Montreal indie electro-pop five-piece, Honheehonhee Prepare to Release their debut album “Shouts” November 22.
If there’s one band you should be listening to it should be the most talked about Montreal band of 2011 right? Right! And this ain’t an overstatement people. Throw in some energized indie-pop, a splash of playful synths, mix in some damn-catchy melodies and coat with electrifying live performances and you got yourself, Honheehonhee.
A complete hell of a good time.
From this hot Montral indie,electro-pop five-piece, come “A. Is For Animal” the anticipated first single from their forthcoming debut album, entitled Shouts (which will be released on-line, November 22nd). An absolute favorite of mine, “A. Is For Animal” comes with its very own killer video. Fresh off their performance at Halifax Pop Explosion, be sure not to miss Honheehonhee live on their Fall “Shouts” Tour.
So, give the readers a little background on yourselves, and we’ll go from there.
Honheehonhee, and our debut album “Shouts” (out November 22nd online), is Greg Halpin, Stefan F.-Gow, Matt Raudsepp, Erin Halpin, and Marc Danson. We are a five member rock band from Montreal, QC, Canada.
Tell us a little about the history behind the band.
We’re all little boy best friends plus a sister. The only thing preventing us from being any closer is our inability to communicate via telepathy. We’ve been playing music together forever, as far back as elementary school. Greg used to play drums, we all used to play acoustics at one point, Erin played bassoon once upon a time, I’m still trying to push for everyone wearing tap shoes on
stage. All these various iterations of bands came and went, but it was always the same people. Last year we realized we had never recorded an album, so we changed our name, wrote totally new and different songs, and made it happen. Honheehonhee was born.
For those who have not heard of Honheehonhee, what would you tell them? What are your inspirations?
Honheehonhee is a nearly-nude frisbee game in the snow. The only reason we are in a band is because it’s fun for us. We are inspired by people and things that are exciting and honest. If an audience member ever stripped down and threw around a frisbee during our show, we’d love them for life.
What is one thing die-hard Honheehonhee fans do not know about you?
We email Yao Ming every day with requests for him to drop everything and become our manager. Similarly, Muggsy Bogues only gets a single text message from us per year.
Your debut record, “Shouts” is set to be released on November 22nd,What can people expect?
People can expect the record to sound much like our live show: jangly, jumpy, jaguar-like, jittery, jammy, jesty…etc (pretty much any “j” adjective you can think of. Weird huh?)
Is there a story behind the title?
There isn’t any actual story behind the title. It was a word that we actually kind of stumbled upon during numerous, late-hour, round-table discussions of the album. The album has a lot of these kind of animalistic, kind of beligerent sounding background vocals parts that can be characterized simply as cries or shouts. We didn’t like the word “Cries” because we didn’t want ourselves to come across like a bunch of whiny babies so we settled on “Shouts”.
If you had to sell the album on one track which one would it be, and could you tell us a little about that track?
Probably “A. Is For Animal”, not just because our parents like it but because it seems to be the track that resonates best with a room (parentless) full of people. There are a bunch of hooky musical parts that can get stuck in your head as well as a few falsetto bits dispersed throughout the song that make it a little different sounding than other tracks on the album. Even though it feels like we’re describing a Bee Gees record, we’d like to assure everyone that IT DOESN’T SOUND ANYTHING LIKE THE BEE GEES.
What has the release meant to you on a personal level?
The release truly means everything to us. We’ve been carrying this record in our bloated uterus for about a year now and, having nurtured it for all this time, we’re finally ready to deliver this sucker! We couldn’t be more proud with the way it turned out and would especially like to thank our engineer/co-producer Greg Smith for his invaluable contribution to the record.
What has been the highlight of your career so far?
Probably this question since you referred to it as a career.
What can fans expect in the near future? (What is your tour looking like?)
A sweaty mess. We’re playing 10 more dates across Canada over the next few weeks. At each one of these shows people can expect to see us sweat more than we ever have. Incidentally the volume of sweat that comes out of us tends to be directly related to the amount of fun we’re having.
Where do you see yourself and the band in ten years from now?
President of the universe. Or maybe driving a fleet of solar powered city buses called Sunheesunhee (if they exist).
You can give them a shout at: honheehonhee@gmail.com Or follow them on Twitter: @honheehonhee
Tour Dates:
Oct. 21, 2011: Halifax Pop Explosion/Osheaga Presents @ The Seahorse (Halifax)
Oct. 24, 2011: Baba’s Lounge, w/ Mindwaves + Colour Code (Charlottetown)
Oct. 25, 2011: CEGEP Champlain St. Lawrence (Quebec City)
Oct. 27, 2011: Casa del Popolo, w/ Reversing Falls + Topanga (Montreal)
Oct. 29, 2011: Rancho Relaxo, w/ Papermaps + The Love Machine (Toronto)
Oct. 31, 2011: Mansion House, Indoorshoes.ca Halloween party (St. Catharines)
Nov. 5, 2011: The Apollo, w/ Jean-Paul De Roover (Thunder Bay)
Nov. 8, 2011: Lo Pub, w/ Haunter + Enjoy Your Pumas (Winnipeg)
Nov. 10, 2011: Wayne-Stock (Calgary)
Nov. 14, 2011: Wunderbar, w/ Service Fair (Edmonton)
Nov. 15, 2011: O’Hanlons (Regina)
Nov. 18, 2011: Club Lambi ALBUM LAUNCH, w/ Sunfields (Montreal)
Nov. 22, 2011: Rivoli, w/ Modernboys Moderngirls + The Elwins (Toronto)
