The Honeyfire’s Highlights of 2014

Wow, is it really 2015 already? What can we say? We’ve seriously had an amazing year and it couldn’t have happened without everyone that was there to support us along the way. One of the most momentous things to happen was our transformation from Wolfhound into The Honeyfire.

It sure has been a big year for us, and here are the highlights of our 2014.

We entered the year with a lovely gig at The Louisiana supporting I Am Horse on the 3^rd of January. This was the day we realised we wanted The Louisiana to be the venue where we would perform our upcoming album launch. The atmosphere and sound were exactly what we were looking for, and it was a great gig to kick-start our excitement for the upcoming year.

We released our first single in 2014. ‘Starlight’ was a song we wrote about the winter and the first song we recorded in a studio (Factory Studios). Along with Scott Quinn and our manager Craig Joiner we filmed the music video and released the song on the 8^th January. Judging by how different we look, it seems like more than one year ago!

We then locked ourselves away for a couple of months to prepare for the recording of our album! Before we knew it April was upon us and those two weeks in the recording studio still stand as one of the best experiences we’ve had.

The album was recorded at J&J Studios with Jim Barr, and Nathan Long as Jim’s assistant. Recording with Jim was a fantastic experience and we are so thankful for his time and effort spent on our album.

And so, through coffee fuelled laughing fits, delicious food, too many silly photos and of course a lot of hard work, we came out with the recording of our first album.

We were soon brought to our first festival of the year, The Acoustic Festival of Britain. This one gets a special mention because it was so different to any other one we played. Mostly this was because of the fact we stayed for the whole weekend, and those freezing nights on the hard ground won’t be easily forgotten! On a more positive note – what a wonderful vibe this festival had! We all had a fantastic time looking at all the various stalls, experimenting with new looks and enjoying the beautiful and brilliant music there was to offer. A truly great start to the festival season.

One of our favourite gigs of the year was yet again at The Louisiana supporting She Makes War along with DIONVOX. She Makes War has become one of our big inspirations and it was an honour to be given the opportunity to play with her. We had great fun both playing and watching, and the gig ended in a great way when we were invited up on stage with She Makes War for some musical collaboration. 

Having now recorded our album, we had to start thinking about all the visual and physical aspects of it. We spent some time brainstorming and experimenting, and after a couple of photo-shoots the new look of Wolfhound was born!

A lot of people ask us about the name change and why it happened, so here’s the story. It was at this point in our progress that we felt the change was necessary. Compared to only the beginning of the year we had changed massively, both as people and musicians. And to think of the original Wolfhound, Sally and Natalie in their younger teenage years writing more acoustic songs as sisters, seemed so different that we started to feel like the band we had progressed into should have a name of its own. We learned a useful piece of knowledge during this time – trying to think of a new original band name, which meanwhile won’t disappoint your followers and supporters, is VERY difficult! Oh how we racked our brains and thought of name after name that had already been used somewhere before. We still remember the Eureka moment; we were in Devon filming a video and we were sitting around the dining table after midnight, tired and hungry after a long shoot. In front of us were written a long list of words we all liked that would hopefully motivate inspiration by putting them randomly together. ‘Honeyfire’ was mentioned and we all realised how perfect it was. It suited our music and style perfectly, ‘Honey’ representing the times we laugh together, our love for pretty things, our friendship etc. and ‘fire’ representing the darker shade of music we write and the way we don’t think of ourselves as your typical ‘girl-band’. So there you have it, an in-depth explanation of how we became ‘The Honeyfire’!

During the time we were creating our new image, name and website, we released our second single of the year, ‘Road Signs’. It was the first song we were releasing from the album which was actually kind of scary, since we didn’t know what to expect as a reaction to the new sound that had developed since our last EP ‘Tales of Truth and Lies’. We spent a few weeks with a camera in the car, filming through and out of the window whenever we found ourselves driving in Bristol. We took a trip across Clifton suspension bridge especially for the video, which was really beautiful. Thankfully we had a great response, and thus we started planning video number two – Dreams.

The Dreams video was a long work in progress. We can’t complain though, because we are so pleased with the end result. It took a large amount of planning and preparation; we spent several weeks creating and perfecting story boards, making handmade costumes and planning the locations where we would film. After we had collected up all our weird and wonderful footage, it was cut down and edited into exactly the kind of visual match to the song we had imagined. For those of you who didn’t know, ‘Dreams’ is about the strange and disturbing dreams we have, and that is what we wanted to video to represent.

We started an interesting project this year, a collaboration with songwriter Richard Williams writing a song about the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Richard has also co-written a song with musician Zoë Wren about the same theme for the project. We recorded our song 'Falling for Orpheus' in Toybox Studios, and it was really nice to be recording in a studio again, especially one as lovely as Toybox. Falling for Orpheus will be released 17th April 2015. Details to follow soon.

While creating the video and recording Falling for Orpheus, we started coming closer and closer to the last stages of finishing the album. Having designed the album cover, layout, CD and booklet we were ready to send the designs off to be made. Along with the albums we also had our own badges made, which was another first!

And so we get to the end of 2014. The albums arrived safe and sound, and we will never forget how it felt to hold them for the first time. The video for Dreams was released, and we want to say thank you again for all the wonderful and supportive comments we received about it.

This left us to get extremely excited and nervous for the last significant event of the year, our album launch on the 11^th of December at The Louisiana. All the hard work we spent working towards it, the large amount of planning and rehearsing really paid off in the end. 

It was one of the best nights of all of our lives and we still can’t quite believe that it’s over. It marked the end of a brilliant and eventful year beautifully, and we are so extremely thankful to our families, our managers Craig and Steve, Jelli Records, and everyone who has helped and supported us along the way. You are all so lovely and we wish you a wonderful 2015.

Sally, Natalie and Anja xx

The Honeyfire at the Spiegeltent

Just a reminder that we'll be playing at the Spiegeltent tomorrow (Saturday 20th) at 2pm.

We'll be playing a more acoustic version of our set, so come on down for a chilled and festive afternoon!

Free entry.

The Honeyfire Album Launch

It’s safe to say that last night was one of the best nights of our lives. The night of our album launch had finally arrived after a year’s worth of hard work, ups, downs and many laughs along the way.

We can’t quite believe that it’s over! Thank you so much to everyone who came along to support us – we would be nowhere without you. We all hope you had a great time, and also hope you didn't suffer too much from the awful weather and traffic you had to battle through to come and see us! At least it was warm and cosy inside.

For those of you who couldn't come along, here’s a summary of the night.

Having sound checked and decorated the stage with fairy lights and paper snowflakes, we were ready to go!

We enjoyed standing on the door when they were first opened; it was a great chance to meet some of the people who were coming to support us.

The fantastic Dear Light opened up the night, and his set couldn't be described as anything else but truly stunning. Creating a beautifully dreamy sound that pulls you right in, we really were loving every moment.

For his last two songs, we were welcomed up on stage to perform alongside him as his backing band. We've had a few rehearsals together for our collaboration, which has been a great way for us to get to know each other more and it was really lovely playing together on the stage.

 After Dear Light's set was over it was time for us to play our set, and we started to fill with excitement and nerves. As soon as we started playing, the nerves went away and all we were left with was a strong feeling of exhilaration and adrenaline.

Phil (Dear Light) joined us on stage for our first song ‘Road Signs’ adding keys.

We went on to play all the songs from the album, as well as two new songs. One was called ‘Prisoner’ which featured Natalie playing electric guitar, and the other ‘Falling for Orpheus’. It was nerve-wracking, but also really enjoyable to show everyone what else we had been working on.

For our last four songs, Phil joined us back on stage for more collaboration. It was so much fun to play with a fellow musical friend and the extra texture added a lot to our sound.

For our song ‘Blind Eye’, Anja got up to the front of the stage for the first time, since she was singing lead and playing bass. It was nice to have all three of us at the front together, and with Phil adding drums it made the song a real pleasure to play.

At the end of our last song, ‘Noah’, we invited members of the audience up on the stage with us to play along with percussion instruments we had brought with us. It was the first time we’d done anything like it and we have to say we loved it! Everyone was having a dance and clapping along, and it was a wonderful way to end the night.

After our set we went back onto the door to wish farewell to those who had come. We really enjoyed all the conversations we had and it was lovely to meet everyone!

Thank you again to everyone who has supported us along the way; the night wouldn't have been anywhere near as special as it was without you.

Here's to next time!

Anja, Natalie and Sally xx

'Radio Tour'

You may have noticed we seem to have been living in your radio these last few days! It’s been great fun and a bit different having been so involved with various radio stations over such a short period of time.

Believe it or not, we were on BBC Radio Bristol twice on Saturday morning. Natalie took a solo trip down to the Martin Evans Show and we all later went in to chat to Dr Phil Hammond on his show about the upcoming album, as well as playing live in the studio.

We would like to thank BBC Introducing for playing our song Delusion from the new album on the weekend!

Natalie and Sally appeared on Pirate Nation Radio co-presenting alongside James Hyden. Listen again to hear them talking about the album, cats, and playing quirky games!

To finish off our ‘radio tour’ we all had a great time on Bradley Stoke Radio last night on the Jelli Records Music Show playing songs from our new album and talking about our plans for next year.

Radio Shows This Weekend

We're going to be on five radio shows over the next few days before the album launch!

Tomorrow Natalie is on BBC Radio Bristol at 5am where she will be talking about her perfect weekend morning with Martin Evans. Don't worry if 5am sounds a bit early as you will be able to listen again afterwards.

At 11am on Saturday we will be on BBC Radio Bristol with Phil Hammond on his show where we'll be playing a few songs off our album live. 

Then on Sunday between 5 and 7pm Road Signs has been play listed on Ralph's Indie Show on Radio KC and straight afterwards Sally and Natalie will be guest co-hosts with James Hyden on his new show on Pirate Nation Radio at 7pm. 

Finally on Monday we'll be playing live on BradleyStoke Radio at 8pm on the Jelli Records Music Show. If that's not enough of us, this show also goes out on Tuesday at at 10pm on Somer Valley FM!

After that it's the final rehearsals for our launch show at The Louisiana on Thursday! We can't wait!

Dreams Music Video

How could you have a video for a song about crazy dreams without masks, handmade costumes, dancing around a big fire and face paint? That’s exactly what we said, and here it is – the new video for Dreams!

We've really enjoyed making something a bit different – we like a bit of a challenge…

We really hope you all like the video. Let us know what you think! x