Dirty Honey photographed at Good Times at Davey Wayne's in Los Angeles in March.
Dan PrakopcykBack in January, Dirty Honey singer Marc Labelle was wearing a vintage-looking Aerosmith T-shirt onstage at Nashville’s Basement East while belting out the classic-rockers’ 1976 hit “Last Child.” It was a bit on the nose, but that’s the unabashed appeal of this L.A.-based band, a Seventies/Eighties rock outfit that isn’t afraid to wear its influences — quite literally — on their sleeve.
Dirty Honey came together in 2017 when Labelle, a New York native, met guitarist John Notto at the singer’s regular covers gig at a Santa Monica bar. Notto had moved to Los Angeles from Maine on a mission to match the success of his favorite band, Guns N’ Roses. Labelle was struck by his ambition. “He seemed like a true rock & roll personality and somebody I should be pursuing a dream with in an original band,” he says.
Labelle ditched the covers show and, with Notto, bassist Justin Smolian and drummer Corey Coverstone, began writing original material like the moody rocker “Fire Away” and the smoldering ballad “Down the Road.” The quartet settled on the name Dirty Honey — a Sunset Strip-ready moniker that came to Labelle after hearing Robert Plant talk about the Honeydrippers on Howard Stern — and started to fine-tune their live show in the clubs.
“There’s a respect that’s earned there, starting from zero,” Labelle says. “A lot of the problems with [singers] on American Idol or The Voice is they haven’t done the clubs. They may have this booming, unbelievable voice, but they have no presence and no connection to the songs they’re singing.”
Onstage, and on Dirty Honey’s self-titled, self-released debut EP, Labelle evokes the wails of Plant and Steven Tyler, with hints of Chris Cornell, while Notto channels his heroes Brian May and Slash, weaving in some greasy slide. Labelle admits the band made a stab at a more alternative-leaning sound with “Fire Away” before embracing their simple guitar-and-amps setup. “We were trying to push the envelope of rock & roll a little too hard and trying to break what we thought was new ground, rather than doing what came natural to us,” he says.
Following their instincts proved to be a good idea. Their breakneck, bluesy debut single, “When I’m Gone,” went to Number One on Active Rock radio in late September, according to Alpha Data; they’ve opened shows for GN’R and the Who; and they’ve racked up more than 14 million streams to date. Like flies to honey, dirty or otherwise, the band is attracting a fan base that’s been underserved: Many of the shows on their headlining winter tour sold out, and they moved about $8,000 a night at the merch table — impressive for an independent act that plays ballsy, old-school rock & roll, not the most youthful of genres.
“I heard that a million times: ‘Rock & roll doesn’t stream.’ But rock bands sell a lot of fucking tickets and merch,” says Labelle, who doesn’t think a record label has much to offer his grassroots band. “We’ve been on the road with a lot of great artists and spoken to a lot of rock stars I really admire, and none of them have ever told me that they absolutely adore their label.”
Dirty Honey photographed at Good Times at Davey Wayne’s in Los Angeles in March.
Dan Prakopcyk for Rolling Stone
Dirty Honey aren’t going it alone. They’re currently doing pre-production for their debut full-length album with producer Nick DiDia, who as Brendan O’Brien’s longtime engineer cut his teeth on LPs by Pearl Jam and Rage Against the Machine. The band flew to DiDia’s studio in Byron Bay, Australia, when they recorded their EP (“It’s really a cost thing,” Labelle says. “Studios in L.A. are really expensive”), but because of the pandemic, they’re collaborating now via Zoom.
Labelle hopes the band’s upcoming album will reignite the rock revival that looked to be catching fire three years ago with groups like Greta Van Fleet and Rival Sons. “I thought there’d be a little more true rock & roll popping up, but it’s still pretty much slim pickings,” he says. “We’re happy to plant our foot in there.”
He’s sure that if you play loud rock chords, the fans will come. Just look around, Labelle says.
“You can go out on the Sunset Strip or walk around Nashville and there are people all over town wearing Rolling Stones, the Who, and Led Zeppelin shirts,” he says. “There is a very visible thirst for rock & roll.”
ON THE RISE
Ollie Byrd, a musician blending 1980’s new wave sounds with Hard Rock, shows how his musical output mirrors the different stages of his life through genres that mix, match, and mold with one another. His latest single, “the sun will bring the day again,” serves as a time capsule as one of his first written works, finally making its way to release.
From Ollie’s earliest memories of hearing music on the radio or the spin of his mom’s records, he recalls the dopamine rush that music gave him, a feeling he still experiences to this day. He shares that watching his heroes perform was profoundly inspiring, and with such resonance, he eventually felt compelled to do it for himself.
He recalls first riffing alongside recorded works, jamming with a friend who had a drumset in the 9th grade, to forming high school and college bands inspired by the 90’s grunge era. His first recordings were through cassette tape decks from stereos with a dinky microphone, that captured that raw and unpolished experimental stage. After reading an iconic Guitar Magazine article in which Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page shared insights into his creative techniques, innovative recording methods, and unique riffs, Ollie became further inspired to produce, write, and hone all the skills needed to make music on his own.
With the introduction of the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) to mainstream users, Ollie recalls this laid the framework to make his first record. Influenced by Missing Persons, Blondie, and U2 (especially The Joshua Tree era), as well as Pink Floyd and The Police, Ollie’s music fuses the boldness of macho hard rock, bands like Mötley Crüe and Def Leppard, and the new wave, hypnotic sounds of The Cure and Joy Division for a unique and unusual sonic combination.
As his music has morphed over the years, Ollie gained an underground following with his album “Barrel of Fun.” He shared how much he enjoyed building out each track with hard rock guitars and simplistic new wave baselines that allowed him to be precise and intentional in shaping the overall tone, which has often been referred to as lo-fi emo.
When asked about the tone of his upcoming single, “the sun will bring the day again,” Ollie mentions that not only was it the first song he ever wrote, but he wanted to preserve its simplicity and bring that timeless style full circle. The track, a bittersweet reflection on love lost, tells the story of a girl he was once in love with and the devastation when the years they spent together ended. In the lyrics, “I know that you won’t be back this way again,” the song served as a pathway to coming to terms with the loss and being able to move on. To put it simply, Ollie jokes, “Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy cries.” He shared that it took a while for him to actually record the track, as he didn’t have much of a vision beyond wanting to stay true to its rawness. He detuned the electric guitar for an extra-low sound to preserve the authentic feel of where and how it was originally created. (In his bedroom, alone).
As he’s evolved through his music styles, creative outputs, and mental states over the years, he wanted to revisit the mellow, minimalistic feeling. Ollie also sees this music as a potential bridge beyond an angsty, grungy musical past and corresponding fan base, into a new lighter time of life, music, and listeners. Ollie reflects on a unique element from the original version of the song: a high-up fingerpicking technique, inspired by Van Halen’s “Little Guitars.” This staccato right-hand plucking style was unusual for his artistry at the time but gave the song a distinct character.
When asked if there were any recent revisions, he explained that one of his favorite parts of resurfacing the track was recording new guitars inspired by Brian Eno’s Here Come the Warm Jets. He describes overdriving the board, burning up the gain, and creating a distortion-heavy hum that added extra texture to the acoustic song, much like Eno’s experimental and ambient elements over traditional rock instrumentation. Lastly, Ollie added powerful drums to the track, noting, "You don’t usually hear that—acoustic, hard electric, and drums all together."
Parallel to how Ollie bridges contrasting musical elements from different genres and ends of the spectrum, he shares a parting sentiment with fans and readers: "Seek to overcome division. Despite the polarizing narratives that are all around us, seek to find connections over division. Keep looking for the patience to meet your fellow humans, and love your neighbors.”
Listen to “the sun will bring the day again” here.
Follow Ollie Byrd on social media for updates on new music coming out this year!
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