Charleston alternative act Easy Honey’s particular style of pop-rock whimsy always sounds a bit effortless. And the band’s new EP Ooooo, which will drop July 7, leans into Oasis-style Brit rock swagger and Beatles-esque soft-psych with that same laid back self-confidence.
According to singer-songwriter and guitarist Selby Austin, who founded the group with co-frontman Darby McGlone, much of Easy Honey’s vibe results from the band forming at a small liberal arts college in Tennessee called Sewanee: the University of the South.
“It’s such a small school that has such a thirst for live music and live bands,” Austin said. “So we were able to really play [and write]. We’ve evolved since then, but the roots of what Easy Honey is about, from a songwriting perspective and a feel perspective, came from there.”
The two frontmen started out playing together before recruiting ace drummer Charlie Holt from another band at the college. Easy Honey rotated through a few bass players in its earlier recordings, before recruiting Austin’s younger brother, Webster, in early 2022 to complete the current lineup.
And while the band’s self-titled debut record was produced during a stint in Nashville, Selby Austin said Charleston felt like a natural home scene to subsequently seek out in 2019.
“It felt like something cool was going on with the music scene,” he said, citing the success of local groups such as Susto, Stop Light Observations and indie rock icon Band of Horses as a big draw, along with getting out of the “oversaturated market” in Nashville.
Easy Honey has stayed busy creatively since taking up residence in the Holy City, dropping various EPs and singles before and after its 2021 album Peach Fuzz as the band worked with Charleston producers Matt Zutell at Coast Records and Wolfgang Zimmerman at The Space.
For the new EP Ooooo, the band worked with Zimmerman again, but took a more leisurely approach rather than doing a lot of pre-production before hitting the studio.
The end effect is an EP that accentuates Easy Honey’s free-spirited but well-honed style, from the pulsating, electric rocker “…The More I Think About It” and the Vampire Weekend-esque romp “Orbiter.”
The band has a knack for shiny vocal harmonies and folding lyrics with distinct word choice into the playful slacker rock songs heard on Ooooo. The mellow “Alright, Alright” opens with “Toss me up like a hand grenade / Stoke the fire with the flume you made.” Then comes the more muted acoustic ballad “Daddy Daughter” that sings, “Walk in the club brushing your hair / Eating a veggie melt without a care.”
“This EP was kind of symbolic of how far we’ve come from where we started,” Webster Austin said. “It’s not even necessarily our favorite songs. But it’s just like, ‘Here’s a good story.’ ”
Chelsea Grinstead contributed to this article.
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