HoneyChrome Sees The Light & Becomes An Animal


In the summer of 2014 NYC electro-pop artist HoneyChrome was in the process of pulling a Jeffersons, and movin’ on up, when he was thrown a curveball. Just after moving into his first apartment sans roommates, he lost his full time job.

“I was like hmm, this is an opportunity for something. I don’t know what it is, but something is telling me something.”

All those somethings, for HoneyChrome, added up to him being in a position he’d never been in before, one he compares to the poem by Saint John of the Cross titled Dark Night of the Soul.

“The Dark Night of the Soul,” HoneyChrome explains, “is when you lose everything that you thought you wanted, or needed, in life. When people go away, when maybe you lose a relationship, lose all your money, when you get kicked out of something, or you lose a job, and you think everything is done. You feel this incredible pain. In my case, I felt the pain, but then all of this creative, amazing, music has come out of it, and an opportunity to rethink where that came from, (and) why I ended up there.”

HoneyChrome chose to see his situation as a restarting point, as he faced the oftentimes uncomfortable reality of an artist’s life, that sometimes the best art comes from struggle. “All the while I’m creating my best art,” he notes, “I’m, at the same time, trying to figure out how to remain happy, and live in New York on my own.”

All of those emotions have been captured on HoneyChrome’s upcoming album, Daylight Animal, which is due out January 27th.

HoneyChrome explains the concept behind Daylight Animal, saying, “Although we are spiritual beings, extensions of source, we are still physical animals, and we are not so different from any other animal, we just have to figure out how to communicate better, faster. That’s the animal part.”

He continued, adding this his previous attempt at being a pop artist inspired the “daylight” half of the album’s title. “I spent a lot of nights out when I was pursuing the whole pop thing,” he explains, “and the structures that are in place, music happens at night, and you drink a lot, and you party, and all that. I pursued that for a little bit, and I found out it’s wearing, and it really wore me down, and I’ve realized it’s not for everyone, and we’re meant to rise with the sun, and set with the sun.”


The content of Daylight Animal is both deep, and personal. The first single off the album was “Cross,” which is a song about not having all the answers in life, but coming to the realization that there’s nothing wrong with that.

Another especially personal track off the album is “Drawn Together,” which chronicles HoneyChrome’s desire to be in a relationship. “That is my calling,” he says of the song, “where are you? I know you’re out there. You’re close. The universe knows. I’m willing to put it out there on a mega scale, and get back somebody else who is willing to receive it on a mega big scale.”

With these songs, and others on Daylight Animal, HoneyChrome has taken topics some artists might spin as depressing, and turned them all into positives. This is partly due to his recent interest in studying Abraham Esther’s and Jerry Hicks’ Law of Attraction.

“I’m just inundating myself with feeling good,” HoneyChrome says of his daily routine, “I’m still working on it, too. There is no finishing. There’s no getting there. You can’t get it done. You can’t get it wrong, and you can’t get it done. It’s an ongoing life process.”


As he puts his work, and with it, himself out there, HoneyChrome is already seeing a reward in the way his music is connecting with people. “Because it is so raw, authentic, and me, it gets through to other people, and it does connect on a level that it had not before.”

HoneyChrome saw a perfect example of this when he arrived for his recent show at Mercury Lounge in the city. As he walked in, he remembers, “This one really nice young woman said, ‘You’re HoneyChrome. I saw your name on Mercury Lounge’s website, I looked you up, I saw the ‘Cross’ video, and I came.’ That blew me away, through the roof, and prepped me for the best show of my life so far.”

After his performance the accolades kept coming, as a woman complimented him on his genuineness, and enthusiasm, saying, “You look like you’re having so much fun, and it was so real, it never felt fake.” For HoneyChrome, this was huge. “That was really meaningful,” he says, “because I do think there is a lack of real fun in music right now. There’s a lot of real sadness, or maybe real hate, and anger, but the fun is pretty manufactured right now.”

There’s nothing manufactured about HoneyChrome, and when he gets to the heart of it all, he truly enjoys bringing happiness into people’s lives.

“Although my music is completely serious to me,” he explains, “it does come off as fun and silly, which is OK, because that’s what we need right now.”


Interview originally ran on Arena.com.

Comments

Popular Posts