Black Honey Interview

Black Honey first majorly emerged on the music scene after the release of their debut eponymous self titled EP. The band have been met with nothing but roaring praise from fans with their songs and music videos that are straight out of Tarantino's playbook.

Their ever-evolving effortless style screams punk rock feminism greeted with poetic lyricism and dizzying guitar solos.

"All My Pride Walked, so Run For Cover could run"

Following the release of their latest single 'Run For Cover' we had a chat with Black Honey's female power lead Izzy Phillips to discuss all things mischievous and feminist...

What was the inspiration behind the new single, was it about any particular personal experience?

I wanted it to feel a bit nonsensical, like, you know. Like that's kind of like why I decided to create it like a nursery rhyme chant, and in a sarcastic way reference all of my favourite punk bands. I like it because it's the most nonsensical that I've written and there's not necessarily a story line, it's about being a bit mischievious I think and living your best life, being feminist and not giving a fuck.

What's the inspiration behind the sound of the song?

The record in general is going to be quite a lot heavier, back to our old heaviness. This is the one on the album which is going for more of a motown vibe, but I reference loads of 60's music and a lot of brass, we did a lot of work with a brass section. On beaches it's Amy Winehouses studio brass section, apparently they drink a load of whiskey before they record their tape.

The music video was filmed during lockdown - was it hard to find motivation to get up and do a video?

The video took me a month and a half and we ended up doing two hours a day but over the course of six weeks. If you're to film yourself on self-timer its really really hard, and then, like, going for it, figuring out like what green screen we wanted to do and then putting the whole thing together. The whole thing was quite a big ambition thing. The video has got that deliberate sense of comedy. I was just running about the garden and there were builders next door and they were watching me film the whole thing, I was in a bikini with a 60's beehive wig and boogieng in front of an iphone camera and they must've thought I was absolutely mad.

What's the thing you miss most about gigging and touring?

I miss being drunk at 2am driving home in the van singing Robbie Williams at the top of my lungs with my best mates. I miss meeting the fans and the community sense and the emotional rollercoaster that they take you on with their stories, I really miss that connection. .

Have you got anything like in the works at the moment, is there anything that you could tell us about the upcoming album?

We haven't actually announced officially yet. But we're about to drop a new single it's called 'Run For Cover' and imagine it's like a 1950's rocker-billie hand jive, ballroom dance - it's the party of your life. It's the most 'Black Honey' thing we've ever made.

And just the last question I've got is who is one of the artists that you would really love to tour with in the future once everything goes back to normal?

I really wanted to be on that tour with Lana Del Rey Yeah, I think we would've been a fucking excellent opener. I'd love to tour with Debbie Harry and Blondie, that's like life goal. (Something about GARBAGE) they're definitely offered to let us tour before but we couldn't do it because we were on tour with Catfish and the Bottlemen and it was so heartbreaking to me, but hopefully we can tour together in future!

Interview by Caitlin Cooling

Write up by Lana Williams