HUNNY guide us through their latest album ‘New Planet Heaven’, out now via Epitaph.
BOTHERING
Jason: “This song kind of sets the theme for the record as it mostly harps on anxiety and how we deal
with it. Ideally finding solace in people close to u who accept u for who u are and all ur bullshit
and vice versa. I always like when records start with a kind of drawn out mellow bit and then
smack u in the face. I like to think we nailed that. I wrote the whole intro on a piano in logic and
then accidentally dropped the midi onto a track that had a bass guitar plugin and ended up
liking the sound. I got a free vinyl for anyone that can do a bass cover of it, i’d love to see if it’s
physically possible to play.”
SIXTEEN STITCHES
Jason: “This was originally one of jakes demos. That first verse is about a time he split his chin open
while we were surfing one morning. A few of us really were making bets on how many stitches
he would need. Obviously it turned out to be sixteen which worked great for my love of
alliteration.”
Jake: “Just wanted to add that I realized in retrospect a lot of what I was writing at the time was about
my penchant for high highs and low lows, and what I was learning about myself and my
penchant for leaning into self pity during moments of duress. See also: nothing amazing
happens.”
ACTION —> REACTION
Jason: “A song about fighting with ur partner and little arguments that snowball into existential crises.
the internal struggle of being kind of set in ur ways and wanting to change for someone. The
radio in the beginning of the track was actually an accident. The guitar amp was picking up the
frequency while we were recording and it ended up being just what the song needed. The audio
is all scrambled up on streaming (thanks to a c&d from lafc) but on the physical version of the
record u can hear it’s a live play-by-play of a Los Angeles football club game. Our manager loves
them and they were losing so obviously we kept it.”
BIG STAR
Jason: “Another one about getting out of ur own way. Sometimes just existing every day can be tough.
Every now and again i’ll get stuck in a rut for weeks mentally – just feeling off and out of it. This
song serves maybe as a reminder to myself to shake shit off and get out of that headspace. ur
better than u give yourself credit for. ur a big star. ur something supersonic. The vocal melody in
the chorus starts with an octave jump like in “somewhere over the rainbow” and i think there’s
gotta be a metaphor in there, right? I still can’t believe Joey was able to play this drum beat i
programmed. what a beast.”
89CC
Jason: “A little love song where riding my motorcycle with my wife on the back is a metaphor for
commitment and candor. Huge thanks to our boy Ben Mcpeek for the dueling sax/clarinet solo
he ripped on this one. At the end of the song u can hear him playing until he literally runs out of
air. That’s me audibly laughing out of sheer stoke during his take.”
MY OWN AGE
Jake: “During the pandemic I had a bit of a reckoning with myself and my health. I’m not old by any
stretch of the imagination but prioritizing my physical wellness and self reflecting a lot allowed
me to see the distance that I’ve come from the mistakes of my youth. I think maturing is largely
owning your faults, and there are some elders in my life that I wish would do the same. This was
almost exactly the demo, i think we recorded jays vocal on top, and it’s sort of a meditation on
what it might be like to reflect on life if you miss opportunities and avoid responsibility for your
actions.”
RING IN UR EAR
Jake: “This one came together scarily fast, I sat down and played some chords and the first verse and
the chorus were done in like 10 minutes. I have a penchant for nostalgia, I’m kind of obsessed
with trying to capture that feeling of fondness you develop for youth only in looking at it
retroactively. I was largely thinking about when we started this band and our entire lives were
shared and committed to spending time together and going deep and sharing our dreams. It’s
my love letter to the boys and how they gave me confidence to step in to my own as a person
and musician.”
Jason: “We were beyond stoked to get JCP on this song. We’re all huge fans of Motion City Soundtrack if u
couldn’t tell. he immediately understood the vibe of this track and really elevated the song. big
shouts out.”
SOLO
Jason: “Just a (perhaps not-so) obvious love song. maybe u like this person so much ur smothering
them. maybe all u wanna do is make them happy and be with them all the time. maybe they
wanna call u crazy for that. maybe u just want them to call u back. this song is in drop d tuning
for all the real rockers \m/”
NOTHING AMAZING HAPPENS
Jake: “Again with reflectioon on traumatic incidents, when we were in studio one of the demos I had we
realized was kind of about two incidents, a time I was robbed at gun point and the time I came
home to a stranger having broken into our apartment. The former was a gang initiation of a
minor, and the latter incident was a person who was mentally unwell and in the shower and had
worn my wife’s clothes. Despite both occurances being highly unusual and unfortunate I had a
huge amount of empathy for these people that had been so obviously failed. Lyrically and
musically I think we wanted to highlight how something like this seems so bizzare and so
ordinary to many, and that these systemic issues are rarely addressed in any meaningful way.”
Jason: “there is a not so well hidden flcl reference here for all my anime heads.”
ALL MY LUCK
Jason: “Music to wear a bucket hat to. we’ve been referring to this one as the “wife guy song”. this one
was another one of jakes demos. he and i got married last year (not to each other
unfortunately) and were just in a zone to write a gushy corny love song. we were aiming for
radio dept and it ended up more like sugar ray but i’m not mad at it. i usually don’t like to toot
my own horn but the harmonies on this one are pretty wild ngl.”
KICK UR TEETH IN
Jason: “Headline reads “hunny trade in their electric guitars for electric pianos”. more words about
being insecure and paranoid in one way or another and getting stuck in ur head. klaus conrad
defined apophenia as the unmotivated seeing of connections accompanied by a specific feeling
of abnormal meaningfulness. take from that what u will. bonus points to whoever knows the
sample in the intro.”
PALM READER
Jason: “The chorus of this song originally had some emo lyric about cars and headlights and some vague
reference to outer-space. i realized that a lot of stuff i’d written in my life had similar imagery so
i figured maybe i’d make fun of myself for that instead of actually doing it. two birds with one
stone kinda thing. the intro is the first take from my original home demo. u can hear my dogs
collar jingling as he’s scratching himself next to me while i was recording vocals.”
