Category: Foreign

Just under twelve months ago HONNE – aka singer Andy and producer James – released their debut single, Warm On A Cold Night, a lusty, nocturnal electro-R&B jam that sent the internet into a steamy stupor. Seemingly out of nowhere, and with limited fuss, two mysterious part-time music teachers from Bow in East London perfectly encapsulated those clammy, slightly drunken summer nights. It also marked out a new act who’s sound had arrived fully formed, their unique blend of warm electronic experimentation, vintage soul and massive pop hooks blending together to form something wonderfully timeless. “People struggle to draw a really direct comparison,” states James of HONNE’s sound. “I was relieved when loads of our friends said they didn’t know what it sounded like.” In fact, rather than straight up musical comparisons, the band rightly prefers to liken their cinematic music to a specific mood or feeling. “We always say it’s the kind of music you might listen to on a late night drive in the summer through the city with the windows down, cool breeze coming in. Bathed in the city lights.” Perfect.

HONNE’s creation was the perfect example of happenstance, the pair meeting while at University. In fact, they were the first person each of them ran into, with their friendship bonded over a mutual love for Radiohead. “That was around six years ago now,” remembers Andy. “Within three days we were writing music together. We had a mutual love for music and different artists.” Spending nights writing and recording, the immediate and successful musical bond between the pair was in contrast to their musical pasts. “We were both in terrible bands when we were 13 or 14,” laughs James. “But Andy played me some of the songs he’d made at home, songs he was singing on, and I’d never met a male singer who liked the same sort of music as me. We’re both from the west country – Andy’s near Yeovil and I’m from near Salisbury. So in places so small it felt like no one else liked that same music.” Musically influenced initially by everything from the Arctic Monkeys (“lyrically there is a little bit of that story-telling type feel still in there,” says James) to vintage soul (check their cover of Darondo’s Didn’t I) to electronic pioneers like Apparat and Modeselektor to pure pop like Michael Jackson, the pair worked hard to finesse their sound. “It took a little while. It wasn’t until 18 months ago that we stumpled upon it”, says James. “A lot of time was spent on trial and error and learning how to do stuff and working on our production and songwriting skills,” adds Andy. “Even though we love electronic music we still wanted normal songwriting to be in there and to make sure the songs go somewhere and mean something to someone.”

This meticulous eye for detail in their music also transposed onto their name, HONNE. “It’s a Japanese word that means ‘true feelings’, so ones you only share with your closest companions,” explains Andy. “We happened upon the word and instantly fell in love with its meaning and we felt that it fit with what we’re writing. I’ve been there a few times now and I love it. My girlfriend lived there for about six months so I’ve spent a lot of time there.” This sense of communicating illicit desires and deeply personal moments is so ingrained in HONNE’s ethos that even their label name, Tatemae, is linked to it. “Tatemae is the counter word,” continues Andy. “HONNE is your true feelings shared with someone special, and your tatemae is what you give out in person to everyone else. So the label is the public outlet for our personal songs.”

While work had been going on behind the scenes for a little while (“We had 15 songs before we showed them to anyone,” says James), the duo wasted no time in getting their songs out there once they’d struck musical gold. The aforementioned Warm On A Cold Night and the stuttering majesty of second single All In The Value were released by Super Recordings (who were also responsible for early releases by Bondax and AlunaGeorge), all before a single gig had been played. “At the time we felt that Warm On A Cold Night epitomised our sound,” James explains of why that was the first song people should hear. “We were talking about a couple of options and we felt like the first song should be how we mean to go on, as in ‘this is HONNE’. It was our statement. As soon as we wrote that one we felt it was a good representation of us.” Following its release the pair played their debut, sold-out, gig at the Seabright Arms last November, then another sold-out one at the Electrowerks the following February, signing to Atlantic Records in-between. The latter meant they could finally leave their jobs as music teachers to focus fully on the band. “Andy was a music technician in a school in London and I was a guitar teacher in the same school and a few others as well,” explains James. “We started doing HONNE full time last Christmas. We enjoyed our jobs, but the aim was always to stop teaching and do music full time, it was all we thought about. I’d even write HONNE songs when kids didn’t turn up for lessons”.

The first release under their new imprint Tatemae Recordings (via Atlantic) was the Coastal Love EP, a four-track symphony of “baby-making music” (as they put it) and slinky soft soul heralded by the gorgeous drift of the fluttering title track, inspired by Andy’s long distance relationship. “It started out with James – before he started the music he already had the title. He wrote the instrumental and sent it over to me. At the time I was in a long distance relationship, so I wrote about that, changing a few details to fit with James’ concept. Then we made it sound a bit more beach-y.” The sultry stylings of their music – “Everyone’s racy aren’t they? Even if they pretend they’re not,” laughs James at one point – is something they put down to the context it’s created in. “I can tell you why it’s got a night time feel and that’s because we were writing a lot at night,” explains Andy. “We’d get home from school and then write songs in the evening and into the night and then get up and go to school.” That’s not to say it’s all lush atmospherics, tactile beats and soft cooing, mind you. “I feel like there’s three sides to HONNE; the slower, more romantic stuff; the more night time, sexy feel and then the more upbeat and more summery songs,” says James. “We like doing a mixture of all of that.” In fact, their next single, the playful funk of Loves The Jobs You Hate, is musically more upbeat, a sweary rail against the frustrations and limitations of modern life centred around someone they’re still in contact with. “In terms of the lyrical content, some of it’s based on personal experiences but others are based on other people’s experiences too,” explains Andy tactfully. “There’s been a couple of awkward scenarios where something’s happened to a friend and I’ve written a song about it and they’ve gone ‘oh hang on a minute’.”

Perhaps the key element to HONNE’s music is its warmth; the way it seems to perfectly encapsulate a moment, while still being open and relatable to the listener. Lyrical observers and studio perfectionists, and with a burgeoning live reputation thanks to another recent series of sold out shows (in London, Paris and Berlin in May), the pair have built a hermetically sealed musical world all of their own, just twelve months into their life as a proper band. As work continues on their debut album, it already feels like HONNE have set out their stall as one of British music’s leading (night) lights.