A day in the life of… Home Counties

You know what’s easier than following around your fave pop stars, day in, day out, to see what they’re up to right that minute? Asking them. This month, we nab Will Harrison (vocals/guitar/keys) from Home Counties.

7:30AM → Wake up and disgruntledly wait in line for my five other housemates to get out of the fucking shower.

8:00AM → Finally shower, only taking like 5 minutes because I’m not an inconsiderate arsehole.

8:45AM → Get out of the shower and get over my daily resentment at my fellow band members. I spend a few minutes looking up at the gaping hole in the downstairs ceiling, below where the shower leaks, and note its impressive growth since last night. Conor [Kearney (guitar/vocals)] Aeropresses the coffee.

8:50AM →  Realising that I’m really late, I speed-make two Marmite sandwiches (one normal for breakfast, one with cheese for lunch), pour the coffee into a travel cup and leg it to the overground station.

8:55AM → Arrive at the overground and wait at the platform for three successive trains that never arrive. Teams message my manager saying I’m going to be late due to a water leak or that I had to let a builder in - whatever takes my fancy that day.

9:30AM → When the train arrives, I aggressively jam myself onto the rammed carriage, avoiding eye contact with disgruntled fellow passengers. Putting on a centrist dad podcast, I start simultaneously reading the Guardian, taking in no information from either source but feeling content with a comforting vibe of metropolitan liberalism.

10:00AM → After arriving in Central London, I buy a coffee with the remainder of my overdraft and head to the office.

10:10AM → Exchange pleasantries with colleagues about the state of TFL, with everyone sharing unique exaggerations of their own reasons for lateness. Reluctantly log onto the computer. 

10:15AM →  Eat the first Marmite sandwich at my desk, read emails and stare at various spreadsheets. Excessively drink water so that I can regularly leave the office to piss and fill up the water bottle, a cycle taking approximately 30 minutes. Over this time, I feel like I have worked somewhat, but really, I’ve just changed the conditional formatting of the various spreadsheets and categorised the few emails I have received.

12:00PM → I mainly stare at the clock, drink another coffee and resist the temptation to eat the next Marmite sandwich. 

1:00PM → Sit on a bench in Regent’s Park and reward myself with the other sandwich, moving shortly after being encircled by geese. I re-listen to the same centrist dad podcast while simultaneously reading the band WhatsApp chat, getting increasingly stressed by the inescapable admin tasks that plague life both inside and outside work. Bill [Griffin (bass/vocals)]’s talking about TikTok, Barn [Peiser Pepin (synth/percussion/guitar/vocals)]’s asking for train fare to get back from Exeter and Dan [Hearn (drums)] can’t make it to practice tonight as he’s got an assignment due tomorrow. Zoning out of band admin, I refocus on the podcast and catch something about the inevitability of the incoming Labour government, feeling momentarily hopeful about the future. Realising it’s time to get back to the office, all feelings of hope are crushed, and I ponder whether it’s time to get a more fulfilling job.

2:00PM → Have a team meeting involving going around saying what we’ve done this week. Panic to think of things other than changing the colours on the various spreadsheets, but manage to waffle something passable about data entry issues that goes over both mine and my manager’s head. 

3:00PM → Clock staring, water bottle filling, pissing cycle restarts, taking me through to 5pm.

4:50PM → A sense of joy emerges, and the end of the work day approaches. I preemptively shut down my work computer and pack up all of my things ready to leave the office bang on 5.

5:00PM → Feeling elated, I leave work and message the band group chat to suggest that we go to the pub before practice. Swift full agreement achieved and overdraft extended in anticipation; I head home to Homerton listening to ‘You Make My Dreams (Come True)’. The journey somehow taking only half the time, I wonder if I would make it to work on time in the morning if work was a pub. 

5:30PM → Arrive at the Adam and Eve to meet the band, chain-smoking and drinking £3.95 Amstels until happy hour ends at 7. 

7:00PM → Head home to begin a writing session. Fire up the drum machine and MS-20 to make something that resembles shit house music. Add instrumentation and Lois [Kelly (vocals/keys)]’s vocals to it until it sounds wonky enough to pass as Home Counties, and listen to it repeatedly with an enormous sense of self-achievement 

10:00PM → Receive a text from our neighbour reminding us of our obligations under Hackney Council noise regulations, which abruptly ends our session. Defeated, we head back to the Adam and Eve for now-£5 Amstels until last orders.

11:30AM →  Head back home and stare at the hole in the ceiling for a few minutes and file yet another repair request to the landlords. Heading to bed, the feeling of dread for work the next day starts burgeoning. Stick on a documentary about 70s Britain and fall asleep, to later awake at 3am with the light on and fully clothed. Turn off my laptop, which has auto-played onto Part 4 of ‘Blair and Brown: The New Labour Revolution’. Fail to return to sleep, worrying about all the subliminal centrist indoctrination I have received. Vowing to myself to be more progressive tomorrow. ■

Taken from the May 2024 issue of Dork. Home Counties’ debut album ‘Exactly As It Seems’ is out 3rd May.