Honey Revenge: Presented In Retrovision
Starting a debut single with a voicemail from the song’s subject is a unique and interesting beginning for any new band, but especially for California’s HONEY REVENGE, with their first song, Miss Me. From then, the duo consisting of vocalist Devin Papadol and guitarist Donovan Lloyd have garnered a massive social media following, helped by the viral hit, Distracted, and signed to Thriller Records. With their label, the band are prepared to release their debut record, Retrovision this month. As the release date draws closer, we spoke with Devin about the creation of the songs for the record, the excitement for the album’s release, and the use of the real voicemail in that first single.
“That’s actually funny because the girl I wrote that song about is one of my oldest friends and it was about her,” Devin beings when discussing the first single Miss Me. “It’s her voice at the beginning, but like we are all good. Now she does all of our makeup for all of our photoshoots and all of our music videos. Her name is Rachel and I’ve known her since we were in middle school, but it’s really funny because it is her voice at the beginning. That song was written in 2018 or 2019, the fact that people resonate with it is so cool to me. I guess everyone goes through those periods where they have weird toxic friendships and stuff. I’ve had friendships that have made it resonate again for me, it’s always weird when those old feelings come back into play. But I really love that song and I feel like it was a cool way to introduce this band. It shows the sarcastic side of us that I want people to hear.”
“I was in a really bad place mentally when we started putting new music out after Miss Me because HONEY REVENGE is my second musical project,” Devin explains when asked about the band’s start and promoting their music on TikTok, and how Distracted became their viral hit. “I was very discouraged about having to restart everything and we didn’t know which single was the next one, necessarily, we didn’t know which song was the most done, we had a bunch of songs that were kind of like halfway there. I was like ‘well, I’m just gonna start promoting shit since we didn’t have a label yet’. It was just me and Donnie and our old manager. I was just gonna start putting stuff out there and seeing what clicks because I was feeling buried, and uncertain of myself, there was a lot of uncertainty, a lot of wondering what the next step was. So I started just putting out demos into TikTok, posting videos featuring the songs, and that’s what clicked for people.”
HONEY REVENGE signed with Thriller Records in 2022 and now, a year later, their debut album is landing with many more songs for fans to hear. Devin, excitedly, describes her and Donovan’s favourites from the upcoming record. “I’ll speak for Donnie because their favourite song is Favourite Song,” she reveals with a smile. “Mine is like a tie between Worst Apology which is already out, and then one of the songs called Seeing Negative. We call it Disappointment. So it’s called Disappointment in parentheses. I really love those ones. I feel like those are some of my favourite lyrics I’ve ever written and they really accurately get the feeling across that I was feeling when I wrote them. But mostly I’m just really happy with how those turned out sonically and also lyrically.”
The excitement for the debut record, Retrovision, was palpable in every mention of the album, and Devin can’t wait to release it. She is also excited about seeing the reaction to it upon release day. “I don’t want it to feel like such a clusterfuck but there are so many themes throughout the record, but I think they do all connect. All I always say, some songs are cousins, you know what I mean? They’re all related. There’s some dancey, poppy songs and that’s like the honey side of us, the more sarcastic light-hearted ones. Then we have some ones that are really emo and darker, the more ‘revenge’ side of us, and I think they all tie in with one another. Some of them touched down on really, really rough times and some of them touchdown on like well maybe the rough times.”
Once Retrovision is out, what’s next? Rounding out the interview, Devin reveals the band are planning to tour across the UK and Europe soon. “We already have plans to go over there very, very soon. It’s just a matter of where exactly, which cities we’ll play, and when exactly. But we are officially coming over to Europe. I’m so excited. I don’t know how many shows we’ll do yet. I think they’ll probably be a handful or less and then we’ll hit the festival circuit next year. That will be a goal. We’re gonna test the waters and see what comes, because it’s scary to tour a whole new country and a whole new place I’ve never been but we have a lot of people asking about it. It feels like a lot of people asking for us and not just one person commenting over and over again.”
Retrovision is out now via Thriller Records.
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