Honne on Pinoy fans, new music and collab with BTS’ RM
MANILA, Philippines — It seems like the English duo Honne couldn’t get enough of the Philippines. It was not their first or second time here in the Philippines, but the recently-held concerts in various cities of the country formed part of Honne’s fifth visit and they would still love to come back after that.
The electronic music tandem from London — comprised of Andy Clutterbuck and James Hatcher — staged three separate shows here recently. Promoted by AEG Presents Asia and Ovation Productions, they performed live in front of the Filipino audience last May 10 at the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City, May 12 in Davao City and May 14 in Cebu City.
Prior to that, Honne has been to the Philippines a couple of times, gracing mall shows and music festivals.
The musicians sat down with The STAR in an exclusive interview hours before their May 10 concert and laid out the reasons why they love returning to the Philippines. They also talked about new music they’re working on and the story behind their collaboration and friendship with BTS’ RM.
“During our first visit, we were hooked on the Philippines and we keep coming back,” declared James. “(The Philippines) has a good atmosphere as well.”
On their first visit, Andy shared, “James’ keyboard fell off his stand so that was quite funny. But luckily, the crowd was into it so it didn’t matter. And the last trip that we did, we played around different malls and yeah that was fantastic.”
“There was a lot of singing and it was very special,” he added.
James’ first impression of the Philippines during their earlier visits was how “very beautiful” the country is. As he described, “Like really green and just great landscape. And that’s my impression still (laughs). Nothing’s changed.”
He also cited how “very friendly and very welcoming” the Filipinos are. “Like (they are) passionate about things and really when they like something or enjoy it, they really get stuck to it and that’s really nice for us,” he said.
“Because some people feel like that (about) our music and we can really feel that love every time we come back (here). Even when we were in England, we can feel that love through social media (as well),” James went on.
Andy echoed what James said and called the Filipino crowd as “world-class singers.” He enthused, “I think everyone who comes to do the concert is just so up for having a lovely time and (they are) world-class singers.
“But we have to say we have our own personal quiet in our shows so that’s really nice. Just whatever we do makes people (happy). They’re just so friendly and upbeat and positive. We love it. It’s great.”
James also expressed their appreciation for their Filipino fans, saying, “We love you. You’re the best singers. You’re the loveliest people and we are so happy to be here playing for you and hope we can come back again soon.”
James and Andy met in 2007 during their university days and they have become inseparable ever since.
“We just became the best mates straight away and our friends at university used to call us JamDy, James and Andy combined. Because we would never go somewhere without being together. We were not individual people. We were JamDy,” recalled James.
“We had just written most of our songs together and some were like we kind of have grown together,” he continued.
“I think we balanced each other out quite well. Personality-wise, I’m quite extroverted. Andy is quite introverted. And how we work (through) our differences like I love working different parts of Honne and Andy like working on different parts of Honne. And we kind of complement each other. So it’s a relationship that works quite easy really in the grand scheme of things.”
Being best of friends for a long time, they would also encounter disagreements over stuff. “But it’s not like we fight about it,” explained Andy. “But there are times when we have different opinions about things. And I think it would just come out in the wash. Like you either think about it and then you change your mind.”
James interjected, “We both changed our minds. Sometimes, we will disagree on something and we both go for lunch and come back, and think the other person is right. So then we will have another disagreement. Hahaha!”
Meanwhile, Honne did a collaboration with BTS singer-rapper RM for the ditty Crying Over You featuring BEKA.
“As an artist, we really respect him. And we think his music is great, as well as his vision,” Andy said of RM. “I always feel very lucky to have a friendship with him where we can send him music and he can tell us, ‘I like this song. I’m not sure about this.’ And it is just really great to have been able to work with him and we feel very lucky.”
Honne has been in touch with RM since they started their music career. “He (RM) posted about us from the BTS Twitter page and we started messaging on there,” shared James. “And then he came to us in (our) first show in Seoul. We went to their show in London. And we just had like back and forth texting and (exchanging messages) on Instagram as well. It just developed like that really.”
Some of Honne’s popular tracks include Day 1, Me & You, Feels So Good, Coming Home and No Song Without You.
In 2021, they released their third album called Let’s Just Say the World Ended a Week from Now, What Would You Do? They are currently churning out a new record which they hoped to put out in the next few months.
When asked about “what would they do if the world ended a week from now,” they said that they just wanted to “play their gigs in the Philippines, ride off a boat to the sea or stand on a cliff with angel wings on.”
“We just be dead so that’s fine. We would have died happy,” James joked.
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