swimming pools for disabled persons.

As Clint said, “My father is the real story.” The idea for the lifting apparatus, known as the Safe Lift, came to him after an industrial accident that left him with third-degree burns on both arms.  During rehab, Clint says, “he noticed how archaic the facility was regarding equipment” for pool assistance and decided to change that.

The elder Horton didn’t continue his musical career after college, but did keep it as a passionate hobby. Clint said there were always guitars around and in-house jam sessions. One thing the young Horton picked up on was how much women loved listening to his father play the guitar. That’s all it took for Clint to decide to become a musician, too.

After high school, he and bandmate Chris Hawkes moved out to California. They gave it a good two-year run, continued working on their craft, but ultimately, the cost of living had them returning to humid nights on the Gulf Coast. Horton saw Godsicle perform at the iconic venue Sluggo’s, and after multiple attempts, was able to convince the lead singer, Lee McGuffin, to let him audition. He passed, and Godsicle dumped their current bass player, and Horton was in a band. “My Godsicle days really locked in my love for playing live music, and it was also the Grunge Era, so the horizon seemed bright for bands like us,” Horton said. They played together for about five years, recorded an album in Atlanta, and went on tour. “It felt real.”

Clint attended college and continued playing around town in different bands, never wanting to let the dream die. Not only was the thrill of being on stage real, but so was the stereotype of women falling for musicians. He met his wife while in college at some of the local shows. Now he has been married for twenty-seven years with two boys, eighteen and twenty-four years old. His wife, Michelle, has been supportive of his music endeavors through it all.

In 1992, Horton’s sister, Missy, died in a single-car accident. “That’s the real reason I’m a wrinkle-rocker,” Horton says. Life is fragile, and it goes by quickly. He likens it to playing the lottery. “If you don’t buy a ticket, you can’t win.” The only way to fail is to give up.

Luck did fall on Horton’s side just as he was graduating from college. He took some furniture in to be reupholstered and was intrigued by the art that went into something that might otherwise seem mundane. After talking with the owner, he learned that the man was going to retire soon.  Clint needed a job to help pay the bills while he kept his rock and roll dreams alive, so he worked out a deal with the owner to become an apprentice and take over Pettus Upholstery.

He ran that business for twenty years while raising a family and continued to pursue music during late-night gigs.

In 2009, a new band formed: Heavy Kid. They released their self-titled album in 2013. Their next album wasn’t until 2017. By this time, most of the band members had become family guys. Day jobs and family took priority over their music. The wives were still just as supportive, but it became more of a hobby while still holding out hope for that chance breakthrough that can only happen if they stayed in the game. You have to “just try,” Horton says. Being dads in a rock band is when they joked around with the term “wrinkle rock.” In fact, they considered that for their band name before settling on Heavy Kid.

“A chunky ten-year-old kid from the neighborhood would come listen to us practice and ask to play our drums during beer breaks. He was a fun, cocky little dude, and he told us that he wanted to be our manager and make us famous. Whenever he’d come over, we’d say, ‘Here comes the Heavy Kid.’” That kid eventually went home with the backup set of drums and a band named in his honor.

Horton would probably still be running that upholstery business if it weren’t for another chance encounter.

During Horton’s college years, his next-door neighbor was an air-traffic controller and homebrewer named Mark Roberston. After college, they lost touch for about twenty years, when one morning, Horton was jogging downtown because he had lost a bet and had to enter the McGuire’s 5k Run. He jogged by a new brewery opening up on the corner of Seville Square. He walked in to see what was going on, and out walked his former neighbor. Clint felt it was serendipitous, and he was getting burned out from running a business anyway, so he decided he wanted to work for the new brewery. On opening day, Clint was behind the bar pouring beers at the Pensacola Bay Brewery.

After two years, Horton left for a period of time, but then stopped in to have a beer with his former boss and neighbor. Not satisfied with his current job, Mark rehired Horton, and still to this day, you can find him behind the bar slinging some of the best beer in the Southeast.

Unfortunately, Mark died in 2025, but not before building a community gathering spot.

2025 also saw the release of Heavy Kid’s latest album: “Five-Line Farewell.”  This album was written during a time of tragedy. Drummer Ben Bogan’s mother had recently passed, as had a good friend of the band, Michael Kirby. And the Pensacola music scene lost a legend as well, Kent Stanton, who is memorialized in Heavy Kid’s song, “For Kent.”

“Five-Line Farewell” is a musical tribute to those gone too soon who were close to the band — The five-line being the five lines in the musical staff.

Heavy Kid recently recorded a new album that is set to be released at the end of 2026. The band traveled up to Water Valley, Mississippi, to work with engineer Starlin Browning at Dial Back Sound. Browning was well known in the Pensacola scene for years and was the engineer for “Five-Line Farewell” before relocating to Mississippi to work at the studio that is owned by Matt Patton, who is known for his work with the Drive-by Truckers, the Dexateens, and more.

“Dial Back is absolutely magical,” Horton said. “We slept, ate, partied, and recorded in the studio for three days.” It was like a band camp for old dudes. And just another reason to keep the dream alive and “just try.”

Heavy Kid has had their share of dream moments opening up for bands like Drivin-n-Cryin (multiple times) and Soul Asylum. Their next show is on March 27th at the Handlebar, opening up for Texas country-punk band Vandoliers.

What: Heavy Kid and Vandoliers

Where: The Handlebar, 319 N Tarragona St, Pensacola, FL 32501

When: March 27th, Doors at 6pm 

‍Instagram: @heavy_kid_band