Band Of The Week #274 - Honey Joy
This week’s Band of the Week is Honey Joy – who have just released their new album ‘III’ via Everything Sucks Music. The band have been together for nine years and have played shows around the UK, Europe and as far afield as the USA. Previous stage mates include Martha, Marked Men and Radiator Hospital.
The first song the south London punks revealed from ‘III’ was the awesome ‘Language’, which speaks on “how having opinions and feelings is pointless or damaging if you can't learn to articulate them,” says vocalist Megan Tinsley. Guitarist Matt Tinsley chimes in that the track is “an idea I’ve been fucking around with since our first album. I showed it to Jay (Jason Cavalier - drums), he said to stop swinging the rhythm and make it more Tom Petty and here we are.”
Elsewhere on the charmingly rumbustious ‘III’, Honey Joy explore the raw emotion that music can conjure, which this record certainly does, with ‘Ready Now’, and wanting to do it all in life without compromise on ‘Live 100%’. They air frustration at chronic health and mental health issues (‘Never Better’), as well as railing at the government with the painful outrage of album closer ‘Thursdays at 8pm’, whose title references the “Clap for Carers” campaign during the pandemic. Megan says the track is “me being absolutely furious about the government handling of Covid. I can honestly only describe it as negligence and gaslighting. I will never forget.” Matt adds “I lost my Grandad to Covid. I spoke to him the day before he died and the thought of him being alone when he passed due to government negligence is still a painful and enraging memory. I think he would be really proud of Meg for her work as a nurse during Covid, for pulling through one of the toughest times in her life and her lyrics in this song. I think of him every time we play it. Fuck this government a million times over.”
‘III’ was recorded with Wayne Adams at BearBitesHorse in East London, literally around the corner from where the band recorded (second album) 'II'. According to Honey Joy, “There’s a pretty great falafel place down the road.” This is their first recording with new guitarist Will Hattersley.
The band took a moment to talk to us about how the album came together.
Hey there Honey Joy, how are you? So your album is out now – how does it feel to have it out there?.
Hey! it’s great to have it out there. It’s been a year since we recorded so hearing it with fresh ears again and getting to share it and perform more of it is reallly great.
It is called ‘III’ – what is the meaning behind that?
Some may say III stands for Intense, Illusive, Illicit. Perhaps that sums us up as the moody grungers with pop sensibilities that we are.
In reality, we always leave the album name until last. After writing songs, naming them, creating album art and merch, we’ve always been out of ideas for an album name. We're not precious about it, so settled with the number of the album. Our last two were I and II. We said we'd try harder next time though.....
Where was it recorded? Any behind the scenes stories you are willing to share with us?
It was recorded at BearBitesHorse with Wayne Adams. Wayne is a brilliant, slightly intimidating dude with a great ear and a cool studio in the depths of Hackney. He got what we were going for immediately and captured everything really well. Wayne was worried when he heard our guitarists lay down their guide tracks that they were crap, would run over time and he’d have to break our legs to recoup his studio fees, but it all worked out okay in the end.
What are the key influences behind the album?
We made a shared playlist for inspo when we started writing this album and the artists that ended up being the biggest influence to this record are probably; Uranium Club, Lemonheads, The Marked Men, Rocket From The Crypt, Bodega and Martha. Some people say we take influence from X-ray spex but it’s not really that true (as great as they are!).
If the album could be a soundtrack to any film – which one and why?
When the early 2000s punk scene gets far enough into the past to generate a decent alternative throwback romcom, then maybe we could do a decent soundtrack to that. Like When Harry Met Sally but if sally was into against me!. Other than that, maybe Mean Machine, it would be great to see Vinnie Jones lead his convict team to glory set against Meg’s dulcet tones.
Do you have a favourite lyric on the album? If so, which one and why?
"She's planning the next adventure while she's still on the last one" (from Parallels) which kinda sums us up. Album III hadn't even been mastered but Matt was already talking about song ideas for the next record.
Another "Compassion is dead and the world’s on fire" .......it’s strong, it’s true and we put it on a tshirt.
Now the album is out there – what next for you?
We have a tour in July, we've started writing again, we have some more shows in the works for autumn/winter and so, we're going to keep on doing what we can as much we can!
