HONEYSUCK [Holyoke]
MEMBERS | Sam Chaplin [vocals], Kaya Severson [guitar], Ally Einbinder [bass], Marc Candilore [drums]
LAST SPOTTED LIVE BY THE PHOENIX: | Practicing in their Holyoke basement
DOWNLOAD | Self-recorded demo, All Your Lipsticks Are Bombs to Us, released April 2011: honeysuck.tumblr.com
PHOTOS: "Curmudgeon + Get Laid + Honeysuck + The Inhalers" by Ali Donohue
Marc Candilore and Ally Einbinder also play in Outdates, a power-punk trio raised on the Minutemen, Hüsker Dü, and the Replacements. When they decided to start Honeysuck with roommate Sam Chaplin — a Smith College classmate of Einbinder's whose vocals draw from "Lydia Lunch, post-punk, and girl groups" — the result was just as that band's name implies: grungy noise punk evocative of '90s riot grrrl with shouty, New Wave-inspired hardcore vocals.
After a songwriting hiatus this summer spent searching for a new guitarist, they found Kaya Severson, who grew up with Candilore in Pittsfield. Says Einbinder, "I used a lot of my time at Smith as an excuse to do independent research projects on women in punk. Looking at how women have participated in punk, looking at all of these old issues of Maximumrocknroll. . . . There's a lot of interesting stuff, like if women are in a band, they usually are the singer or bass player, rarely the drummer."
Two months after they formed Honeysuck in February, Megan Minior appropriately invited Honeysuck to play Ladyfest Easthampton. But although Einbinder and Chaplin are feminist activists, that mindset doesn't define Honeysuck. "We're definitely not a political band," says Einbinder. "We're not singing about feminism or anything. We both have backgrounds in feminist activism, so we have our beliefs."
"But Honeysuck songs, right now at least, are about really gossipy, funny things," adds Chaplin. "Like shitty ex-boyfriends."
