A Lush and Thriving, Personal and Honest
New Release from Honey VHS
It's been quite some time since I've heard a record that blends elements of jazz, indie rock, folk, and singer-songwriter together as seamlessly as the latest release from Honey VHS, which is an album that is shaped with warm tones coming from the instruments, and a lot of personality lyrically.
This is a record that sort of wraps itself around you with a particular kind of brightness, and it all feels good to listen to and is incredibly fun to peel back its layers.
The release is called With Pulp, which, for me, is a great title, simply because it's got a lot of great instrumentation that lets it come through with a lushness so that the songs are smooth, flowing, but also full-bodied at the same time.
They definitely don't waste a lot of time with the first track, "If You Want Me", which is a single that sort of opens the door for the rest of the record amazingly.
Although, as I mentioned earlier, this is a diverse set of songs, there is a glue that holds everything together, so it is very cohesive at the same time.
This track gives you some of the great staples that the rest of the record holds. Some of those being dreamy, drifty but soulful vocals, along with this vintage-sounding bass guitar tone that is just completely addicting, and an element of elegance that shines through a lot of the time.
Of course, that elegance is due to the performances both instrumentally and vocally, and this first track also introduces you to some of how the vocalist is pretty unafraid to let inner thoughts come spilling out for everyone to soak in.
She doesn't hold back in terms of saying what she wants to and not letting the emotions of it get in the way.
To me, there's a little element of bravery, but also, when I listen to it, it feels like it may have been even slightly cathartic for her to write and release.
This moves right into "Blue Eyes, Sunshine", which immediately opens up with a super addictive riff and gives you more of that juicy bass guitar tone that's just amazing.
This one has a wonderful way of just opening up into a sea of lucid soundscape and definitely gives you a lot of that jazz undertone.
Some great experimental guitar work is going on throughout the track, tremolo effects, great grooves that send you deep into the pocket and make you want to move your body, and all the while, you have that almost classic, vintage style jazz vocal thriving throughout it all.
She's just super cool on this track.
"Never Left The Ground" brings out more of a singer-songwriter, folk style, but it also showcases some instrumentation that leans towards a southern, almost Americana feel.
This one is more void of experimental effects like tremolo, reverb, or delay. This one is slightly more stripped down feeling, and the vocals are right up front in your face, which I really enjoy because even then
She comes up with some amazing melodies that just really fit the song.
Throughout this record, you can hear tons of different influences that both of them hold close to their hearts, coming through in different places and just laced in tastefully.
"Cotton Rag" is a solo guitar piece that's got blues flowing through its veins, but it's really classic style blues.
At this point in the record, you seriously begin to expect the unexpected, but you also know it's going to be something that's going to pull you in.
There are no two songs that are alike. I mean that in a good way, of course.
"November" is beautifully descriptive lyrically and has a great folk approach that paints a picture as it all unfolds, and this one really stays with you; it's got a little bit of emotional push and feels cinematic because of that.
One of my favorite tracks on the record is actually the closing track called "Secrets Are For Losers".
This is mainly because it embodies a slew of the different approaches you hear throughout the record, and one song.
This feels like Americana, folk, and indie-pop, and it still has those flowing instruments that create drifting notes in the songs' ether and build such a beautiful atmosphere.
I really do think that this is a big part of what they do best. They build atmospheres, and by the time you're finished with one song, you have to prepare for that next big atmosphere to come at you.
Whatever it is, you're just going to get sucked into it.
There's another element about some of these songs that feels almost like a live performance. They have a way of putting you there, in the moment with the songs, and listening to them makes you want to see them perform it all live.
This was an amazingly performed record that felt great to listen to and served as a bit of an escape that pulls you away from whatever you're doing and wherever you are, and put you in a different headspace for a little chunk of time.
I would definitely suggest listening to this record all the way through, and one shot.
Although it's not exactly a concept album, per se, songs are connective and tell some stories from a personal perspective most of the time.
Also, listening to only one or two tracks from the album won't give you the full spectrum of what it has to offer.
After listening to this record, I wanted to have a sit-down with the duo to find out how they do their thing.
I needed to know what this was influenced by, what it's all about, and how they actually began writing songs together.
So, while you listen to this record, take a deep dive into our interview with Honey VHS below.
Do not miss this record.
Where did this EP come from and what was it about?
Cam: It came from the two of us discovering that we loved writing together and learning how to collaborate. The songs all started simple, just voice and guitar, going back and forth. That dialogue is a core part of our songwriting. My lyrics describe relationships ending, old friends, coming of age, self doubt, the little intimate moments that stick with you, and me falling in love with Queens.
Luca: I think the beginning of it all was us just both being really into each other musically. The first time I heard Cam sing I was blown away. I’d been doing the whole bedroom guitar player thing for a long time and had played a few shows but I had never really taken the time to put a project together from start to finish. Being the diligent, motivated, talented person she is, Cam sort of dragged that out of me. She would come over and be like hey I’ve got this melody and some words, what do you think? Or I’d maybe send her a voice note of a riff I was working on, and then we’d hang out at the foot of my bed for a few hours workshopping whatever we were started with, trying to land on something inspiring. Next thing you know we’ve got an album worth of songs. We played a few shows and people seemed to dig it so we figured it might be worth while to try and record it all.
I am hearing a few different styles on this single. Who are some of your biggest musical influences?
Cam: I grew up singing in a professional choir in Los Angeles, and even though my music sounds very different now, the precision they instilled is still with me. I’m inspired by songwriters like Leslie Feist, the late Connie Converse, Trish Keenan from the band Broadcast, Susan Tedeschi and Adrianne Lenker, pretty lyric-driven and intimate.
Luca: I’m kind of all over the place. As far as guitar goes, I learned to play by listening to a lot of old blues guys and British blues guys, from Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters to BB King and Buddy Guy and eventually I got super into Clapton, Hendrix and the original guitar player for Fleetwood Mac, Peter Green. Cam mentioned them too but the Tedeschi Trucks band is a big influence, Derek Trucks is one of my heroes. He can make his guitar sing. Cotten Rag is my little tribute to Elizabeth Cotten. I taught myself to play finger style guitar by listening to a lot of her music and trying to figure out what she was doing. She played left handed with a regular right handed guitar flipped upside-down, so she played it strung upside down. It’s kind of impossible to do some of the things she does because your fingers can’t land where hers do if you’re playing a regularly strung guitar but you can sort of get close. I know I’m rambling but a big influence on my guitar sounds on this album was this guy called Doyle Bramhall II, he’s this old school Texan psychedelic blues player who also plays left handed upside down. The solo on “If You Want Me,” was inspired by some of the tones on his album Rich Man.
Are you performing live right now?
Cam: Yes, we just released our debut EP With Pulp and have a release show on June 6th with Footlight Presents at The Windjammer. We have two indie rock openers, World Atlas and Nice Shirt. Check out the details here: https://bandnada.com/b/
How did this all start for you as a band?
Cam: I was in a different musical project at the time and had some lyrics and a potential melody for what became our song “November,” and I brought it to Luca just to see what he’d do with it. We ended up completely re-writing and finishing the whole song that day. It felt easy and honest in a way that made me want to keep going. After that we just started recording everything on our phones, full takes. I’m very inspired by the voice notes that songwriters make immediately after they’ve written something. For me, it’s almost always my best take of a song and I’m just trying to recreate that emotion moving forward. That turned into this idea of wanting to record our music live to tape, eventually into building out an analog studio we have now. With that inspiration in mind we decided to call the project Honey VHS.
Luca: Before I had even met Cam she sent me a voice note of her singing an early version of “If You Want Me,” and I knew right then I wanted to collaborate. We spend so much time together just hanging out with instruments in our laps, a lot of these songs and ideas just came from that. Cam is a lot more diligent, she’ll sit down with the intention of writing a song and come up with something. I’m a lot more just, well here I am just hanging out, playing, and I’ll be like, hmm here are these notes I landed on that sound good together, and I’ll find myself playing them over and over again until Cam comes in and goes, “Hey, what’s that?” We always end up together working something out around those ideas. And that sort of happened enough times that we were like, maybe we should try and make this a thing. The name came from Cam, I bought a VHS player that I use to bounce down my 8 track recordings to a stereo master. Some VHS tapes actually have really great audio fidelity! So yea she thought of Honey VHS from that. I like it, kind of sweet, kind of nostalgic… which fits well I think.
Did you work with a producer on this release, or was this all you?
Cam: We worked closely with Lucas Saur, producer and bassist in the band Melt. Lucas has an amazing recording space! They produced, engineered, and mixed most of the EP. For a couple songs, November and Cotten Rag, we recorded in Luca’s home studio and produced ourselves.
Luca: Yea, Lucas has a wonderful space and a great ear. They added a lot of cool elements to the EP, like all the cello you hear on the album was them. They also connected us with Pele Greenberg who played drums on the album and Alex Harwood who played added a bunch of guitar layers. Both of them brought a lot of fresh ideas to the songs. Alex brought in a fretless guitar and was playing it with an EBow over some parts which sounded wild! The initial demos for the album were pretty sparse, just acoustic guitar and vocals and we had limited time in the studio to build them into fuller arrangements. We had to make a lot of quick decisions about what direction we wanted to take things in and how we wanted those songs to sound with all the added layers. Lucas was a big part of that process and ended up shaping the sound of those songs quite a bit by guiding those decisions. It was challenging at times to let go and give him the space to push the songs in a direction they might not have gone without him but we ended up landing on something that we’re all proud of.
Did you record this at a bigger studio, or at a home set up?
Cam: We recorded at Lucas’s studio in Williamsburg. The core of each track is full take live performance. If needed we would layer things in with people playing together instead of separately piece by piece.
Luca: Basically everything except for Cotten Rag and November was tracked at Lucas’s studio. Lucas has a really nice sounding room and a bunch of cool equipment (lot’s of fancy mics!). Over the course of two days we put down a live take of each tune and used those recordings as the foundation for everything; all the drums, lead vocals and rhythm guitar on the album came from those sessions. Then we added some harmonies, guitar overdubs and some other instrumentation after the fact. Cotten Rag was an idea that came a little later, so I ended up recording that at home, and November was us trying to re-capture the feeling of us hanging out in my apt working on that song. We had tried to do a bigger version of it with more instrumentation in the studio but ended up wanting it to sound a little more stripped back.
What’s next for you? Working on more new releases?
Cam: Yes, we’re writing and developing a lot right now. We’re also trying to build this band out more, so if anyone connects with our music and approach, definitely reach out to us. We’ve got a bunch of new folk songs that we want to record live, to tape. One big dream is to have more of a collective of artists in Brooklyn come to the analog studio Luca has built and contribute their original work to tapes we would distribute locally.
Luca: I’ve got this recording studio I’m working on. I’ve got a little 8 track cassette tape recorder which sounds super lo-fi which I’ve been messing around with a lot. I think it would be cool to try and do a fully acoustic album with just that. We’ve got some more folk-inspired tunes that we’ve been working on together. I got super into Blaze Foley last year and wrote a few songs inspired by his approach to music; just really simple and heartfelt kind of acoustic guitar and vocals type thing. Cam did all the heavy lifting lyric wise for the EP, and I’m kind of shy with words especially when it comes to music but Cam’s been pushing me to write and sing more so this next project should have a little of my voice in it too. Just have to find the time to get everything down!
What kind of advice would you give to other up-and-coming bands or artists trying to get heard?
Cam: Having a strong community is super important for being heard. Your group of people who genuinely care about you and your music will show up, share without being asked, and stick around. Also collaborate with and support other musicians!
Luca: I’m not super sure to be honest, getting our stuff heard is still something we’re trying to figure out haha. But I’d say believe in yourself as much as you can. Spend more time trying to figure out what’s next rather than doubting yourself and letting those doubts hold you back. If you keep moving forward you can get pretty far with things.
What would you say people can expect to hear on this EP?
Cam: The EP lives somewhere between folk, blues, singer songwriter and classic rock. A couple songs are stripped back, just voice and guitar, and then there are songs that feel full, with lots of instrumentation (cello, keys, bongos etc). If you want to start with something upbeat listen to “Blue Eyes, Sunshine”! Another favorite of mine is “Never Left The Ground” if you’re in more of a brooding mood.
Luca: The whole album kind of plays like a love story to me, there are lots of tender moments in there. And of course you can expect to hear Cam’s lovely voice which I don’t think goes out of pitch a single time ever. Seriously, as someone who struggles to hit a note it’s like the seventh wonder of the world to me haha. Hopefully there are some cool guitar moments as well.
Before we go, what would you want to express to fans of the music?
Cam: We really appreciate anyone that listens, there will be more music soon and reach out to us! Come to our show on June 6th with Footlight Presents at the Windjammer :)
Luca : Just honored you took the time to listen to it! And if you connect with it, please reach out! Would love to hear what you think. Music is such a personal thing and everyone gets something a little different from it and it’s always really rewarding to hear about peoples experiences with it.
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