Long live rock and roll: Why you should be paying attention to Honest Work
The sadness of watching a band succumb to the growing pressures of modern music will never subside, not at least until a long-term solution presents itself.
The growing difficulty to make a living out of this medium has seen some of our country’s most exciting prospects pack up their guitar boxes and call time for good, but one band that cut a little deeper for me in recent years was Saloon Dion.
As bastions of the Bristol scene, they played regularly in the venues that I bounced between as a wide-eyed, excited music fan. More than anyone, the Dion were leaning into Britpop influences in a way that felt contextual and exciting, through the lens of contemporary angular indie. A string of triumphant shows naturally followed, none more special than their performance at Forwards Festival in 2023, and I thought stardom awaited.
But the sharp teeth of the industry snatched at the band, and I was left dejected at yet another unnecessary casualty. However, soon after, I was buoyed by the news that Saloon Dion’s guitarist Tom Simpkins had saddled back up and formed a new band, Honest Work, with Curtis Connor, Matthew Osborne and Finn Fox.
In a world of post-punk yada yada and late-stage chitter chatter, Honest Work are here to just deliver a bona fide take on rock and roll. “What I think we all wanted, when it first started, was to be pure rock,” they told Clunk, adding, “Because no one was doing pure, straight down the line rock anymore. We wanted a sound that was straight down the middle and raw”.
“Over time, our sound has developed, but at the beginning, we just wanted to blow people’s faces off with a wall of sound.”
While they’ve only released one single to date, ‘Horses For Meat’, it’s brimming with the sort of palpable energy and angst you’d expect from a band hoping to salvage the sanctity of good old-fashioned rock and roll, while quietly hinting that there is a lot more to come.
While there might not be a whole lot to listen to from Honest Work right now, there are plenty of chances to see them live. Despite the ever-present dangers that resulted in my heartbreak when Simpkins’ previous band split, Honest Work is thrusting itself into the coal face, playing every DIY venue and festival they can, spreading the resistant word of rock and roll.
More recently, they played Rotterdam’s Left of the Dial, where Far Out caught a first-hand glimpse of the rock and roll friction they were generating on stage.
“They feel like a polished force,” Far Out’s Lucy Harbron recalled, adding, “From the energy of their crowd, which seemed to collapse into one giant mosh pit, you’d think that the band have been going for years, slaving away to build a following that is dedicated and locked in. Instead, it’s just a strong reminder of the power of a good band with good songs filled with good energy, mimicking the festival’s ethos.”
When new bands emerge, tapping into something nostalgic, there’s an obsession with contextualising it with whatever subgenre might be on trend, but with culture yearning for something more connected and a mooted return to analog beckoning us all, Honest Work could just be the band ready made to soundtrack those times with a brand of music that at its best, just simply feels like rock and roll.
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