Honduras

"Featured this week in our Buzz playlist, we’ve got Honduras who supported Blur recently in NYC" - NME

Honduras' new track "Ace" opens with some Johnny Thunders-style guitar before the band's vocalist Pat Philips takes over with a detached sounding vocal. But as the song progresses, it grows more frantic, with Philips eventually losing his cool, where he finally spits out "destroy!" during the bombastic midsection. This is punk in the classic sense – music from the balls, not the brain, that recalls the gleeful nihilism of the Dead Boys and Sex Pistols.

The Brooklyn-by-way-of-Missouri group have been blasting out DIY venues for nearly two years and on their upcoming second EP, Morality Cuts, the band explores both their primal and contemplative sides. "It was originally just an excuse to scream," Philips told Rolling Stone of "Ace." "However, the lyrics deal with the beauty and strangeness of two people focusing their attention on each other, and ignoring the rest of the world."

Morality Cuts arrives on February 25th via Black Bell Records and the band will play a local gig to support the release where there is sure to be plenty of screaming.

Stream "Ace" below: - RollingStone.com

Honduras has been on our radar--and our NYLON playlists--ever since NYLON Guys editor Josh Madden tipped us off to the Brooklyn quartet several months ago. But now, after we've all spent time desk-dancing (that's a thing, right?) and obsessing over the guys' crushing guitars and raw, in-your-face choruses, it's about time that everyone experiences what the group is all about. Thankfully, they've just released a brand new video for their single "Ace" just in time for the weekend.

Featuring tequila shots and sunrises and insane downtown adventures, consider this clip inspiration for your Friday night. (With music this good, we don't even mind the hangover.) Get to know Honduras from frontman Patrick's pop quiz below!

How did you guys first meet?
I met Tyson in elementary school, and met Josh and Paulie through playing in bands in Brooklyn.

What's the story behind the name Honduras?
I worked a summer landscaping job in Missouri and my coworker was a guy named Osmar, who was from Honduras. When I got back to New York I was walking the Williamsburg Bridge and saw "Honduras" written all over in graffiti. The band was starting around that time and I liked the name.

How would you describe your sound in five words?
Pretty, spooky, destructive, introverted, memorable

Before a show, we can find you...
Fighting hangovers and grabbing gear at our practice space in South Williamsburg.

After a show, we can find you...
At Alaska, a bar in Bushwick. - Nylon

Last time we saw Brooklyn band Honduras they were getting body painted on the beach while lackadaisically playing their instruments in the half light. Things are different now. They're running around in and co-ordinating with the snow. Without a coat. Watch out for frostbite guys. This cut is tight, bristling with a give-a-fuck energy, it's low and a little dirty, but still pitching in some sweet, sweet "Oooos" which gives their garage scuzz some pop pizzazz.

Their EP, Morality Cuts, is out on February 25 via Black Bell Records. - Noisey

This winter, Honduras toured with Sunflower Bean—a band that mixes heavy stoner Black Sabbath rock with the lo-fi drone of DIIV. On top of that, the band’s newest music video for “Hollywood,” which is one of its catchier songs, features dead celebrities performing at a karaoke dive bar in a cleaner-cut version of a David Lynch scene.



All of their videos are kind of dark, to be honest, including “Paralyzed”—which has a hazy blackout motel scene with Julia Cumming (Sunflower Bean’s lead singer and bassist—the two bands tend to come in a pack). To top it off, the guys wear all black and the lead singer has a neck tattoo. So when we met up with them one afternoon in Austin on the back patio of Stay Gold bar while some muddy-sounding rock band was playing in the dark inside, we were surprised by their sunny demeanor.




It’s sometimes hard to be impressed by new rock bands. Anyone can put on a black jacket and an image, but not everyone can get on stage and blow you away like Honduras does.

Five hours after our patio meeting, we watched as the four guys took the stage at Barracuda for a Part Time Punks showcase, which featured other bands with names like Ritual Howls and Sextile. Lead singer Pat Phillips and guitarist Tyson Moore are natural performers who first started playing together over four years ago when they lived in Missouri. Neither are the type to stop to check that every hair is in place after a particularly intense solo. You can hear drummer Josh Wehle’s steady hands on their recordings—and we’d suggest you check out their latest, Gathering Rust—but watching his live direction is even more impressive. Paul Lizarraga—one of the most seasoned of the group after his three-year stint in the Brooklyn surf-rock band The Denzels—plays the old school way, with his bass hanging as low as his head.



We talked to Honduras about how they’re adjusting to life on the road, what it’s like to leave everything on the stage, and what going home feels like after months of that.
Photos by CJ Harvey




You guys just released Gathering Rust March 3rd, while you were on the road. Why do you think it’s so important for a band to tour behind a new record release?

Josh Wehle: I mean the Internet is one thing, but just to really connect with people and develop relationships is so important.
Pat Phillips: It’s also really cool just to have someone hear your stuff online and then come to a show and you’re able to bring whatever they think of you to life. We really take pride in our live shows, so it’s nice to have that back and forth between experience and assumption, and hopefully have the peak of that be in a live setting—to just make it as intense as possible.



Your live show is definitely intense. How does performing like that make you feel after the fact?
JW: There was this Guardian article that I read last week about what the highs of a show can do to your body, and how coming down from that is just a huge mental and emotional process in and of itself. Literally, the chemistry changes and you can get really bummed out once that high is not sustained.



Right, and then you head back to the van for hours of quiet time and driving. What is that contrast like?
PP: Honestly, the van feels like a safe zone where we get into the groove of going to the next city. Paul’s reading Tolstoy, we’re listening to a podcast, Josh is doing some social media work on his computer. Tyson got this van over Christmas and it almost feels like home, a really comfortable place because we’re so used to it.



So all of that van time doesn’t make you feel insane?
JW: It’s surprisingly the least crazy part of all of this. Everyone even knows where they sit. Also just watching the country change as you drive by is really cool. Driving through Louisiana yesterday and seeing the swamps and sunsets, you have this magic moment where you’re just like, “Fuck, this is really incredible.” It’s all just moments strung together.
PP: I love being in a van. Tyson and I are originally from Missouri and what you do for Spring Break in Missouri is drive down to the Gulf of Mexico and Florida, so we’re so used to those midwest family car trips. I feel very comfortable. I like mellowing out and getting really interested in a record or a book.

Tyson, can you talk a little bit about how you and Pat started playing music together back in Missouri?
Tyson Moore: Pat and I have known each other since kindergarten. We each had our own high school bands and then I played in his band for a while. I moved to Chicago for audio school and he moved to New York around the same time, but we stayed in touch, sending demos and collaborating. After awhile I felt like I needed a change and wanted to get back to playing live music, so I picked up for New York to start a band with Pat.




How did the rest of the band come together?

JW: I moved to New York the day after my high school graduation, when I was like, "Okay, time to do this shit." Pat was my first roommate when I lived there and we went back and forth [playing music] but never really had an official band. We started playing with a different bassist but the rest of the guys knew Paul forever and then we just kind of shifted into this lineup.

Paul, is that how it felt for you—a natural shift?
PL: Yes. The band I was in, The Denzels, had gotten to the point where everybody wanted to do different music that wasn't surfy, shoegaze pop. In 2011, it seemed like every band was doing some form of that stuff, so I was itching to do something different. I knew Honduras through the tight-knit music community in Bushwick. I'd run into those guys all the time at a Bushwick dive bar I tend at called Alaska—and they just so happened to need a bass player at the same time my band was splitting up.

What advice would you give a band going out on their first long tour?

PP: Pack so many socks. Whatever you think, pack 20 more pairs of socks. Sunflower Bean has socks on their rider. When we get to that point, no dips… just like, disposable socks. - Urban Outfitters Blog

Back in May 2015, when we first covered Honduras on account of their track ‘Paralyzed’, I had no idea they were part of the same NYC scene as current indie darlings Sunflower Bean.

Turns out the two bands are best friends, and touring together (in the States, alas) this February and March. That’s kind of where the similarities end though, musically at least. ‘Hollywood’, premiered below, comes on like an exorcism of inner feelings, and it feels brilliantly cold and taught throughout.

Tyson Moore and Pat Phillips’ weaving guitar lines evoke all those 90s anti-heroes like James Iha, Nada Surf, even At The Drive-In if you take their lighter moments into account ('Invalid Letter Dept.'). It sounds frosty, like it’s got a point to make, not least when Phillips almost loses it and starts spitting about people who “don’t want you at all” caustically as the band rumble on behind him. There’s a touch of Graham Coxon about it - which might be why Blur had them supporting a show last year.

Here’s the track:



Honduras release The Gathering Rust EP on March 4, with the tracklisting as follows:

1. Hollywood
2. That Old Feeling
3. Dead Weight
4. Off White

They are also on tour in the US soon:
2/25 New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom +
2/26 Hanover, NH @ Bones Gate Fraternity +
2/27 Boston, MA @ Middle East Club Upstairs +
2/28 Montreal, QC @ TBA
3/01 Toronto, ON @ Smiling Buddha +
3/02 Detroit, MI @ Majestic Café +
3/03 Chicago, IL @ Schubas Tavern +
3/04 Lakewood, OH @ Mahall’s 20 Lanes +
3/05 Harrisburg, PA @ The MakeSpace
3/06 Philadelphia, PA @ Kung Fu Necktie +
3/15 - 3/20 - Austin, TX @ SXSW
3/23 - 3/27 - Boise, Id @ Treefort Music Festival

+ w/ Sunflower Bean - NME.com