honne

Honne Makes Inaugural Appearance at Coachella

James Hatcher and Andy Clutterbuck say artists like Kendrick Lamar have influenced their music, which is making its debut at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

Erin Peters Arts & Entertainment

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Honne made its debut at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival April 16 after flying in from the United Kingdom.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF COACHELLA VALLEY MUSIC AND ARTS FESTIVAL

Imagine attending one of the biggest music festivals in the world for the first time — the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival — traveling halfway around the world to do so, and it’s the same year you’re taking the stage.

With soulful, languid vocals, seductive lyrics and funky, silky synths, Andy Clutterbuck and James Hatcher as Honne bring old school, romantic vibes to a digital world.

Palm Springs Life caught the Honne duo at Coachella to talk about their first experience.

PSL: HONNE is three years old, correct? How did you guys form the band? How did you get together?

Andy Clutterbuck: Well, we’ve known each other for like 10 years, maybe, so quite a while, friends from the university. And we’ve done music over that time. So, three years ago is when we said, ‘right, let’s try something and Honne was formed, and here we are!”

PSL: What is the story behind the band’s name?

James Hatcher:
Basically we started writing music and we had maybe six or seven songs and then I just found that word. We say Honne, but if you were in Japan, you’d say Honne [pronounce the ‘e’]. And it’s a Japanese word that means true feelings or true intentions that you keep to yourself or only share with your closest companions.

AC: Yeah, and it fit perfectly with the songs that we were writing at the time.

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Andy Clutterbuck: on their first album: “It involves the people that we’re around all the time, like our family and our friends, each other.”

PSL: Who do you draw influence from and why?

AC: All sorts of people. In terms of other artists, people like Frank Ocean, James Blake. I mean, even Kendrick Lamar and other people like that.

JH: Elements of all those kind of artists that we really love the production and the song writing. It’s like taking bits of everything but making sure it’s still our own.

PSL: You had mentioned it was your first time at Coachella. What’s going on in your mind? How do you feel?

AC: I don’t know what to think. It’s amazing. It’s unlike any festival we’ve ever been to. Everyone just seems so happy. It’s cool. Yesterday we just spent most of the day people watching and taking it all in. It’s really great.

James starts coughing.

AC: It’s dusty as well.

PSL: Can you tell me more about your debut record, “Warm on a Cold Night?”

AC: It’s kind of an account of our lives of the last couple of years. It’s a romantic story, I guess. It involves the people that we’re around all the time, like our family and our friends, each other. Yeah, it’s a nocturnal feeling album. We’re very proud of it and it’s nice to be able to come to places like this and play the song from it.

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Honne will perform at Coachella again April 23.

PSL: Do you have any collaborations that may be coming up in the near future or anybody on the wish list?

JH: Yeah, we just done one with Amine, so he’s featured on a track that we put out a while ago, “Warm on a Cold Night.” And, yeah, maybe he’s going to be here today. Who knows?

AC: Who knows.

JH: He might just be.

AC: He might not. But he might.

JH: I really hope he might be. So, yeah, that’s one that we’re really happy to have worked with him. He’s great.

AC: There are also people on our list of people we want to collaborate with and we’re slowly but surely…this is a great place to do it actually. Just making sure we connect with people and then, people we’ve been speaking to for a while, but have never met.

Visit www.hellohonne.com for more information on Honne.