Black Honey are a band built on daydreams, fairy dust and ambition. From the very beginning, they’ve created a world you can reach out and touch. Carried by a belief that they could do it all, they’ve swaggered, swayed and shook their way through EPs, and tours that have carried them around the world.
Their debut album has been a long time coming. Black Honey have always promised it’ll arrive when the time is right. Check your watches, cos that time is now.
‘Black Honey’ isn’t a continuation of what Black Honey have done so far, though. It’s a fresh start and new beginnings. For the first time, they aren’t just saying they want to do it all. Their debut is the sound of a band realising that actually, anything is possible. All you have to do is believe.
The album is full of purpose. Every song stands for something. There’s “a disco song, a driving at night song, an acoustic ballad, a song where you bring in a symphony orchestra,” Izzy explains. “It felt like it was a bold decision. I don’t know anyone else who makes albums like that, but that’s me. If I’m going to represent myself in music, yup it’s absolutely batshit crazy, but it all makes sense when you hear it."
From the opening hypercharge of ‘I Only Hurt The Ones I Love’, through the rampant disco stomp of ‘Midnight’, the drifting heartbeat of ‘Blue Romance’ and the stripped down, full throttle purge of ‘Baby’ until the slow burn burst and decay of ‘Wasting Time’, ‘Black Honey’ is adventuring.
That change came about from a challenge. Their management asked them what would happen if Black Honey wrote a pop song.
“At first I said fuck this. I hate chart music,” she says, but Izzy, never one to give up on something, tried to find a way to make it work. Instead of bending around pop, the band bent pop music around them. And it felt good. Then they started asking questions of themselves.
Things didn’t make sense straight away, though.
“It’s absolutely batshit crazy, but it all makes sense when you hear it”
Izzy B. Phillips
That play came last year. The band were banging their heads against walls, trying to make it work but pressed pause to go on the road with Royal Blood. The size, the scale, the ambition of that tour affected the band. When they came home, they wrote five songs for the album in as many weeks.
‘Black Honey’ doesn’t just sound different. Their bulging back-catalogue of bangers deals in fantasy escape, this album grapples with reality. Their once-mysterious approach has been slowly eroded away, revealing a very human, very relatable gang behind it all.
“I’m conducting a series of experiments with myself, what can I can be comfortable with exposing. If I am going to show people sides of me, I want to show them some really honest stuff.
“A big part of me learning how to write songs was because I had so many problems as a kid. Doctors said to draw out my dreams because it would help me deal with them. Songwriting is important for me coping with my existence. That’s something I’m thinking about a lot at the moment, putting out this record. I’m telling you everything. Everything about me is about to go on the internet.
“Someone once said to be an artist you have to have a certain level of masochistic behaviour because you’re putting yourself raw in the firing line for people to love or hate you so that you can feel connected to the people you can connect to,” she continues.
Songs like ‘Blue Romance’ talk of golden palm trees and velvet worlds. It might sound like perfection with a filter, but it captures a feeling.
“[It’s] a love story which honours love but acknowledges its fucked-up-ness, is set in swinging arms. Dancing all night long, drunk, beautiful and in love. When you escape with someone, when you’re in that dream state and that magical universe, that feeling is real even if the experience might not be.
The Black Honey of old would be pulled this way and that by lust, love and heartbreak, victims of circumstance and under the spell of others. ‘Black Honey’ sees the band more in control.
Not all of the songs on Black Honey’s debut are brand new, however.
“I wanted to give the fans that have supported us through all these years something that would feel familiar. ‘Hello Today’ is a really important song because it’s a fuck you to the past and hello to the future. It’s the most feminist, empowering commentary I was making, when I was really fucked up. Because it was so meaningful to that time, and even now I feel so empowered by it, it had to go on.” Elsewhere, ‘Wasting Away’ is a song years in the making.
“It’s funny; I feel like I never wrote it. I’ve always just been saying it my whole life. There’s an element of coming of age that maybe I’ve not been aware of because I’ve been living it so hard. Every line is real to me. Every story is one I’ve been telling my whole life.
That raw, barefaced honesty is deliberate and unafraid.
It’s painted on the walls across the album.
“’What Happened To You’ is about looking at myself in the mirror and knowing you’re a mess. You’re hungover, and you don’t know what you’re doing, but at the same time, you’re powering through with all of the swag, all of the fire. The drums are huge, the pulse of your fucking heart. You’re a mess, but you’re a fiery, powerful mess that no one can stop.
“Basically, the way I see it, I want to be Debbie Harry. I want to be Blondie. I want to be that female rock and roll icon for teenagers to stick on their walls. Do teenagers stick photos on their wall anymore?” Izzy asks, moving at a hundred miles an hour.
Taken from the October 2018 issue of Dork. Order a copy below. Black Honey’s self-titled debut album is out now.
Words: Ali Shutler
That play came last year. The band were banging their heads against walls, trying to make it work but pressed pause to go on the road with Royal Blood. The size, the scale, the ambition of that tour affected the band. When they came home, they wrote five songs for the album in as many weeks.
‘Black Honey’ doesn’t just sound different. Their bulging back-catalogue of bangers deals in fantasy escape, this album grapples with reality. Their once-mysterious approach has been slowly eroded away, revealing a very human, very relatable gang behind it all.
“I’m conducting a series of experiments with myself, what can I can be comfortable with exposing. If I am going to show people sides of me, I want to show them some really honest stuff.
“A big part of me learning how to write songs was because I had so many problems as a kid. Doctors said to draw out my dreams because it would help me deal with them. Songwriting is important for me coping with my existence. That’s something I’m thinking about a lot at the moment, putting out this record. I’m telling you everything. Everything about me is about to go on the internet.
“Someone once said to be an artist you have to have a certain level of masochistic behaviour because you’re putting yourself raw in the firing line for people to love or hate you so that you can feel connected to the people you can connect to,” she continues.
Songs like ‘Blue Romance’ talk of golden palm trees and velvet worlds. It might sound like perfection with a filter, but it captures a feeling.
“[It’s] a love story which honours love but acknowledges its fucked-up-ness, is set in swinging arms. Dancing all night long, drunk, beautiful and in love. When you escape with someone, when you’re in that dream state and that magical universe, that feeling is real even if the experience might not be.
