Get To Know... HONESTY • Neu • DIY Magazine

Hello and welcome back to DIY’s introducing feature, Get To Know… which aims to get you a little bit closer to the buzziest acts that have been catching our eye as of late, and working out what makes them tick.

This time, we’re catching up with a Leeds outfit whose essence could perhaps be distilled down into two key tenets: experimentation, and emotion. More of a collective than a band in the traditional sense, HONESTY’s four core members (George Mitchell, Matt Peel, Josh Lewis and Imi Marston) adopt a collaborative, open-door approach to their work, creating soundscapes which are club-like in production and instrumentation, and yet song-adjacent in structure and delivery. To mark the release of their debut album ‘U R HERE’, we sit down with the group for an illuminating and, er, honest quickfire chat…

Describe your music to us in non-musical terms.
It’s like walking home alone at 3am inebriated, somewhere between feeling euphoric and lost. It’s the traffic lights through the rain-streaked nightbus windows as the drunkards scream. It’s the moment just before that ‘something’ happens.

You’re based up in Leeds, and the past couple of years have seen the city’s guitar music scene really thrive. But can you tell us a bit more about what’s going on there in terms of electronic music? Are there any particular artists/venues/promoters etc you’d recommend?
Leeds has always had a strong electronic and club scene, but it’s been overlooked in favour of its guitar history. HONESTY is more drawn to the underground spaces, the late-night energy - places like Wharf Chambers, which has a really forward-thinking booking policy, or the West Indian Centre, home to Subdub, where you can actually feel the bass in your chest. There’s also Belgrave and Headrow House, which bring through some great electronic acts.

Really though, Leeds’ strength is in how diverse the scene is - you’ll hear garage, jungle, dub, and ambient all in the same night as guitar music. It’s that kind of freedom that inspires us. 2 E’s and L.S.D makes L.E.E.D.S.

Your debut album ‘U R HERE’ represents a striking reinterpretation of club music, with tracks that consider both the personal and political with real nuance. What is it about more electronic-based soundscapes that, for you, lend them to this sort of emotional expression?
Electronic music, at its core, is about tension and release. It builds worlds without words, which means you can layer emotions into the sonics in a way that’s more abstract than in traditional acoustic songwriting. A single synth note can hold euphoria, nostalgia, or dread—it’s all about the context.

For us, club music isn’t just about movement, it’s about introspection. We like the idea of music that works in both extremes - either in a packed club at 4am or alone, headphones on, sat on a bus at 4am. A lot of what we do is about that duality, how these moments of elation can sit right alongside something deeply personal or melancholic.

“Electronic music, at its core, is about tension and release. It builds worlds without words.”

Talk us through a perfect day in the life of HONESTY.
Wake up late. Slightly hungover / slightly not. Then straight to the studio - no plan, just seeing where things go. Some days, that means spending hours on a single synth sound, other days, it’s making something in 10 minutes that just works.

At some point, there’ll be a weird tangent - maybe watching old meme videos, maybe talking about UFOs / conspiracies. Then a late-night session, tweaking tracks, layering vocals, getting lost in it. And, if it’s a really good day, it probably ends with a basement club, getting sonically obliterated by bass.

Perhaps more than most bands, your live show relies on the interplay between its audio and visual elements. Can you talk us through how these two facets of HONESTY inform each other? Do they emerge in tandem, or separately?
The visuals are becoming part of the music when you see our live 3D AV set. From the start, we knew we wanted HONESTY to feel like an immersive experience rather than a traditional ‘gig’. The way we see it, music should feel like stepping into a world, and our visuals help build that. We work closely with *UNCANNY on the music videos and we then take it and develop it further alongside the live music. It’s all interconnected - like a feedback loop between sound and image.

If you could take one album, one book, and one film to a desert island, what would you pick (and why)?
Album: Any Red Hot Chilli Peppers album. Soul purpose just to burn them.
Book: The Red Book, by Carl Jung. Because if you’re going to be alone on an island, you might as well go deep into the subconscious.
Film: Come and See. Visually overwhelming, existentially terrifying, but completely hypnotic. And if you’re stuck on an island, might as well have something to keep you in check.

Finally, DIY are coming round for dinner—what are you making?
We only cook beats. So, that’s all you’re having! Enjoy ;)

‘U R HERE’ is out now via Partisan Records.

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