2024 has been a big year for Easy Honey.
The Charleston indie rock band recorded and released their excellent third album Cupidity Unlimited, played 130 shows across the country, including sold-out performances in Chicago and back home at the Windjammer, and also announced their spot in the lineup of next spring’s High Water Festival.
Currently, they’re ramping up to reel in the new year at their New Year’s Eve show at the Music Farm.
Co-front man, guitarist and vocalist Selby Austin identified the energy of live music as something the band holds sacred and works to conduct as much as possible, an effort made evident by their busy touring schedule.
“Live music is infectious,” Austin said. “That’s one thing I think we all love about going to concerts and providing concerts. It can really be so holy to so many people… This is the church.”
Easy Honey has been bringing their joy-soaked, cleverly-worded rock tunes to the church of live music ever since Austin met fellow songwriter, guitarist and vocalist Darby McGlone alongside drummer Charlie Holt while attending Sewanee in the Tennessee mountains.
By 2019, the band had relocated to Charleston, called by its lively music scene and surf culture. 2022 saw the group gain Webster Austin (Austin’s brother) on bass, just in time for touring to really kick off as Covid restrictions were lifted. They recorded both their 2021 album Peach Fuzz and 2023 EP Ooooo with Charleston-based producer and musician Wolfgang Zimmerman, but when it came time to record the next album, what would become Cupidity Unlimited, the band took a slightly different approach.
“It’s a pieced-together album of songs from different times, even some recordings from different sessions,” Austin said. “Adam was the mad scientist that helped us pull it all together.”
“Adam” is Adam Lochemes, a producer, musician in indie-pop band, Arlie, and childhood friend of Austin’s — they played in a high school band together in their hometown of Memphis. What started as a writing session between Easy Honey and Lochemes turned into the start of a fifth Beatle-type relationship; Lochemes, mobile recording rig in tow, accompanied the band to various non-traditional studio locales such as a beach house in Sunset Beach, NC and a cabin in Ellijay, GA to record several batches of songs. The band credits Lochemes with capturing the unique vibes of these sessions while also helping steer the creative ship.
“I think we were super vulnerable with Adam as a fifth guy,” mused Austin. “He really challenged us. He made some great-sounding stuff in rooms that weren’t treated for acoustical engineering. It was a good-ass time.”
Cupidity Unlimited
You can hear that good time the band had across Cupidity Unlimited’s 13 tracks. The performances are super tight and assured, yet also playful and explorative, from the elated lead guitar in summer anthem “Homesick” to the tasty bass licks in the verses of head-bobber “Love Me, Lily.”
The production brings just the right amount of clarity and breathing room for these songs to take off and really showcase Easy Honey’s sweet blend of surf rock and indie folk. McGlone’s and Austin’s voices are steadfast, confident with emotion; whether the song is happy or sad, there’s an eagerness to the vocals that speaks to a love for the craft and, as Austin puts it, to the band’s effort to “get back to the wonder you have making music as a child.”
Cupidity Unlimited sees Easy Honey effortlessly riding the wave between the intentional poetry of their lyrics and the lightning-in-a-bottle moments of capturing the music behind it all.
“Anything but You,” the opening track following intro “Down to Earth,” was tracked live, an impressive feat given how downright good it sounds.
“We played it one time through and it was one of those moments where it was like, ‘That was really good,” recalled Holt.
The song is breezy yet contemplative, with walking the beach at dusk type verses leading up to a classic rock ‘n roll chorus. The guitar work shines throughout, and McGlone croons Wear me like perfume / Breathe me like the mountain air.
The Austin-led “Grass Getting Greener” is another example of that right place at the right time phenomenon. It was recorded in just an hour-and-a-half session and the result is a woozy, otherworldly love song with killer moments of surreal imagery like I smell her ethos like rain in the morning residue. The same session gave birth to “Homesick.” for which McGlone had the vision: Now you’re out searching / For something that will never find you he sings in the enormously catchy chorus.
Ahead of their New Year’s Eve romp at The Farm— the band is stoked and honored to participate and may or may not be brainstorming ways to bring in a dunk tank full of honey—Easy Honey just dropped a new single as well, a Cupidity Unlimited B-side “Catching Lightning.” It sees the band doing what they do best, making indie rock tunes with an undeniable energy.
“I remember it was one of those things like lightning,” McGlone said of the band’s collaboration writing the song. “It’s like we caught it in a Mason jar and trapped it forever.”
The song does somehow perfectly wrap up the spirit of what Easy Honey has going for them, the new album, the hard work and the magic: Didn’t I see you catching lightning?
Learn more by checking out easyhoneymusic.com.
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