Interview In The Studio with… Black Honey

Previewing their second effort with last month’s cheeky retro-leaning lead single ‘Beaches’, it turns out that Black Honey were originally going to announce their new album with the more eyebrow-raising ‘Disinfect’. “We wrote it one or two years ago, and the lyrics are ‘We’re just a virus, addicted to the violence’,” Izzy explains. “We wanted to put it out but it kind of felt wrong, which sucks because now everyone’s going to think we wrote it about the virus…” “It’s the heaviest song we’ve ever written,” Chris continues, “but ‘Beaches’ felt right [to lead with in the end].”

Inspired by The Beach Boys, Izzy’s love of Viagra Boys’ ridiculously addictive track ‘Sports’ and Shirley Ellis’ equally catchy ‘60s hit ‘The Name Game’, the self-professed “nonsense ramble” of ‘Beaches’ found the group discovering a whole new sound. “I didn’t think Black Honey could sound like that!” Izzy exclaims. “The song just kind of fell out of the air, didn’t it?” Chris smiles. “Something magic just struck with it.”

Elsewhere on the record, themes of empowerment and emotional freedom appear, with deliciously heavy bangers flowing happily between. “I listened to the whole album back to back when I was really drunk on five margaritas in London Bridge train station and just burst into tears,” Izzy remembers. “I couldn’t believe we’ve made this. ‘Fire’ is an empowering one for women and I sent it in this drunk, hysterical state to my friends and they texted me back like, ‘This song is beautiful, and it’s making me cry’. ‘No Apologies’ is a ferocious anthem for women too. That’s important and women need that right now. It’s all about taking this alpha-egotism of classic rock and roll and putting it into the female perspective, flipping the gaze.

“One of the things I definitely realised listening to the album back was going into every song I talk about having voices in my head,” she continues. “I think it’s more like the metaphorical voice of doubt or doom-spiralling; self-critique and judgement and stuff like that. There’s a song called ‘Do It To Myself’ which is all about the confrontation of your demons. I’m proud of that one. It was quite hard to open up so much but by the time we finished the record I got so comfortable, even talking about this now. I think if you feel a bit shy or a bit conscious about saying something, that’s when you need to say it. Also opening the album with a song called ‘I Like The Way You Die Boy’ is just really funny…”

Giving some of the heavy new’uns their live debut back in January, it’s clear that ‘Written & Directed’ sees the quartet more confident than ever before. “I think with Album One we didn’t really know what we were doing and we were experimenting and just trying everything,” Chris explains. “Whereas with this one we know a bit more who we are and what we want to do, and I think that definitely comes across on this record. It feels really fresh and really strong.” “It feels like what we’ve made is Black Honey on steroids,” Izzy nods. “In the time that we made it, we couldn’t have done anything else, and reflecting back on it, absolutely no one could have made this apart from us. If no one likes it and if it bombs, we don’t give a shit, because we really love it and we’ve really enjoyed making it. I really believe in it. It’s exciting.”

Tags: Black Honey, From The Magazine, Features, Interviews