Name: HONNE
Start: 2024-11-20T21:00:00-07:00
Location: Showbox SoDo

Showbox Presents
THE OUCH TOUR
HONNE
WED, 20 NOV 2024 at 08:00PM PST
Ages: All Ages to Enter, 21 & Over to Drink
Doors Open: 07:00PM
OnSale: Fri, 21 Jun 2024 at 10:00AM PDT
Announcement: Fri, 14 Jun 2024 at 07:00AM PDT
Deep down HONNE has always been about the friendship between two people. Sure, the UK alt-pop duo have reached incredible heights – from those initial humble recording sessions in Bow,East London they’ve notched up more than three billion streams, selling more than 210,000tickets for their live shows. But alongside this, it’s been a story of growth, maturity, and kinship.On their enchanting new album – the playfully titled ‘OUCH!’ – James Hatcher and AndyClutterbuck are ready to tap back into their foundations, and realise the kind of melodiceffervescence and heart-tugging songwriting that only HONNE can provide.
2021’s ‘Let’s Just Say The World Ended A Week From Now, What Would You Do?’ pushed the duoas far as they could go. Laden with unbelievable features – including walk-on roles from PinkSweats, Griff, Niki, and R&B titan Khalid – it reinforced their global stature. Closing their dealwith Atlantic, the future is going to look a little different. The new album will be releasedthrough their own Smile More Recordings (distributed by AWAL), and for their radicallyambitious independent era HONNE want to remove the gloss, and show the emotionsunderneath – little wonder, then, their name means “true feelings” in Japanese.
“We have to move on, and we have to do what we feel is right for us,” Andy re]lects. “Our musichas to re]lect our lives, and how we’re feeling at this speci]ic moment.” His band mate and closefriend James adds: “It’s like a labour of love – we pour everything into it. We want people to loveit as much as we do.”
‘OUCH!’ is impeccably detailed, and wonderfully entrancing. From start to ]inish it’s a radiantpop exhibition, matching elements of profound emotion to moments of bewitching sonicinnocence. The work of two people operating free from expectations, it’s also informed byprofound shifts in their own lives. Andy Clutterbuck has become a father to two young children,while James Hatcher married his long-time partner just before sessions began.
“It’s probably the most personal album we’ve ever written,” Andy explains. “Every song tells astory and ]its into our lives. This time round, everything is completely thought-through.”
Lead single ‘Imaginary’ was a riveting comeback, a return that seemed to frame exactly whatmakes HONNE so special. Packed with quirky ideas and tonnes of character, it was laden withinnate positivity. “The one thing that we always try and keep in everything that we produce iswarmth,” James af]irms.
But this lightness is just one facet of their upcoming album. ‘OUCH!’ isn’t afraid to deal withdarkness, to discuss the fear of loss, the idea of doubt. “Love always comes at some kind of cost,”James notes sagely. “It comes with the cost of vulnerability. It’s something you can lose, which isscary.”
The album is built as a narrative, beginning with a teenage crush, and closing with theresponsibility of family life. ‘Girl In The Orchestra’ may be a sweet tale of adolescent infatuationat a school music group, but ‘Dents In The Sofa’ is an incredibly powerful message from thebrink. Andy’s wife had a dif]icult experience during the birth of their ]irst child, and it’ssomething he still ]inds hard to fully discuss. “If there weren’t any NHS staff or doctors aroundshe probably would have died,” he notes. “The lyrics imagine she had gone, and there’s just adent in the sofa where she once was. It’s a dark story, but it’s ultimately a positive experience tocome through it.”
The ability to place such profound moments in their lives on record can only come throughfriendship. HONNE formed as two people using DIY kit in an ad hoc space in East London, armedonly with a ridiculous number of pop hooks and unbridled enthusiasm for knocking on thedoors of the music industry. “One of the things we've been looking forward to is for this albumwas being able to go back to how we started,” says Andy. “Everything we've done is made by us.”
Take ‘Backseat Driver’: a paean to introverts everywhere, it emerged from a spell when the twounderwent therapy, moving through separate but parallel sessions. The ]irst all-acoustic HONNEtrack, it foregoes using drums to embrace tenderness. There’s the playfully dream-like ‘Songs InMy Head’, a re]lection of their open-ended creative process, or the blissfully sincere ‘Happy Day’,penned after a day of fatherhood. “At the end of a day together I was putting my son to bed, and Iasked him if he’d had a nice day. And he replied: happy day!”
Touching on everything from early 90s hip-hop production to slick 21st century pop via torchsongs and ballads, ‘OUCH!’ is testimony to the creativity only HONNE can conjure. Recentlytaking the decision to move out of their long-time studio, the pair decamped to South London,occupying a space in Deptford. Near-neighbours included Oh Wonder and Tom Misch, with thiscreative community – and extra space – re-booting the pair’s approach to music-making. “It wasde]initely fun to make,” James grins. “We’ve re-learned how to relax, and try new things.”
The arrangement for the song ‘Girl In The Orchestra’ unlocked an over-arching sonic idea for therecord. Buying up all kinds of childhood instruments - tin whistle, cornet, glockenspiels, guitars,autoharp, and more all make their way on to the record – HONNE sought to re-create both thesound and atmosphere of their formative years learning to make music together. As a result,‘OUCH!’ boasts some of their most surprising work to date. “We’ve got all of our gear – includingthe drum kit – fully mic’d up and ready to use, which means we can record at any point we feellike it,” James adds. “It’s been really liberating.”
Every single aspect of HONNE’s new album feels expertly detailed. From the cover art – a designtaken from Shanghai based illustrator Sheng Chen – to the music videos, the pair have overseenevery single aspect of the project. With the ]inal recording sessions now complete, HONNE areready to share their new album with the world. A real-life coming of age tale, it closes with atender moral from a father to his children. Andy states: “The album ]inishes with a message tomy children, basically saying: life is good, but you only get one so make the most of it while youcan.”
Seizing the day once more, HONNE are about to re-write their script, and push back theboundaries. A creative force renewed, they’re ready to embrace a new generation of poppossibility.