Honesty: the innovative Leeds collective crafting a new gig-going experience
Leeds is fertile ground for music. It’s home to iconic independent venues like Brudenell Social Club and Mabgate Bleach, while scenes ranging from dub to goth have flourished among the red bricks over the decades. Honesty, an electronic collective who call the area home, have strong roots in Leeds’ music scene, but their innovative approach to creating and performing has quickly taken them far beyond the walls of the bustling city.
Formed in 2020, Honesty didn’t release any material until 2023, a time when they mysteriously emerged on Instagram to tease two songs, ‘U&I’ and ‘Tune In Tune Out’. The buzz around the group was fast, though, and since then, they’ve consistently released music, including their recent debut album, U R Here, a sprawling blend of genres that refuses to conform to one concrete sound.
The collective emerged when Josh Lewis and Matt Peel (who can also be found working as an engineer and producer at The Nave) decided they wanted to keep making music with each other – having worked together before – but in a totally new way. “I think we all were pretty set on not doing anything that was band-y again,” Lewis tells Far Out ahead of Honesty’s gig at Belgrave. “We were all jaded with the standard band thing a little bit, so we just got knee-deep into experimenting as much as possible.”
The pair recruited George Mitchell (former vocalist of Eagulls) and Imi Marston, and quickly established themselves as the kind of act who welcomes collaboration with other musicians. They’ve featured artists like Dry Cleaning’s Florence Shaw, rapper Kosi Tides, and singer Liam Bailey, to name a few, allowing their music to become a space for fluidity and community. “A lot of the collaboration stuff was just a bit of a stab in the dark, just sending tunes to people being like, ‘Do you want to work on this?’” Mitchell explains.
This ethos of community and collaboration is key to Honesty’s work. The group hope to “inspire people to not just be stuck in one genre,” says Mitchell, who, according to Lewis, has always wanted their music to be “like passing the aux around the party.”
For Mitchell, being in a collective with a revolving door of collaborators – allowing everything from rap vocals to ambient synths to seep into their work – allows for much more creative freedom and longevity as a unit. “Often you see bands who do one album and then everyone expects that again, and then if they start to differ, it’s all like ‘I don’t like it anymore.’ But doing this sort of stuff means that you can progress and do different things”.
So, while Honesty have their core members, their openness to working with others has allowed them to craft a unique set-up that removes the idea of individualism, such as having a recognisable frontperson. In fact, when Honesty stepped on the stage a few hours later, I could hardly see them. A semi-transparent screen covered the front of the stage, allowing for visuals and words to be projected in a way that felt more like an art installation than your standard gig.
Despite their growing reputation as one of the most interesting live acts around, Mitchell admits that “we never even thought that we would do [the album] live,” but they figured it was worth trying because, as Peel states, “You need to do it to communicate” – even if he does prefer being in the studio.
Knowing that they’re not exactly “flamboyant” performers, “we wanted to make it so that it was a really immersive experience,” says Lewis. “It takes the music into that cinematic place that we’ve always had in mind when we’re making it.”
“We would be writing a piece of music and we would have some, like, fucking volcanoes exploding or some shit, and be like, how does this match this?”
Josh Lewis, Honesty
Visual influences have proved to be a huge part of Honesty’s creative process, with Lewis revealing how “we would be writing a piece of music, and we would have some, like, fucking volcanoes exploding or some shit, and be like, how does this match this?” In one instance, something they wrote made them think of a Hollywood soundtrack, so “We just put Batman on.”
In Honesty’s world, visuals and sounds complement – or contrast – one another, making for a fun live experience that is both alluring and different. With their late-night Belgrave show, which took place in celebration of their album launch, they made the night as seamless and immersive as possible, with DJs playing in between and after live sets from electronic duo Turnspit and Honesty, while projections were cast across the stage and over one of the walls. “Everyone likes to go to a club and then everyone likes to go to a gig – why not mish it, mash it all together?” Mitchell states.
Mish and mashing is perhaps the overall ethos of the group, whose location in Leeds, home to a vibrant and varied scene, has certainly informed their work. Mitchell describes the city’s musical landscape as a “weird melting pot” that has “always had something come out that’s different and stands out on its own”. With its mixture of students and locals, Mitchell believes that the city’s unique architecture – “all the basements” – allows for a “free space to create”. It’s also got lots of great venues that welcome unique lineups, too, such as Lewis’ pick, Wharf Chambers, where creativity is championed, no matter how strange.
The city’s creative spaces have given Honesty the opportunity to emerge as a vital act to catch live, and they’ll be supporting fellow Yorkshire act Bdrmm in March on selected dates of their UK/EU tour. Even if Honesty once doubted playing their material live, they’ve found being on the road with each other to be one of the most fulfilling parts of the group: “Riding around Europe is great, just with these guys and Kosi, and being stupid together,” says Lewis. That and, according to Peel, “The bit in the studio when you get something good – I think that’s the best bit.”
