Alt-Pop duo HONNE and rising singer-songwriter Liang Lawrence both share a penchant for grafting the most heartfelt, and captivating songs. Although HONNE may be fast approaching their fifth studio album Ouch and Liang has recently dropped her stellar sophomore EP What’s Dead and Gone, the two acts may be musical kindred spirits. Yes, HONNE are known for their unique blend of electronica, pop hooks and R&B vocals, and Liang for her more soft-rock and alt-pop leanings, yet both acts place such care in their work. From the production to the vocals and every other minute area, the level of detail is extraordinary. Now, HONNE and Liang have teamed up for the new single “Say That You Will Wait For Me” which is lifted from Ouch.
To better understand their artistry, HONNE’s James Hatcher and Andy Clutterbuck, and artist Liang Lawrence sit down for a conversation with one another for 1883. They discuss the new track “Say That You Will Wait For Me”, how they met, first gigs, upcoming tours, and more.
James: Hi, Liang, where are you?
Liang: Hi guys. I’m actually in Mile End in London, in a gross, little flat that looks like it’s been half renovated.
James: It looks nice. Is it a loft?
Liang: No, it’s the top floor. The bedroom looks like it’s been half-painted.
James: That is London. Yes, that’s hip.
Liang: Yeah, I’m an East London gal now, half-painted house.
Andy: Have you been to the Palm Tree yet? That pub is also really cool.
Liang: Yeah, it’s kind of dodgy but also fun.
Andy: It’s awesome. When we used to live in East London they had an older band, a jazz band, that was playing. But I think that was six or more years ago, and I don’t know if they still do it.
James: I think they’ll still do it, you know.
Liang: Yeah, I think they’re playing on the 18th, James and I are going to try and go.
Andy: Nice.
Liang: Yeah. What about you guys – Where are you?
James: So I’m upstairs at my home, and Andy is in his garden.
Andy: I’m in the garden, not iterally, for anyone who’s reading this, I’m not gardening. I am in a garden room at the end of my garden because I’ve been kicked out of my house, not by my wife but by my kids. So there we go.
Liang: What did you do?
Andy: I had kids, that’s what I did.
James: Now get out!
Should we talk about our week? This week, I feel, has been very exciting for us. We’ve got some tours coming up, so we’re planning our new live show, which is terrifying. It’s one of the first times that we’ve invested quite heavily financially and in time to try and make it as exciting as possible. So that’s all coming together and we’ve been getting ready for this single to come out.
Andy: If you’re reading this, it might already be out right now, so you can have a listen to it, but it features the wonderful Liang Lawrence, woo! How did we meet you? You tell us the story from your side.
Liang: So we actually met over the internet, a classic modern love story. I was in the studio on a random Tuesday, and I just got one message from HONNE on Instagram, and it just said “hey Liang” and that was it! That’s all it said. I responded saying: “Hey guys, how’s it going?”
Knowing your music and everything, I thought “What do you say?
And then I found out later that it was James and that you didn’t realise that you can’t double message when someone’s not following you back. So it was just “hi Liang”.
James: Yeah, that’s all I could write. I pressed send, and then was like “No! she’s going to think we’re creepy”.
Liang: Haha yes. After saying “hey guys”, you then said, “do you want to come on tour?” It was crazy.
James: We basically discovered Liang when we had a day going through Spotify, we were looking at related artists to artists we like. We found Liang and thought her voice is amazing. It was exactly the kind of thing that we were looking for touring with us and to sing the female parts of our songs, because we’ve got a lot of features.
But we realised in the early stages of our music careers we know how expensive it is to tour. So where we can, we always think it’s a good way to get someone to come on tour with us and play everywhere without hopefully having to spend anything, because we pay them to come with us.
We thought: “well, this isn’t going to work because I think Liang’s already too famous”, but we’ll message her anyway. “She’s going to say no”, this is one of those situations where it’s not early enough, but we’ll give it a go anyway. And then, very luckily, you seemed interested.
Liang: I am honoured.
James: We roped you in with our first China tour, which meant that you could go back to China, which you’d wanted to do for ages, right?
Liang: Yeah, that was nice. It was a good mix of new, very challenging things, and then also the familiarity of being home. So it worked out very well and that was a fun tour.
Andy: And it also helped us, because Liang could help us order in restaurants and translate sometimes.
I’m just trying to reflect on how it happened for “Say That You’ll Wait For Me”. Did you come over to rehearse some of our older songs? How did this song happen?
James: So there was that first meeting where we invited Liang to the studio for coffee. You came with your manager Jack and we said: “we love you, come on tour with us.”
It was that funny thing where we were kind of sussing each other out, weren’t we? And then at the end, we said we really like you.
Liang: It was like a date.
James: Yeah, I think we were chatting and we were like, ‘you know what? I think Liang’s voice would be perfect on “Say That You Will Wait For Me”
James: Okay. How did you find working together on the track, Liang?
Liang: From my perspective, it was immediately lovely. I was nervous because I practised the verse quite a few times. But then when you go into a space and you’re suddenly recording, you forget everything you know because there’s a microphone in front of you and for a brief moment you’re like “noooo”…
But it was really nice I think we all kind of felt once I sang it in, it felt right, our voices really suited each other, it suited the verse, and it suited the vibe of the song. We had a good day recording it, it was really sweet.
Andy: I like it when there’s not too much pressure and very chilled. Those always make for the best performances. It’s also the environment; you come out feeling happy at the end of the day.
Liang: What was it? a word that James said every time I finished a recording?
All: Stunning!
James: Stunning performance!
Liang: I felt very loved. I’m very honoured to be on the track, I’m very thankful.
James: The thing is every take you did was perfect. It was the situation where normally you’re like “Okay, can you do it again?” and then you’ll comp it all together. But with you, we thought when do we stop, after the first take or the second?
Liang: You guys are so nice.
James: It was good. And then the ad-libs at the end were just the chef’s kiss.
Liang: That was very fun. It all really came together in the end.
Andy: I think we’re quite similar… not vocally, you’re a fantastic singer, and I’m very mediocre, but vocally, we’re not like Beyonce, we’re not going up and down.
So I remember saying “yeah, ad-libs, I don’t do a lot of those” and you we don’t either, Let’s make up a few and see what happens.
Liang: I know what you mean. I don’t have the runs in me.
Andy: Me neither, and I never will no matter how much I practice.
James: I do, but I never get the chance to show them off.
Liang: James is just waiting.
James: When Andy pops his clogs I’m going to become the singer of HONNE, and it will be fully Beyonce.
So the forthcoming new HONNE record is called Ouch, and it’s kind of a sweet or cheeky way of saying that becoming an adult and growing up can hurt a little bit.
So Andy, do you want to talk about how your life has altered over the last few years?
Andy: We wrote this album over the last couple of years when we had some big life changes. There have been some fantastic changes, as we mentioned at the start of the call, I’ve had two babies, which has been great. But along with that it changes your life, and we’ve had some scary moments in the process, such as a couple of hospital trips, which is not nice for anyone.
It’s all covered in the album and it sounds like the album is really sad but it’s not, I promise. It is quite an uplifting album and there are lot of positive moments in there.
James: I remember you saying actually when one of the more difficult times that you were going through, I asked how you were feeling. You replied “very grown up, very adult, and very serious”.
I think pre-having such a big responsibility as kids, we don’t even realise how few responsibilities we have, because the responsibility of life is infinitely more than any other responsibility, isn’t it?
Andy: Everybody is getting older, and suddenly you’re ten years older than what you were. Before you have kids, it feels like nothing has changed. I always felt 18 or whatever. My mindset and my life hadn’t changed. But when I had kids, you have these little switches and more responsibilities now.
I think that’s when I felt grown up even though I was an adult, technically, when I was 18, I didn’t feel like I was properly an adult until I had kids, especially with the job that we have, playing music, touring and doing that kind of thing.
James: Yeah, you basically stay a teenager for additional years, with a tour mum or dad taking you around the world, telling you what to do, where to go and what to eat, bringing food to the dressing room.
James: Liang, enough about us. I’ve had enough of our shit, tell us about your projects and exciting news.
Liang: My project and exciting news? I have most recently released my second EP, which is exciting.
James: Nice. Sounds beautiful.
Liang: Thank you. It’s called What’s Dead and Gone. It’s a bit of a reflection of my last year of life where I came out of a relationship and realised that I had no idea who I was without being with someone, and this person wasn’t the best. It was a lot of relearning who I was and what I wanted. So that’s kind of what it goes through.
It’s the first project that I’ve really written with a bit more sonic control, just because I’ve gone through my first project and learned what I didn’t like and what I did. Going into this one, I had a bit more of an idea of what I wanted it to sound like. So when I listen to them, it is very personal when I hear them, it reminds me of a very certain period of time when I was learning this and that, which is exciting.
That’s the biggest thing with me.
Andy: What’s your favourite song from the new EP?
Liang: That’s hard. It keeps changing to be honest which I suppose is a good thing, because it means that I like them all. I really like one of the songs called “Backseat”, which is the lead track of the EP. It talks about how it does hurt to grow up sometimes and to suddenly be confronted with all these new responsibilities, all these new feelings and things that you have to deal with.
It mourns the loss of this childhood that you didn’t even get to say goodbye to because it kind of goes by without you even realising. It’s the first time I’ve been able to write about that. So that song is quite special to me, and I liked the sound of it. It’s in that kind of soft-rock world that I like.
James: Yeah it’s really nice, I love the production.
Okay, Liang, can you recall your first ever live performance?
Liang: Like ever, ever in my life? Well, it was at my fourth birthday party. I remember this because it was the end of the party, and my parents were like, “people need to leave, Liang”. And I said: no, they don’t. The party is not over. I had this red and black salsa dress.
James: That’s incredible.
Liang: I put it on, and I stood in front of the TV, and I it must have been incredibly insane dancing.
James: But probably so cute.
Liang: I remember saying, “guys, I’m not done, wait”, and just fully danced for everyone. Everyone then left the party but I think they enjoyed it.
James: What about your first live performance as Liang Lawrence?
Liang: It was back in March 2022.
James: Oh, long ago.
Liang: Yeah, it was. An artist called James Gillespie reached out to me online, and I think he had just seen an Instagram video of mine. and he was like, “I’m playing some shows across the UK, would love you to come along and open”. At the time I was in the middle of my uni exams, so I could only make one date.
It was the day after my birthday, and me, my friends, my best mate’s mum, drove us up to Bristol. It was just me and two friends, and then I played the gig with my acoustic guitar. I had no idea what I was doing.
I literally showed up and they were like, “Have you got a lead?” I was like, no. “Have you got a tuner?” Er no, it was awful. But they were really sweet and the venue was sweet and I think they could tell I just had no idea what I was doing. The crowd were nice and I was well received I think, considering James has a bigger sound, I was taken aback by how sincere the audience was and then that was it from there.
James: Did it give you a taste?
Liang: Yeah it gave me a taste and I think I was lucky, I could have really gotten one which was really bad.
James: Our first show as HONNE was at the Sebright Arms. It’s just behind Hackney Road. The backstage area was the stairs that led back up to the pub. I remember just sitting on those stairs and thinking: “oh god”.
Andy and I had both been in projects before but we’d never sold a ticket to anything before and then this one sold out. There was music industry people queuing down the stairs to get in and we were like “oh, this is a nightmare, this is going to be awful”
Liang: How old were you then?
James: Maybe 24? Round about that. I think we stayed 24/25 in our press release for about six years I think.
[all laugh]
So that was the first taste of a proper show of our own.
Andy: We have six minutes left, anything else we want to chat about? Oh yes, live performances and how you felt.
James: I used to feel very nervous before going on stage and now I still feel very nervous before going on stage, so nothing has changed. When we first started in HONNE and I hadn’t been playing keys for very long, I had had some lessons as a kid and had played on and off, so I was very nervous because I don’t trust my own mind.
Sometimes I look at the notes on the keyboard and think I don’t know what they are or where I’m meant to put my hands and that still occasionally happens and I have to just think “don’t think about it you know where to put your hands, stop thinking about it!”
Andy: I have that too with lyrics, there are some shows where it’s fine and I’m not thinking about anything other than having a good shows.
But there are some shows where I’m constantly just thinking “what’s the next line, what’s the next line” in my mind.
James: It’s the worst thing in the world!
Andy: And I don’t know what the words are until I get there and it just comes out of my mouth and I think oh god muscle memory, thank god!
James: Even with guitar I get it a bit and it’s my first instrument I have a degree in it, it’s ridiculous. But I think what if I forget this now that’s going to be really embarrassing. I don’t want to mess this up.
And then I don’t know. But the bits where I just have to shred or there’s a big guitar solo I’m like “oh yeah, I know this bit” The more difficult it is, the more I remember it.
Do you have anything like that Liang?
Liang: Yeah I’m so nervous all the time. I get butterflies from the beginning of the day and I’ll feel so sick. It’s true, you convince yourself you’re going to forget everything you’ve ever learnt in your entire life on stage. Which is insane, the brain is so mean, why does it do that?
James: The day of a London headline show, urghhhhh, when you wake up in the morning and if I think “we’re going to be playing in London tonight, this is really important” my guts are like “you don’t want to think about this”
Andy: Mine are already doing that just thinking about thinking about it
Liang: Guys don’t, I’ve got a month and four days until my headline show and I’m going to throw up!
James: Oh my god that feeling. You’ll be great, you’re going to smash it.
Liang: Oh and that’s another update. September 12th my first-ever headline show! It’s at Omeara, in London Bridge, I’m very excited.
Andy & James: We’ll be there!
Andy: Anything else to mention?
James: Our touring: We’ve got a North American and Mexico coming up in November with Liang supporting – can we announce that yet?
Liang: Maybe this is the exclusive!
James: Let’s give them the juicy exclusive. We’re planning UK, Europe for early next year with plans coming soon, and the rest of the world.
And Ouch is out September 6th!
HONNE’s new single “Say That You Will Wait For Me” featuring. Liang Lawrence is out now.
Keep up to date with @hellohonne & @lianglarencemusic.
