In Conversation With #265 - Honeymoan
London based, South African band Honeymoan have just released their highly anticipated debut album ‘Sorry Like You Mean It’.
On Honeymoan’s debut album ‘Sorry Like You Mean It’, singer Alison Rachel deals with the idea of love, from breakups to infidelity, to mental health issues within dating. Through turbulent times, themes of self-love and empowerment are prevalent from the band. Outside of Honeymoan Alison is a published author and illustrator of ‘Recipes for Self-Love: How to Feel Good in a Patriarchal World’. She also runs a powerful, self-love social media outlet under the name Recipes For Self Love, with nearly half a million followers on Instagram.
It’s a record of enormous scope, from the dynamic psychedelic pop of ‘Sit Right’ to the bracing electroclash odyssey ‘Bad News’; gritty pop-punk on ‘Sorry Like You Mean It’ to afropop-indebted grooves on ‘Pickup, Don’t Pickup’; to a masterpiece in melancholia on indie-tinged lead single ‘Shortcuts’. At ease in every one of the record’s myriad styles, Alison’s lyrics delve deep into the personal.
They took a moment to talk to us about how the album came together.
Hey there Honeymoan - how are you? So your album is out now - how does it feel to have it out there in the world?
We are really proud of this album and how much we've grown as writers looking back over all the music we've released thus far. This album definitely feels like a step up and something that represents us as artists.
It is called ‘Sorry Like You Mean It’ - what is the meaning behind that?
Sorry Like You Mean It is the name of the first official single we released and it's a song about setting boundaries and stepping into your own which could be considered the overarching theme of the album, also we just liked the name.
Where was it recorded? Any behind the scenes stories from the creative process you are happy to share with us?
We recorded the album at our old studio in Cape Town (South Africa) over the time of about 2 years. The album had two versions, the first we came back to after a few months and decided we weren't entirely happy with it in its entirety and felt like many of the tracks were relying too heavily on the production. We got back into the studio for about 2 weeks and wrote a bunch of new songs in a much more stripped down way making sure they worked well even when stripped down to just guitar and vocals. With the new songs we managed to replace the tracks we were no longer convinced by (still good songs btw lol).
What are the key themes and influences on the album?
We explore the age-old universal themes of love and heartbreak on this record as well as a couple topics that maybe are less explored in music like our inability to take responsibility for environmental impact as individuals and a collective or weirdly getting turned on by a partner cheating.
If the album could be the soundtrack to any film - which one would it be and why?
Any Adam Curtis documentary, the perfect combination of tragedy and comedy, sad and fun/interesting at the same time.
Do you have a favorite lyric on the album - if so, which one and why?
We love all the lyrics, there are lots of them haha so too many to choose from.
Now the album is out there - what next?
We are headed off on a UK/Europe tour early October which we're really looking forward to. We love playing the new songs so much and have been having the best time rehearsing them in preparation for tour so will be great to get them in front of live audiences.
