Honours are a four-piece indie rock band from York who only formed last year however went on to cause a storm in their hometown and released a whopping three singles in 2018 alone. Their songs have been played on multiple radio stations and they have not only played but also headlined a multitude of gigs in their short time. We caught up with them to find out more about their plans for the year, their latest single and of course the meanings behind their lyrics...
Hi guys and Happy New Year! 2018 was definitely a big year for you, what were your personal highlights?
Hey! Happy new year to you too, it was a big year last year for us and we loved every part of it. We got together and had our first gig in February 2018 as a headline show at The Crescent in York and we were overwhelmed at the support that came out for us that night and that was a great start for us. We got a strong set of songs together and just booked a load of gigs for the year. I think going into the studio in Leeds to record some of our songs was a highlight for us, we hadn't really had any experience in a studio before so to record our own songs and have the outcome we had was mega. Gigwise, we had some top nights at The Stone Roses Bar in York, The Fulford Arms supporting our mates Hello Operator and The Key Club in Leeds to name just a few.
You treated your fans to latest single ‘Gone’ just 4 days before Christmas! What has the reaction to it been like?
Yeah ‘Gone’, we love this song, I’d say Struan's best work so far in writing it. The catchy riff reminded us a little of The Stones Roses so we all worked on it and came up with all our own original parts and it all just clicked together nicely. The reaction we've had so far has been great, it seems to be a real crowd pleaser and gets everyone going and we love to play it live!
You also celebrated the release with a single launch gig on Saturday the 22nd of December. How did the night go?
The single launch was a top night, it was good to see so many people come down and we had a great lineup of bands with The Feens, Violet Contours and The Honey Smugglers who all smashed it. It was good to get it out and the night was to celebrate all the hard work we put into the track.
Here at The WonderWhy our focus is on lyrics and there are a few lines in ‘Gone’ that really stand out to us and that we’d like to know more about! So can you tell us what inspired the line “Come rain or shine there’s gonna be thunder”?
It basically means that sometimes in life there are situations where no matter how good or bad something can be there’s always gonna be the the thunder to make it better or worse.
My personal highlight from the track is the following verse:
“Send a message to the devil,
He wants to sign his life over to me,
This high top felony claiming everything for free,
Say bye bye get gone to everyone you know,
I’m sorry, I’m sorry to the people I love.”
Can you tell our readers more about the meaning behind it?
I suppose it's quite a depressing lyric, not necessarily written about myself, but gathered from an experience I've seen from someone else's situation where they've messed up and hurt the people they love. They consider themselves as taking over as the devil.
You released your first single ‘Freedom’ in April last year, how would you summarize the track?
‘Freedom’ was our first release and it went down really well. That song can attract an audience of any age with it's catchy guitar riff and big sounding chorus. It's always one of the first songs to make our setlists.
A stand out line for me is “Well come on with me and set yourself free”. Is there a story behind this?
That lyric means seeing someone going through life the wrong way or trapped and you giving them an escape route to free themselves from it.
Another great lyric in the song is “I stand there and I dream to myself, Not a crime, just the sense of confusion”. Can you tell us more about the meaning of this line?
It's about constant daydreaming, when you want something so bad and it's always on your mind but you snap out of it with the sense of confusion, in my case making it successful with the band haha! One day hopefully...
A little over a month after the release of ‘Freedom’ you dropped second single ‘Duchess’. What does this song mean to you?
‘Duchess’ is a fast paced rock song, always played as our last song at gigs to get everyone dancing. A lot of energy goes into playing that one. It did really well in getting played on Jericho Keys BBC Introducing Show and also got played on BBC Radio 6 Up And Coming Bands To Look Out For which was a proud moment for us!
The line “But I can’t be fooled into love” soon evolves into “I’m a fool in love with just a memory to see”. Can you tell us more about the story behind it and why you wanted to convey a sense of development in the song?
It was written about first meeting someone and how it evolves from nothing much, to the excitement of just the thought of them and then falling in love with them. So the 3 stages of trying to play it cool to being a soppy sod haha!
So far we have questioned you on your released songs however you have been kind enough to send us the lyrics to unreleased track ‘Shalala’ and therefore we are going to finish off with some questions about the unheard and unseen lyrics from what we are sure will be yet another banger from you guys. But before we delve into that can you give our readers a hint as to what to expect from this song?
‘Shalala’ at the moment has only been played a handful of times live, we needed an acoustic song for our live session on BBC Introducing, so it was put together really quickly. There are no plans at the moment to record it, but maybe sometime this year we may release it as a demo or a live performance. It has quite an Oasis acoustic sound about it. Maybe if we write a few more acoustic songs it may find a place in our set when we play longer set times.
A highlight for us in this song is the following line:
“Yeah I cry, yeah I break down when you say goodbye,
When your heart beats it’s telling me, shalalalalala.”
Can you elaborate on the meaning of the word Shalala?
I'll be honest ‘Shalala’ has no meaning in this song, it fitted nicely with the melody so I stuck with it. Plus the lads took the mickey out of it so I decided to stick with it just to wind them up haha! It could mean the sound your heart makes when in love, there you go, another soppy meaning.
A favourite part of the song for us is the line:
“Love climbs a ladder of truth, each one has no way down,
But I’ve seen it before as I fell to floor like a fool.”
The song touches on similar themes to other single ‘Duchess’. Are there any deliberate links or shared meanings/ experiences used to inspire the lyrics?
There is no direct link between ‘Shalala’ and ‘Duchess’ but both are love songs in their different ways. ‘Duchess’ is more of the progress of falling in love, and ‘Shalala’ is about already being in love.
Thanks for answering our questions guys, just before we end can you tell us anything about the band’s plans for 2019?
Thanks for the interview and hopefully we've made some sense into the meanings behind some of our songs. We are gearing up for hopefully a bigger year in 2019, preparing some fresh new songs to introduce into our set. We have a new single coming out in March called 'Your To Blame' which we're excited about. We're currently working on a music video for our latest release 'Gone' which will also be released shortly. Plenty of gigs are coming in for up and down the country, gigs with This Feeling and festivals in York are booked in and also we'll be excited to be playing some dates in London this year which we haven't done yet. Thank you again for the interview and here's some links to our social media if anyone would like to check us out and keep up to date with us.
Facebook: Honoursyork
Instagram: honoursband
Spotify: Honours
Email: enquiries@honoursband.uk