We have a secret weapon at The Standard in the form of a French-Moroccan music maven named Annie O. After years in the music industry representing such greats as Lou Reed, Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Pearl Jam, and Peter Gabriel, we nabbed her to curate The Annie O Music Series, a regular concert series in the airy Penthouse of The Standard, East Village.
On Thursday, May 12, Annie brings British electric soul duo HONNE to the Penthouse. Comprised of friends James Hatcher and Andy Clutterbuck, they're on a mission to capture the sound of your 2016 relationship—the highs, lows, miscommunications, and all. Annie sat down with them before the big night. Get ready to fall in love with these two sensual blue-eyed crooners.
On Thursday, May 12, Annie brings British electric soul duo HONNE to the Penthouse. Comprised of friends James Hatcher and Andy Clutterbuck, they're on a mission to capture the sound of your 2016 relationship—the highs, lows, miscommunications, and all. Annie sat down with them before the big night. Get ready to fall in love with these two sensual blue-eyed crooners.
Annie O Presents HONNE
Thurs., May 12, 7-9pm
The Standard, East Village Penthouse
Free with an RSVP to aohayon@standardhotels.com
ANNIE O: How did you come up with the name "HONNE?" Does it mean anything you can share with us?
HONNE: "Honne" is a Japanese word meaning "true feelings," the kind you keep to yourself or share with only your closest companions. We discovered the word and completely fell in love with it, and thought it was a perfect fit for the music we were writing.
Can you tell us a little bit about what inspired your current project?
HONNE started about 2 years ago now. At the time, we were writing mainly at nighttime, so I'd say that inspired us a lot. We also take a lot of inspiration from our own personal experiences and from our friends around us. We find it way more interesting when what we write about comes from a real life scenario.
How did you meet up and start collaborating? There seems to be some mystery about that...
Andy and I met at university. Andy was the first person I met actually. We clicked straight away and within a couple of days we started writing music together. It wasn't HONNE at that point, but we were writing electronic music and just finding our feet I guess.
What's your writing process like? How do you lend your specific talents to each other?
It's slightly odd in that we tend to write separately a lot of the time. We do like each other I promise. [Laughs.] But more often than not James will write an instrumental and then I will write the lyrics and melody over the top. We'll then come together at the end of the process and work on production and general tweaking.
Are there any specific tracks or artists that you're currently listening to? If you could collaborate with any artist right now who would it be?
My favorite track right now is "Angels" by Chance The Rapper. I can't stop listening to it! The production is incredible and I kind of feel like everyone was smiling whilst recording it. Chance The Rapper would be a fun collaboration. But I think if we could pick anyone, we'd go with Kendrick Lamar. We love how he seamlessly combines so many different genres to make something so unique. His track "Money Trees" is a highlight for us.
What's the secret to a productive musical partnership?
A musical partnership is, in many ways, like a relationship, only we can't tell if we act more like brothers or a married couple! I think the real secret though is the fact we go back such a long way and it's that time that has allowed us to develop together and understand each other. We're basically now the same person and that makes things a lot easier when it comes to making decisions.
I hear you were both part-time music teachers. What was your specialty?
We were indeed. I (James) was a guitar teacher and taught kids to play in bands. Andy was more of a music technician but also helped kids learn how to write and record music on computers. It was good to be doing a job that involves music, and school hours were pretty short so it gave us plenty of time to get back and write music in the evenings and into the night.
Your music has been called electric soul, funk, cool, laid back, effortless—do you have a separate view on what it should be called, if any?
We couldn't have put it better ourselves, although whilst you've got us, we may as well add to it. We consider it to be quite romantic in places and we've certainly heard quite a few stories from different people about their romantic endeavors whilst listening to HONNE.
If HONNE had a super power, what would it be?
The power of seduction...oh wait, apparently we've already got that.
What can we expect from your upcoming show at The Standard, East Village?
We'll be playing a selection of tracks that we've released up until now and a couple of new tracks from our upcoming album. So head down, hang out, and catch some exclusives.
We were indeed. I (James) was a guitar teacher and taught kids to play in bands. Andy was more of a music technician but also helped kids learn how to write and record music on computers. It was good to be doing a job that involves music, and school hours were pretty short so it gave us plenty of time to get back and write music in the evenings and into the night.
Your music has been called electric soul, funk, cool, laid back, effortless—do you have a separate view on what it should be called, if any?
We couldn't have put it better ourselves, although whilst you've got us, we may as well add to it. We consider it to be quite romantic in places and we've certainly heard quite a few stories from different people about their romantic endeavors whilst listening to HONNE.
If HONNE had a super power, what would it be?
The power of seduction...oh wait, apparently we've already got that.
What can we expect from your upcoming show at The Standard, East Village?
We'll be playing a selection of tracks that we've released up until now and a couple of new tracks from our upcoming album. So head down, hang out, and catch some exclusives.
