A continent apart, brought
together by music. Just Like
Honey is bringing back the
classic 90’s alt sound.
From New York to their new home base in Germany, The Reverbnation top pick is
the 90’s-esq alt-quartet Just Like Honey. They are making strides in preparation
for a HUGE 2018 full length release. RTFX reports.
Just Like Honey is:
Darlene Jonasson (Vocals)
Patrick Le Mar (Guitar)
Bianca Yang (Bass)
Steve Le Mar (Drums)
With
the
band
being
bi-continental, how did Just
Like Honey get together and
how does it work now?
PATRICK: That is a rather complicated story
because there are 4 people. Two people are
from North America and two people are Ger-
man American family. Darlene, our singer, is
from Canada. Her dad is Canadian. Her mom
is Swedish. She even speaks three languages.
I think she speaks them almost perfectly. She
does much better than I do. We partly live in
Brooklyn and we have a rehearsal space there
even. But, currently, we are in Europe. Our
drummer, Steve, who is my half-brother, is
French. We have a mutual mother and she’s
French and my dad is American and his dad is
French. So, it’s a very complicated story.
So, yeah, it’s rather complicated. And to make
it even more complicated, our bass player, Bi-
anca, is Korean. She fluently speaks German
and English and probably Korean but I can’t
judge on that because I can’t speak Korean.
She was born in Germany.
How do you guys get to be
able to record a track?
PATRICK: I think we are doing it in the way
that most bands do it. We are not continents
away. We are together wherever we are,
whether it’s Europe or the United States.
We are all there in one rehearsal space. I
write the songs. I do it on my own on my
acoustic guitar in my bedroom. Actually, I
think that sounds classical for a band and
then I bring songs along to the rehearsal
room. I show it to the others. They have a
hard time because I have to sing at the mo-
ment and I’m not at good at singing. I can
do some background singing which is what
I do in the band. But to introduce the song
to the others I need to sing. I have to be
the lead singer for one day probably and
then we start working on it some more. Ev-
erybody contributes something to the song,
obviously. In the end, it’s a mutual thing.
Although I also play guitar but there is
some control on a certain extent. The re-
cording in my apartment, it’s a home studio
and it’s quite nice but for the drumming it’s
a problem. The neighbors don’t like it too
much but when it comes down to recording
a record, we go to a professional studio. We
just recorded our new album here in Ger-
many. That’s one reason why we are here.
It’s also because Darlene needs to finish
her college studies.
You talked about a full
release. When do you
think that’s going to be
available?
PATRICK: Hopefully in January of next
year but maybe a little earlier. Just today,
I saw the front cover and it looks great but
she’s slow on the vocals still. It will prob-
ably take another couple of weeks. As soon
as she is ready, we are ready because ev-
erything has been recorded and the mas-
ter CD’s are sitting here on my shelf. I just
need to send it to the record company. So,
hopefully, January or February. I think that
will be the case. I’ll let you know.
Just Like Honey has such a classic 90’s alt
sound, is the style something you always have
in the back of your mind??
PATRICK: : I think it is what you call organic because it happens. It just
happens. Obviously, we love a lot of bands from the 90’s. Some are British,
and some are American, too. We listen a lot to that stuff. Also, there’s a lot of
bands from the 80’s as well. If you keep listening to this kind of music for 20
years now, it influences you. We have other influences, obviously, because we
are not all the same. We all have different influences but in the end, it turns out
what it is. But, we did not make up a concept and say these are the songs we
want to have. It’s more like a random generated thing and it happens that we
sound like that. I assume that maybe this is not the answer you expected but I
don’t have any other answers.
Continued on NEXT PAGE: TAKE ME THERE NOW!
JLH Facebook
JLH Website
JLH ReverbNation
Page 47