Nieve Ella, Jamie T, Rachel Chinouriri and Remi Wolf cover Dork's new issue - order now!•
Tate McRae has announced new single ‘Housewife’•
Slayyyter has announced companion album ‘Wor$t Man in America’ for December•
Welly are going to headline a very special Dork’s Night Out at The 100 Club•
Down With Boring returns tonight with The North, plus bags of new music•
Keo have announced their 2027 UK, European and North American headline tour•
Primavera Sound Barcelona has announced its 2027 anniversary line-up•
Madra Salach have released new single ‘Ribbon Factory’•
Bleech 9:3 have dropped new track 'Tourniquet' and announced their biggest headline tour yet•
Mollie Elizabeth has announced her new EP ‘People Pleaser’ and shared ‘Kiss The Ring’•
Baby Dave and The Works have kicked off a new collaboration with ‘Wings’•
RAYE, Olivia Dean, JADE and more are set to perform at the 2026 Mercury Prize ceremony•
Fontaines D.C. have released ‘Tongue’ and its New York-shot video•
LCD Soundsystem have announced 12 New York residency shows, including their 100th•
Saint Clair have shared new single ‘Dreams’ ahead of sold-out autumn headline tour•
Audrey Hobert has unveiled a new video for 'Sex and the City' as she begins her headline tour•
The Dork 2025 Readers' Poll nominations are in, featuring CMAT, Turnstile, Wolf Alice, Djo, Hayley Williams and loads more•
flowerovlove has released her first-ever first Christmas track, 'wishlist'•
Mighty Hoopla and Olly Alexander have announced Trans Mission, a concert for trans solidarity•
JADE has announced a deluxe edition of her debut album, 'THAT'S SHOWBIZ BABY! THE ENCORE'•
Nieve Ella, Jamie T, Rachel Chinouriri and Remi Wolf cover Dork's new issue - order now!•
Tate McRae has announced new single ‘Housewife’•
Slayyyter has announced companion album ‘Wor$t Man in America’ for December•
Welly are going to headline a very special Dork’s Night Out at The 100 Club•
Down With Boring returns tonight with The North, plus bags of new music•
Keo have announced their 2027 UK, European and North American headline tour•
Primavera Sound Barcelona has announced its 2027 anniversary line-up•
Madra Salach have released new single ‘Ribbon Factory’•
Bleech 9:3 have dropped new track 'Tourniquet' and announced their biggest headline tour yet•
Mollie Elizabeth has announced her new EP ‘People Pleaser’ and shared ‘Kiss The Ring’•
Baby Dave and The Works have kicked off a new collaboration with ‘Wings’•
RAYE, Olivia Dean, JADE and more are set to perform at the 2026 Mercury Prize ceremony•
Fontaines D.C. have released ‘Tongue’ and its New York-shot video•
LCD Soundsystem have announced 12 New York residency shows, including their 100th•
Saint Clair have shared new single ‘Dreams’ ahead of sold-out autumn headline tour•
Audrey Hobert has unveiled a new video for 'Sex and the City' as she begins her headline tour•
The Dork 2025 Readers' Poll nominations are in, featuring CMAT, Turnstile, Wolf Alice, Djo, Hayley Williams and loads more•
flowerovlove has released her first-ever first Christmas track, 'wishlist'•
Mighty Hoopla and Olly Alexander have announced Trans Mission, a concert for trans solidarity•
JADE has announced a deluxe edition of her debut album, 'THAT'S SHOWBIZ BABY! THE ENCORE'•
Dork
News
Features
Reviews
Magazine
  • Dork
  • Popzines
Shop
Listings
Directory
Festivals
Hype-THE BEST NEW NAMES, FIRST
Upset-DORK'S HOME FOR ALL THINGS LOUD
The 19755SOSAlessi RoseArctic MonkeysArlo ParksBastillebeabadoobeeBillie EilishBleachersblink-182BlossomsBlur
Bring Me The HorizonCarly Rae JepsenCavetownChappell RoanCharli xcxCHVRCHESCMATConan GrayDeclan McKennaDjoFall Out BoyFoals
Fontaines D.C.Ghostgirl in redGlass AnimalsGorillazGracie AbramsHAIMHarry StylesHolly HumberstoneInhalerJames MarriottThe Japanese House
The Last Dinner PartyLewis CapaldiLinkin ParkLouis TomlinsonMaggie RogersMaisie PetersMUNAMy Chemical RomanceNiall HoranOasis Live '27Olivia DeanOlivia Rodrigo
Pale WavesParamorePhoebe BridgersPinkPantheressRemi WolfReneé RappSabrina CarpenterSam FenderShameSlipknotTate McRaeTaylor Swift
Twenty One PilotsWallowsWet LegWolf AliceYard ActYUNGBLUDZara Larsson
etc.
Film & TV
Gaming
Literature
Culture
Festival Guides-YOUR ESSENTIAL FESTIVAL COMPANION
Hype-THE BEST NEW NAMES, FIRST
Mixtape-DORK'S BEST NEW TRACKS
Play-DORK'S NEW MUSIC FRIDAY EDIT
Upset-DORK'S HOME FOR ALL THINGS LOUD
Playlist Covers
Playlist Directory
Recommender
Before Doors-LIVE SESSIONS
After Gates-FESTIVAL SESSIONS
Music Video Directory
Down With Boring-THE DORK PODCAST
Chart Attack-UK NUMBER ONES, DISSECTED
Dork Live
Oasis Live ’27Tickets. Dates. What’s the story?Explore the tour
Dork Radio
Live
Live 24/7
Dork Radio
Dork
Down With Boring

Join thousands of music lovers getting the best new tracks, exclusive interviews, and breaking news delivered straight to your inbox every week.

In print now

October 2026

Latest issue variants

View archive
Dork, October 2026 (Cara Delevingne cover)

Cara Delevingne

Dork, October 2026 (Keo cover)

Keo

Dork, October 2026 (Lizzy McAlpine cover)

Lizzy McAlpine

Dork, October 2026 (Tove Lo cover)

Tove Lo

Advertise|Support|About Dork|Editorial standards & corrections|Privacy Policy|Genres|Years|Sitemap|RSS|Cookie settings
© 2026 The Bunker Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved.
Powered by PlaywireAdvertise on this site.
  1. Home
  2. Features
  3. HONNE

HONNE: "We had no idea what would come next"

HONNE are showing off their playful side, letting loose with new mixtape, 'no song without you'.

HONNE: "We had no idea what would come next"
Written by
Dork
Artists
HONNE
Published
28 Jul 2020 • 9:28 am
What do you do next after travelling around the world for five years? When you've been playing sold-out shows across the globe, where does that take you? It's those questions that dwelled in the mind of HONNE, four years on from the release of debut album 'Warm On A Cold Night' in 2016, their story since has been nothing short of remarkable. Click onto Spotify, and you'll see monthly listeners in the millions, a go-to for 21st-century romantics - whether it's heartbreak or falling arse over tit in love, HONNE have it nailed. Confidence must be flying, right? Singer Andy Clutterbuck laughs. "I don't know whether it's the fact that we have no self-belief, but every time it comes around to release new music, I feel like we're just going to put something online and there's going to be this big echo of like space, and nobody's there to receive it!"

Related Articles

LIKE THAT? READ THESE✦LIKE THAT? READ THESE✦LIKE THAT? READ THESE✦LIKE THAT? READ THESE✦
LIKE THAT? READ THESE✦LIKE THAT? READ THESE✦LIKE THAT? READ THESE✦LIKE THAT? READ THESE✦
HONNE: “You’re only as good as what you do next”
Features

HONNE: “You’re only as good as what you do next”

HONNE are back with their third full-length ‘LET’S JUST SAY THE WORLD ENDED A WEEK FROM NOW, WHAT WOULD YOU DO?’ - mouthful of a title, but easy to swallow with their free wheeling alt-pop perogative.

Put those fears to bed, chaps. HONNE's return has been met with quite the opposite - jumping right back into the new world they've created. But after two albums crammed with their signature style, stepping up on their second LP, 2018's 'Love Me / Love Me Not', with a record full of depth and hypnotic hooks, what would come next was wide open. The road to new mixtape 'no song without you' certainly wasn't clear as they stepped off stage on the final night of tour. "I remember Brixton Academy was one of the final nights, and we'd just come off stage after it went really, really well," recalls Andy, "but it felt like, and I can't really explain it, but it felt like loads of stress just left my body all at the same time. After that, we had no idea what would come next. I think that was part of our problem. We just carried on writing music and y' know…"
That search for something else, what comes next, raised its head again. Decamping to LA together, Andy and James found themselves drawn to something new. Writing and bouncing ideas off each other in the same room (something they'd never done before, preferring to stick to forming ideas individually and passing tracks between themselves to work together), a new sound began to emerge. Sun-kissed, warm and packed with melodies - it laid the basis for what was to come. What was next was suddenly now. "We wrote 'no song without you'," remembers Andy, "and that sort of set the precedent for the rest of the music we wrote in LA. It wasn't really planned; it just happened that way."
After chatting with collaborators, HONNE were clear in the direction they wanted to take. The result is a self-described mixtape, both earnest and wholesome, whilst glistening with a subtle warmth; like a collection of songs that sits together like a homemade cassette tape that you'd post to the person you love. Cute, personal and tender, the result is a record that nestles up under the stars, with HONNE's unshakeable knack for golden pop melodies rising to the top.
"It's something that's kinda always been there through our lives," explains Andy, pointing to the album's rich sounds and warm approach. "I grew up on bands like The Beatles, The Stones, Led Zeppelin and all that, so it's always been there in the background. Me and James both grew up playing guitar, and there's a lot more of that on this album. People like Tame Impala, Whitney, Rex Orange County, Rich Brian - those were the sounds and artists we were listening to and drawn towards. It all came together with something we were really excited by."
From the flicking 'free love', the rising gospel of 'by my side' and the bright'n'breezy 'loving you is so easy', to the almost nursery-rhyme ease of the lovestruck 'la la la that's how it goes', the submerged pleas of 'one way to tokyo' and the blanket-wrapped 'gone gone gone' - 'no song without you' is a smooth collection of a band effortlessly flexing their songwriting muscles. Positivity (even when staring at the worst) rings true, none more so than the call to arms of closing track 'smile more smile more smile more', a spoken-word breakdown of hope covering body-positivity, self-care and love to brighten anyone's day. Choose Love? Well, do that - but also smile more, smile more, smile more is the message. "It is part of the HONNE sound," points out Andy when thinking of the positivity heard across the record. "We find it easy, and it comes naturally to write about positive things; it wasn't anything we really talked about, it just happened naturally. It's a good time for a bit of positivity."
It feeds into that mixtape feel, born from a time of joy in their own lives. "Andy had just gotten married, and with 'no song without you' a lot of the words he said as a part of his speech on the day. Like, there would be no songs because she's inspired so many. He wouldn't be in HONNE without her…" James pauses and smiles "… or me!"
It all welcomes HONNE into an exciting new chapter, both redefined and refreshed with countless paths open for them to head down. Not so much a departure, but a natural evolution - that swooning pop centre remains bold, if not bolder than ever before. It all fits into James' goal for where HONNE continues to grow. "I'd like to be an artist where the next thing you release is the most popular, and I hope we can carry on doing that. I like that we're not one-hit wonders, we're an album artist that people dive into which is a really positive thing for us and makes us want to continue to create albums rather than standalone singles."
Buoyed, and unlike HONNE, there's even talk of what comes next already. "It's a strange position to be in," elaborates James, "but we've got two or three songs ready already for the next album. It's strange to have a starting point for what we're going to do next because we've never really had that before… we'll let those songs guide the direction we continue in."
The millions of streams. The sold-out shows around the globe. The adoring fans who sing along to every word. HONNE are there, slipping through your letterbox with songs of hope and love in a time of sorely needed dreaming.
Taken from the August issue of Dork. HONNE's mixtape 'no song without you' is out now.
Words: Jamie Muir

Never miss a thing

Get the best new music in your Google feed

Two taps, takes ten seconds. Get Dork in your Discover feed, and tell Google to rank our reviews and interviews higher when you search.

☆ Follow Dork in Discover↑ Pin Dork in Search

WatchDork’s Before Doors sessions

Intimate, stripped-back live sessions filmed moments before the doors open. Raw sound, real rooms, no second takes. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss a new one.

Subscribe on YouTubeWatch the latest →

Latest Updates

A key to Paul McCartney’s former Liverpool home has sold for double its estimate
News

A key to Paul McCartney’s former Liverpool home has sold for double its estimate

9 Oct 2026
Harry Styles’ ‘Fine Line’ shoot outtake will feature in Tim Walker exhibition
Culture

Harry Styles’ ‘Fine Line’ shoot outtake will feature in Tim Walker exhibition

9 Oct 2026
Olivia Dean has been announced as a LaLaLa Fest 2027 headliner
News

Olivia Dean has been announced as a LaLaLa Fest 2027 headliner

9 Oct 2026
Simon Pegg has discussed his ADHD diagnosis: ‘It’s just who I am’
Culture

Simon Pegg has discussed his ADHD diagnosis: ‘It’s just who I am’

9 Oct 2026
Rihanna says she has at least 170 unreleased songs in her vault
News

Rihanna says she has at least 170 unreleased songs in her vault

9 Oct 2026
HONNE reflect on missing loved ones with their new single 'Say That You Will Wait For Me', featuring Liang Lawrence
News

HONNE reflect on missing loved ones with their new single 'Say That You Will Wait For Me', featuring Liang Lawrence

The duo collaborates with UK artist Liang Lawrence on this final preview track from their upcoming album.

HONNE have announced a new album, 'OUCH'
News

HONNE have announced a new album, 'OUCH'

The duo are now signed to AWAL, and released a couple of new singles earlier this year.

HONNE have shared a new single about writing songs in your sleep, 'Songs In My Head'
News

HONNE have shared a new single about writing songs in your sleep, 'Songs In My Head'

The duo are now signed to AWAL, and released 'Imaginary' earlier this year.