Black Honey: Brighton's Retro Rock Band, Written and Directed
Photo (2015): Paul Hudson / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/). Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black_Honey_at_the_Garage_(21502457140).jpg
"I think that we'll always be retro and we'll always be a rock band, whether or not that's cool," Black Honey's Izzy Baxter Phillips (Izzy Bee) told Atwood Magazine in 2021. "I don't give a damn, this is who we are." The Brighton band's "Run for Cover" is on U-Rock®'s WURN-dB Underground playlist.
Brighton, 2014
According to Wikipedia, Black Honey are a four-piece indie rock band formed in Brighton in 2014. The line-up is Phillips (lead vocals, guitar), Chris Ostler (guitar), Tommy Taylor (bass) and Alex Woodward (drums), who replaced Tom Dewhurst. Wikipedia says Phillips and Ostler had known each other for a decade, and that earlier versions of the band went by "Whats Your Vice?" and then "Kill Moon."
Wikipedia dates Black Honey's official start to June 2014, with the song "Sleep Forever." A self-titled debut EP followed that November.
Building it live
Wikipedia records a run of festival dates and support slots. It lists a BBC Radio 1 session for Huw Stephens in 2015, a UK tour supporting Catfish and the Bottlemen in 2016, and a 2017 UK and European arena tour supporting Royal Blood. The same account says the band were on the cover of NME in April 2019, and that the video for "Midnight" was nominated at the Berlin Music Video Awards that year.
Two charting albums
Wikipedia says the self-titled debut album came out on 21 September 2018 and reached No. 33 on the UK Albums Chart. The second album, Written & Directed, followed in March 2021. Atwood Magazine reported that it "debuted in the UK Top Ten at #7." The magazine notes it was released on Foxfive Records.
Atwood's Dimitra Gurduiala called the second record "a record of pure energy, a true work of art both musically and cinematically." She heard in it echoes of films "from Kill Bill to Promising Young Woman, via Mulholland Drive, Heathers, and Jennifer's Body," films with "a female lead that certainly does not go unnoticed." Asked what film it would soundtrack, Phillips said "a 1960s inspired Grindhouse movie where all the protagonists are women," somewhere "between Kubrick, Tarantino, and Wes Anderson."
"Run for Cover"
The song on our playlist comes from Written & Directed. Phillips told Atwood that its line "I wanna be a favourite mistake" connects to "I'm your favourite mistake" in "Summer '92." She said it's a thread she has explored in other unreleased songs too: "the idea of being with someone that is bad for you is a mistake – but you can't stop loving it."
She also told the magazine that brass was a new challenge on the record. On mistakes in general, she quoted Bowie's advice that "you should always try and be just out of your depth with everything you do creatively."
Why it matters on U-Rock®
Black Honey earned their place the hard way, through years of support tours, and took an independent-minded rock record into the UK top 10. "Run for Cover" is on the WURN-dB Underground playlist.
U-Rock® play data: no plays logged in the BROADCAST or CORE histories (2026-07-02 to 2026-10-12). The band appears on the WURN-dB Underground Spotify playlist.
Sources
- Wikipedia, "Black Honey (band)" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Honey_(band)
- Atwood Magazine, "Interview: Black Honey Empower with Cinematic Sophomore Album 'Written & Directed'" (Dimitra Gurduiala, 21 Apr 2021) — https://atwoodmagazine.com/bhwd-black-honey-interview-2021-written-and-directed/
- Spotify, "WURN-dB Underground" playlist (embed) — https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/0bZ0fCQCL7IkKfqcQycsMI
