Pale Honey are duo Tuva Lodmark and Nelly Daltrey who play “minimalistic rock” they take to the stage at goNORTH twice, first for the Fringe at The Eagle and then The Market Bar on the 4th of June at 945pm. We managed to catch a few words before they make the trip across from Gothenburg.
You were relatively recently called The Tapes, where did the name Pale Honey come from and why the change?
We played as The Tapes for a couple of years, the two of us (Tuva and Nelly) together with different bass players coming and going. We saw ourselves as a trio, but we never really found the third member who shared our vision of how our music should sound. It really kept holding us back from growing as a band and reach out to people who we wanted to share our music with.
We finally came to a point where we felt that we should just go for being a duo, since it’s always been us two all along who had done all the writing of the songs, and pushing the band forward. That’s when we took the name Pale Honey, it was about rediscovering ourselves and how we make music. But although we consider ourselves as a duo, we always get backed up by a bass player live. So on stage you always see us as a trio.
You have been described as “minimalistic rock”, who do you think are your main influences and who do you think are your peers are?
We both listen to a lot of different music, and there are a few artists and bands that we have in common, it’s mainly rock or indie music. Else we just grab our instruments and play our hearts out in our own minimalistic way. In the end we end up with a few hidden gems that we decide to keep working on. If there’s anything we get compared to it’s probably The White Stripes but without the insane intensity. It’s an awesome band to get related to, but we think that it’s because of our setup more than our sound.
How difficult is it for a band to move forward in Sweden?
As everywhere there are many bands here in Sweden, so if you’re small band you can forget getting anything else than a few beers for a gig most of the times unless you create your own event. We always had an easy time getting gigs but the payment doesn’t always happen. It’s cool to get the experience standing on stage live and playing for new people every night.
There’s a big music interest here in Sweden, especially in Gothenburg. If you keep playing live, you’re bound stumble across some good contacts. Some are really helpful when it comes to finding gigs, or anything else you might be needing help with. For us it might feel like a smooth ride compared to others situation right now, but there’s years of hard work and practice behind it. Nonetheless, our small but growing success is a great happiness to us.
How important is the release and response to debut EP “Fiction” to you both?
It’s our absolute first release ever so it’s very exciting for us. We’ve been working hard for this to happen so it’s a big pleasure to see our EP on Spotify and so on – and getting such wonderful response. We like to think of the EP as an appetizer to our debut album, if people like this EP they’ll get their mind blown when the album comes out.
How is the progress of the album coming along, is the plan still to release it this year?
Yes! The plan is to release the debut album this autumn. We were recently in Paris recording four songs for the album. The rest of the songs will be recorded in September here in Gothenburg. Travelling to Paris was a great experience and we’re unbelievably proud of the songs that were recorded there. We can’t wait to get into the studio again with our excellent producer Anders Lagerfors and create some more magical, sparkling stuff.
How are you feeling about coming across to play at goNORTH?
It feels effin’ awesome. We’ve been longing and yearning to cross the borders of Sweden to play our music, and it feels like the perfect start for the summer. We look forward coming to Inverness and rock the socks out of the city. And drinking whisky of course.
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