Honey Motel discuss everything from tours and upcoming music to railways and the bands history

“One of the things we struggle with is finding a genre that we fit into” begins Honey Motels guitarist Sam Meredith. “I suppose its indie, its alternative, its rock, it has psychedelic elements. It's inspired by a wide range of artists, everyone in this band listens to all sorts.”

Photo Credit: Dylan Cox (@dylancoxmedia)

Sat on a pub garden wall in the middle of Liverpool, Christmas tunes blaring behind them, Honey Motel are gearing up for their exciting support slot at EBGBS. Depicting what can be expected of them on stage frontman Freddie Griggs jumps in, “just Jack (bassist) being an absolute nutter and playing the most inappropriate bass licks any single second he gets a chance to then Lew (drummer) looking like he's bored out of his mind.” Bassist Jack Hughes Brodley interrupts, “but playing the most complex shit you could possibly ever see on a stage.” Freddie continues, “I'll be trying to be somewhat competent as a frontman and then Sam's just... Clumsy.”

“Oh, and we're really good” Freddie ads, “Just to clarify. I made us sound really shit there. We are actually good live.”

On inspirations and lyrics Sam says the band are inspired highly by Backseat Lovers, Mac DeMarco and Green Day. “We're like a melting pot” he explains, “but I suppose what do we sound like? It's most like psychedelic indie.” Being the oldest member of the band as well as the songwriter, Sam then focuses on their lyrics. “They kind of deal with those in-between topics in life. So, we don't really write a straight-up love song. It's whimsical, it's a bit about death, a bit about life, relationships and those weird emotions that you feel in life.”

“Sam likes to write lyrics and then decide what they mean afterwards” Freddie jokes, “but he always finds a way.”

On how the band was formed, newest addition Freddie unfolds his experience, “so most recently I joined as the singer.” He continues, “that was through, I put a profile up on a website called Band Mix which is like Tinder for musicians because I was looking for session work as a guitarist or a singer. Sam was searching the darkest depths of the internet and found my profile on that and then messaged me on Instagram and basically said hi, come work for free.” Although Freddie didn’t originally want to work in a band he explains, “the only thing that swayed me was he listed the festivals that we were booked to play last summer and mentioned that they’ve got serious management. I'd be an idiot not to hear them out.”

Eager to hype up the band he adds “I went and did an audition and when I was in the room actually playing with them I was like, this is so much better than I thought it was going to be. If you think the music is good on Spotify, then come see us live because it's 10 billion times better.”

Working backwards the next member to join was drummer Lewis Fogg (Lewisham Foggarthy), keeping it simple he says, “they were just looking for a drummer and I joined or auditioned. I can't remember where they found me. They were online somewhere.” Next Sam takes the mic to explain him and Jack starting the band, “me and Jack have been playing together a long time, about five years. we just added members as we went but one thing I've always done is picked the right members.” He continues describing the process, “every time I've had to pick a member for this band, and this now I think is the final four, but every time I've had to pick a member, I've had opposition with all the members saying don't select them. I got told not to pick Jack. I got told not to pick Lew. There was hums and haws about Fred as well.” Freddie’s expression drops for a moment, “but I was like, no, all of them we pick,” Sam smiles.

Photo Credit: Dylan Cox (@dylancoxmedia)

Thinking about the origin of the name Honey Motel, Freddie quickly admits “I have no idea what it means.” Sam agrees in laughter, “you know what? I don't think anyone does.”

“Money Hotel backwards, isn't it?” Jack jumps in to give his take. “You know what, there's a story to it” Sam adds, “but there's no meaning behind it. We met this guy who said, when me and Jack were in a band years ago, that name's not good enough and he told us to change it. We just landed on Sutton Motel, Milk Motel, Honey Motel. It just ended up Honey Motel.”

‘T.N.A.K’ is a currently unreleased track that the band can’t stop sharing their excitement for. Jack first mentions the song, “it's just really fast. It's really fun to play, hands down it's my favourite song I think I've ever had the honour of helping the writing process.” Freddie agrees, “I get a guitar solo in it. When I joined the band, because I'm in a few other projects as well, I wasn't coming into this with any desire necessarily to play guitar solos even as a big fan of guitar myself but the song just kind of needed it. It's ratty and it's terrible but it sounds awesome because the song is also ratty and rubbish. But in that rattiness there's beautiful melodies and lyrics courtesy of Scouse Hagrid over there,” he nods at Sam.

Lew’s favourite song to perform is also ‘T.N.A.K’ whereas Sam takes a different direction name dropping another upcoming track ‘If You Didn’t Exist’ as his favourite. “Basically, we don't like any of the old stuff so just ignore all of them,” Freddie quips before correcting himself, “no, we do still like them but as we're halfway through recording our second EP now it's a nice change of direction. Not so much that old fans won't connect with the new stuff.” Jack cuts in, “no, I think they'll love it even more. It's just a level up on this new recording, we can't wait to release it to the wild.”

As for a funny band memory Freddie shares a story that has them all in stiches, “so, on the way to our secret recording facility” he starts before sharing the exact location, “Pembrokeshire, South Wales. On the way in the band van we drove past a train station and Jack loves trains exclusively steam trains and we drove past an old railway. The van was silent and suddenly Jack just goes God damn it! and smacks the van door. I’m like you alright man, what's up? and he goes I've just seen they've paved over this really awesome old railway line that used to be there. I said oh man when did that happen? and he goes 1962, mate!” Cracking up with laughter Freddie pauses before adding, “we were just crying for the next five miles in the van.” 

“It's still fresh in my mind” Jack announces making them all chuckle again. “Anything funny that happens does tend to come from Jack” Sam explains.

As the clock ticks closer to the groups set time, they finish by handing out some advice to those looking to start a band. “Don’t do it” they begin with. “Don't do it's the first one and if you get past that one then find people who want to do,” Sam advises. “There's loads of people who think they want to do it then when it gets hard, you run into money issues, you run into issues with jobs they don't really want to do it deep down.” He goes on to say, “don't release music for five years. If I could start again I wouldn't release a track for five years because you are shite when you start and you don't realise you're shite. No one should release a song at 17 years old, don't put it on Spotify because it will be there in ten years you'll have to remove it like us.”

Freddie speaks with an opposing view, “I don't disagree with what Sam's said but it doesn't mean you can't release stuff. You can but just be aware. It's definitely good advice to take your time when you're starting out even though if you're super driven and motivated you'll just want to do it but I'd say what could be good is just chuck out something small that you would be prepared to take down once you've established your direction, just so that when people see you at a gig if they ask have you got stuff released, you can say yes. Also, with the first thing we said” he returns to their original point, “we said don't but honestly if you get past hearing all of the warnings of everyone telling you not to do it and you still want to do it then you'll be fine and it's right. if someone tells you not to do it or to give up and that genuinely makes you consider it then it's not for you.”

Lew makes his final point, “everyone should pursue an instrument, being in a band is obviously up to you but always pursue music.”

“And fishing!” Sam jumps in enthusiastically. “yeah, if music doesn't work out just fish” Freddie concludes.

Honey Motel are currently working on their next EP as well as planning for “loads of festivals”.

“I'm gonna tease and say we're playing a festival that rhymes with procton falling” Freddie hints before Sam says, “Tell the world we're coming mate, EP, festivals, the best music we've ever done is coming out next year.”

“I think the best music anyone's ever done anyone's ever done” Freddie replies.

Honey Motel Live at EBGBS

(photo credits: Izzy Hayden)

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