There are few bands as exciting, stylistically distinctive, and hard-working as the UK indie-rock group, Black Honey.
Over the last several years, Black Honey who are comprised of frontperson Izzy Bee Phillips, guitarist Chris Ostler, bassist Tommy Taylor and drummer Alex Woodward, have cemented themselves as a truly scintillating act. From the get-go when the group officially formed in 2014 and dropped their mysterious but attention-grabbing EP, Phillips & co have been steadily creating their own unique universe. One that is sonically diverse, emotive, and cinematic in scope whilst aesthetically being Tarantino-esque. The band’s self-titled 2018 debut record was a fantastic full introduction to the four-piece’s world. Yet their 2021 sophomore follow-up Written & Directed was arguably a far grander, ambitious and refined body of work, it was a triumph which led to a genuine breakthrough success story. Black Honey’s first top ten-charting LP in the UK charts was something that most independent bands could only dream of. Yes, that’s right, Black Honey are independent. They are the masters of their artistic universe, they create the visuals and do anything else you can possibly think of when it comes to running a band. When it comes to touring, they also put in the work. Black Honey’s live show makes for a thrilling experience and the group have sold out numerous headline shows in the UK and across different locations in Europe and beyond.
After the recent release of the previous single Charlie Bronson, the Brighton-based band are back with the mesmerising and anthemic new track, Out Of My Mind. To celebrate the release, 1883 Magazine’s Cameron Poole sat down with Izzy & Tommy to discuss the new single, the Black Honey YouTube documentary series entitled Black Honey: Behind The Curtain, Halloween costume ideas, and their thoughts on ‘breaking’ America.
Hi Izzy & Tommy, Black Honey’s latest single Out Of My Mind is out now. It follows on from the previous release, Charlie Bronson, and these are the first two pieces of new music since 2021’s Written & Directed LP. Could you tell us about how Out Of My Mind came to be?
Izzy: Out Of My Mind was the one we felt was the flag in the sand. We wanted to make something that felt nostalgic for 2007 indie music, we grew up loving that sort of anthemic sound which could also floor you at the same time. As soon as we wrote this song we were like ‘oh my god, this is what we think we want to do now’. Without revealing too much, it kind of changed our whole perspective on what we made. It was very important to everything.
Tommy: There were a few demos flying about after album two, I remember getting a really rough demo from Izzy and we were all like ‘That’s the one. That feels different, it feels like a step somewhere new’. A flag in the sand as Izzy said.
Alongside the release of new music, I love that the band has put out a docu-series on YouTube entitled Black Honey: Behind The Curtain. I think it’s great for two reasons: it’s interesting content for the fans to enjoy and it also shows people how much work goes on behind the scenes/how tough it actually is to be in a band and what happens in day-to-day life when making art. As it’s been documenting behind the scene footage since album two, was it always the plan to do something like this?
Izzy: I think it would be cool to do a bigger one when we’re big enough but you can’t just sit around and wait to make that. It’s important in this universe now for us to show everyone what we’re having for breakfast and we have to make stupid TikTok videos all the time and present ourselves in 15 seconds. I feel a certain sense of duty to show more of what goes on because it feels like that in its own right, is an edited truth. It feels hard to show people because a lot of it isn’t glamorous and I think once you lose the mystery with something, sometimes it can be scary that somebody won’t love you as much. I would be really sad watching some of my heroes like David Bowie go on social media but on the other hand, I would watch it because I’d be really interested in seeing how it was done and what I could learn from it.
Izzy: Transparency is definitely the future. It feels like it’s taking the pressure off in terms of not having to present something perfectly formed all the time. I love showing myself without makeup being gross and exhausted because it takes off the expectation of always having to look like the designed caricature we present on Instagram.
Transparency is incredibly important. Out of curiosity, how much footage is there? How many episodes are there going to be? Because at the time of this interview there are currently two videos out.
Izzy: Of what we’ve taken footage-wise, Charlie has only used a really small percentage of it. That’s the only other worry for me, it’s still very minimised, a bullet-pointed version of what actually happens. We’re doing six episodes in total, the third video will release before Christmas and then three episodes will drop in the future. We’ve been filming everything, so it depends if we want to carry on or not because it is a lot of work to put together which is why this week has been delayed, it’s such a huge job to rifle through hundreds of hours of footage. We’ve been filming everything in the studio and filming day-to-day life for three whole years, so trying to condense that all into six episodes is a big job.
On Episode one which focused on the recording process of Written & Directed, It was really lovely how you spoke about each member of the band and how they fit into the band’s DNA, as well as all the other important people who helped make the record such as former BH drummer Tom Dewhurst, Producer Dimitri Tikovï, and many others. You mentioned there were a few songs which didn’t make the record, could we expect them on future releases?
Izzy: Never say never but I think, probably not. Usually, we would make a few more songs then we will finish cutting just so we have something to choose from. We really like refining our work down to the absolute core of what we think is good but you never know.
Tommy: It’s so funny because the one that is probably most in the episode is the one we didn’t end up releasing, I had completely forgotten about it. To be honest until I was watching back what Izzy had made. I feel like if you feel it’s not right at that moment in time then it’s probably unlikely you will feel it’s right for something further down the line. Unless it was a list of B-sides or rare stuff but I think we would have to be six albums deeps to be grand enough to do that.
Episode two focused on the making of some of the visuals for Written & Directed, the pandemic, connecting with fans via The Bad Black Honey Club, social media, and introduced us to more important people in the Black Honey sphere. Now that we’re on the other side of the global pandemic, what do you all have a newfound appreciation for? I suppose two obvious choices would be performing live and connecting with the fans?
Tommy: Definitely the gigs because I remember we did Latitude last year and I think we had done a few semi-seated, semi-back-to-reality things but Latitude was the first festival we had done in two or three years and it was the first time a crowd was a crowd again. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that feeling of being grateful to be back doing that kind of thing. Also being grateful for doing less stuff over Zoom–although I say that to you on Zoom now [laughs]. It was just a weird thing, wasn’t it? It feels like a bit of a weird dream, the lockdown period, doing the Beaches video filming ourselves in our own houses, what the fuck were we doing, you know what I mean?
The Beaches music videos were great though. Not many artists would put out a fan version of the music video and ask their fans to get involved. It’s lovely. Black Honey have always treated their fans well. The bigger the artist the gets, the less interaction there is potentially.
Tommy: We’re super lucky with the people who have been with us all the way and who particularly stepped up in the lockdown when they could see that everyone was struggling, all bands were struggling to release music or do anything so people really stepped up in a different way and got involved with the club, coming on the Zooms, and making them so fun for us. Doing those things was as close to performing as we could get to at the time, so we’re really lucky to have them. It’s nice to see them again in person. We’re very lucky with those guys.
Izzy: A lot of the fan club are friends more in real life now this side of lockdown because they spent so much time connecting online. They all meet up more now which I think is pretty cool.
Funnily enough, the last time 1883 caught up with Izzy was during the pandemic on Instagram live for the Iraina Mancini series. In the interview, you were asked to pick a record that reminds you of your youth and you picked Nirvana’s Nevermind. So in the spirit of that, what is one contemporary record that has really impacted you both over the last couple of years? And who are you listening to at the moment?
Tommy: We did a few shows with a girl called AZIYA earlier this year and she’s wicked. I also really like a band called Bad Nerves, they put out a really good album, it’s quite punk but also just really good pop songs. Arxx from our area down in Brighton are wicked. There’s a band called The Howlers that Chris and I have been doing a bit of work with who are great.
Izzy: The Wet Leg record was sick!
Tommy: Yeah it was amazing.
Izzy: I’m still listening to a lot of the same stuff I was listening to in lockdown as well, a lot of Arlo Parks. My playlist at the moment is very indie femme, Phoebe Bridgers-related universe which is weird because I don’t really consider myself to be a Phoebe Bridgers fan but I’ve just realised that all the music I like listening to is connected to her music somehow.
Izzy: I really like Angel Olsen as well and I’m quite excited about the new Arctic Monkeys record. The Wolf Alice one was really good, we worked on it so in my head every time Smile comes on I’m just thinking about the harmonies and stuff.
We need to talk about the UK Halloween show on October 28th! Any hints on what you’ll all be dressing up as for it? Someone has to dress up as one of the vampires from the I Like The Way You Die Boy video.
Tommy: I was actually thinking about going as a vampire just because it’s a good excuse to dye my hair. Usually, with these things, I wait with bated breath to see what Izzy has in store for us because we’ve had some pretty cute outfits.
[At this point in the interview Izzy walks to the other side of her room and returns with the mould of her head named “Baldermort” which appears in the Out Of My Mind music video.]
Izzy: I’m thinking of dressing up as Ann Boleyn and doing an Ann Boleyn beheading concept.
Tommy: Shall I be Henry VIII then?
Izzy: We can make Chris the guy who chops the head off [laughs].
Tommy: Yeah although I think he’d also be a good Henry VIII. It would be an interesting one. I’m thinking that one or we all just do Lord Of The Rings or The Teletubbies.
Izzy: I can do Gollum really easily.
Where do you keep that mould? Is it just on the top of your wardrobe?
Izzy: Yeah, how did you know?
Well, where else would you keep a mould of your head, It’s the perfect place [laughs].
Tommy: If it was me, it would be well hidden because if I woke up in the middle of the night and saw that staring at me I wouldn’t sleep for the next month.
So how did they make the mould?
Izzy: The first layer is latex and it’s like a red jelly–I’m going to be revealing it all in a video this week–then basically you have one nostril hole to breathe from and then you’re not allowed to make any sort of expression because it dries like that so you have to be dead still. After that, they put a plaster cast over the top, front and back. It dries and you have to be cut out of it and again, with the plaster cast, they just leave a tiny nostril hole. When they cut me out of it, it got stuck around my ears and my jaw but they end up with this empty shell that they then fill with a whole other thing and then cast it again. At the very end, they cast a synthetic mould into it so it’s five steps to get to that stage and then they airbrush the skin texture to give her my skin.
A lengthy process but worth it!
Izzy: It was really expensive, the whole video budget was basically just to make the head.
Moving on, when are we going to get an all-day festival which is dedicated to you guys and your friends/peers – so I’m thinking: Black Honey, Wolf Alice, Nova Twins, Royal Blood etc. Who else would be on this hypothetical crazy festival date?
Izzy: Yeah it would be cool to have Wolf Alice, Royal Blood, Nothing But Thieves, AZIYA, Nova Twins, and we would also add Kid Kapichi because they’re our friends. We would probably just go to Brighton and get all of the cool, up-and-coming queer, feminist, punk bands and make a huge day of those guys.
Tommy: Yeah Arxx, Lime Garden (who are from Brighton as well I think), Easy Life. This is going to get expensive though, I think we will have blown most of our budget on Royal Blood.
It feels like Black Honey has really made its mark on the UK, what do you both think of trying to ‘break’ America?
Izzy: It’s our dream to tour in America but I think the idea of trying to ‘break it’ is just so far away. It would be crippling to try at this stage. We definitely have it in our mind’s eye but being an independent band we have to be realistic about whether we can afford it or not. We just want to go to the US so we can have American breakfasts and stay in old, crusty motels and route 66 is like or whatever.
Tommy: Yeah, it is a bit of a dream for us but I saw something, I can’t remember who it was about, but it was a band talking about how they did two weeks in America recently and the bus was going to cost them £45,000 for two weeks. There was another band who had to cancel a tour I think because their bus wasn’t safe and stuff. So it’s hard to make it work but if we can then it would probably be the first place on our bucket list. We’ve never played over there, so fingers crossed for one day.
There have been so many highs for the band so far. For example, there are the two well-received records, the band have played arena shows, toured different locations in the world, you’ve created this unique world with a dedicated fanbase, Iggy Pop shared your music, there are so many highlights. But what is one thing you would both really like to achieve next? Is there anything else either of you haven’t ticked off your bucket list yet besides America?
Izzy: Mexico, South America, we’ve always talked about wanting to do those beautiful, hot countries where there would be nice food. Also playing the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury. It feels rude asking for it out loud, and it feels greedy to say it but The Pyramid stage would be the dream. We’d love to go back to Asia as well, we’ve done Tokyo and Korea but never done China and I think that’s something we have always wanted to do, a hard Asian tour.
Tommy: Yeah, going to Japan and Korea was definitely one of the coolest things we have ever done. It was just enough to tease you into wanting to do it properly because we were only there for about a week I think but we definitely want to go back and see more of it. We haven’t been to Australia as well, there’s still a lot for us to cover. I also want to meet Iggy Pop one day and say thanks for the spin!
Is there anything sonically that you would like to try out in the future?
Izzy: I can imagine doing a session at Maida Vale or Abbey Road with a symphony orchestra, that would be amazing. Also, I think it would be cool to go and watch a film at Cannes Film Festival and know that we have made the music for it.
Tommy: Yeah, soundtracking a film would be cool. Maybe getting a Soulwax remix or something like that would be another one.
Finally, what can fans look forward to in terms of the next chapter of Black Honey?
Izzy: We are really excited for November 8th because we have some very big news coming on that date. This has been such a long build and it’s the most sentimental and unveiling thing that Black Honey have ever done.
Out Of My Mind is out now. Follow Black Honey @blackhoneyuk
Interview by Cameron Poole
Main featured image by Laura Allard-Fleischl
BTS styled photography by Harriet Brown
