photo credit: Eric Larsen Images
HONEYBEE
Revel Ian, Liam Williams and Theo O’Gara
Record Release Show & Party May 27
@ Gibson Guitars Showroom
Hollywood, CA
R.S.V.P. by May 25
Self-titled Debut Album Dropping May 27
via Swingin’ Pipe Records/ The Orchard
The venerable HONEYBEE is a three piece real live rock and roll band armed with cosmic talent beyond their years. Formed in 2019 by Revel Ian (drums, age 11), Liam Williams (guitar/vocals, age 16), and Theo O’Gara (bass/vocals, age 15) deep in the Santa Monica Mountains of Southern California, HONEYBEE has already begun devastating the hearts and minds of audiences with their explosive cocktail of hard rock and heavy metal with a dash of psych, prog, and an alt-folk edge.
Get the single/pre-order the album here: https://linktr.ee/honey.beemusic
HONEYBEE will also be playing at the Topanga Days music festival
at the Topanga Community House
Topanga, CA
May 30
Tickets available here: https://topangadays.topangacommunitycenter.org
Struck by the otherworldly Bonham-like beats that he heard rising from his little sister’s basement band rehearsal, Liam Williams who had been looking to form a band of his own, discovered the natural-born talents of young drummer Revel Young Ian and promptly asked if he could join him on lead guitar in an impromptu jam. Immediately, the two boys gelled in sound and vibe. Realizing that they needed to carry on making music together they quickly joined forces with Liam’s classmate bass-master Theo O’Gara, and the trinity was formed.
With all three members of HONEYBEE being true multi-instrumentalists each born into musical families all with slightly different styles, Liam, Revel, and Theo recognize collectively their individual musical flavors and they bring them together to enhance their own music’s deep foundation through the spectrum of rock and roll from classic rock to nu metal and everything in between.
Pouring together an avalanche of original song ideas, HONEYBEE quickly put together an album of brand new tracks that would have bands the likes of Queens of the Stone Age afraid to follow them. All together they spent 4 days at the famous Studio 606 in Northridge, CA plugged into the legendary Sound City Neve console. There they let the fresh waves of their organic inspiration flow and coagulate through storied and time-worn channels touched by the vibrations of some of music’s greatest artists in history creating HONEYBEE’S self-titled debut album releasing May 27, 2022.
HONEYBEE is (left to right): Theo O’Gara, Liam Williams and Revel Ian
photo credit: Eric Larsen Images
Q: What’s it like being in a band?
REVEL: “It’s one of the most awesome feelings you can ever have. Playing music with people is one of the most creative things you can do. You can make music whatever you want. And at my age? Forget about it. I am so grateful to be able to play music with two guys that are 5 years older than me.
I am so grateful to be able to play like I can at 11 years old. Quick summary: Being in a band is the best feeling you can ever have.”
THEO: “To be in a band means to express music through yourself and other people at the same time, which is just kind of a cool thing where you can have an expression and you can just have it come out of other people at the same time with you all simultaneously playing one thing – which I’ve always thought is just a cool thing. I was like, ‘man one day going to be in a cool band’ and that happened. Now, this is that one day I’m in a cool band.”
LIAM: “You become really really close really quick, like at the beginning of when our band started I didn’t know Theo or Rev very well and then within a couple months they became some of my closest friends. Your bandmates help you express yourself and you help them express themselves and it create something really f****** awesome .”
Q: How does it feel performing songs on stage?
REVEL: “Performing on stage is such a bonding time for the players in the band.
When you perform on stage and the drums and the bass are tight together and the guitar and vocals follow, It’s like the most exciting and wholesome feeling you can get. Performing your own songs, that you wrote, all by yourself with a little bit of help from others in front of a crowd! That likes it! You’ll feel like you just become a god that controls everything. (That can’t always be good haha)”
Q: What’s it like writing songs and performing them?
LIAM: “Part of writing songs is that you kind of put your heart on your sleeve and with your bandmates you end up like telling them everything either directly or through songs. That’s kind of a cool thing about being in a band. It feels really good to take something from your mind and then put it out there and then it’s a whole nother level of feeling good when people react well to it. Whenever you write a song on you put whenever you’re feeling out there and then when you perform it and people give you applause or cheers it just feels very validating and it feels like people relate to you and that you relate to other people and it kind of builds a sense of trust among strangers”
THEO: “For performing songs and actually writing songs I have two totally different motives. Writing songs, it’s to either soothe the the pain and suffering and confusion of everyday life cause that’s how the world is and it’s almost solely for yourself in that moment and then when you go and you take it to your band mates and rehearse and stuff it’s still a very personal thing but then when you go and play it for a show and people then what it’s about kinda starts to fade away for you and more becomes “oh I’m playing this for these people because they enjoy it” and it’s just this weird transformation to go if it still has that meaning to you personally but for the the audience becomes a different thing and also to you when you’re with the audience becomes different thing.”
Q: What is the message in your songs? What are you trying to get across?
LIAM: “I feel like every song has its own meaning but generally when I write songs, my philosophy is that if I write what I truly feel it’s almost guaranteed that one other person on the entire planet feels the same way and even if it’s just one person feeling the same way I am, and they hear the song, and they can relate to it, then that’s the songs done it’s job. If it’s more people that’s great but as long as one person out there gets something from anything we do then the song has been worth it and being in a band has been worth it.“
THEO: “I feel like our music is a lot of just kind of…I mean tell me if this is right – a lot of the anxiety of this world put into something that we can enjoy. You turn anxiety and stress into something that’s beautiful and amazing that people can enjoy and that’s one of the coolest transformations. Those are two different things – joy and anxiety…but somehow they can be attached together through a song that’s a river between the two . It just kind of makes me think of that. Like, that’s a caterpillar and that’s a butterfly…what the f*** ? what is this thing in the middle? Is this what Butterflies come out of ? no way ! -But that’s that’s what it feels to me. That’s what music, at least metal and hard rock feels for me.”
photo credit: Eric Larsen Images
photo credit: Eric Larsen Images
photo credit: Eric Larsen Images
