By Aaron Small
Mayhem & Revelry Live is a true representation of what you experience when you go to a Dirty Honey concert. Set for release on February 21st via the band’s own label, Dirt Records, this terrific live album captures the unique energy and endless spirit of vocalist Marc LaBelle, guitarist John Notto, bassist Justin Smolian, and drummer Jaydon Bean on stage in front of their fans.
16 songs were recorded over the course of the 60-date Can’t Find The Brakes headline tour which saw Dirty Honey play in North America, The UK, and Europe throughout 2023-24. On Mayhem & Revelry Live, LaBelle shouts out certain cities, specifically: Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Waterloo in North America. Followed by London, Milan, and Paris for The UK and Europe. However, those aren’t the only locations utilized for this live album, as six-stringer John Notto attests to. “No, there’s a lot more. There’s a lot of cities from each side. I think those are just the ones he happened to call out. In other words, it wasn’t strategic to have those callouts be on the record. We really just chose whatever performance of the song happened to be the best representation we could offer. I believe we are notating on the actual physical release which city each song is from.”
Mayhem & Revelry starts with a bang as Dirty Honey rips into “Won’t Take Me Alive”. “It was not my idea to track list it that way, but that’s a great kickoff,” admits Notto. “For the guitar guys, I hope that they can hear my growth in terms of how I interpret my own song. When I listen to that live version of the riff, I actually wish I recorded it that way. I think I recorded it a little bit more staccato and funky on the actual studio version. But on that live version, it’s just raw and loaded with rock ‘n roll cavalier swag and reckless abandon.”
The live version of “Won’t Take Me Alive” benefits from that extra adrenaline which naturally occurs when the guys are having fun on stage, living in the moment. “Yes,” agrees Notto. “And I think that was the challenge of making this live record and doing it the way we did it, which was to record every show and not make a concerted effort to say, ‘Hey, these three cities are the live record.’ The challenge that presented was, we had to find performances where we had that spirit without a lot of mistakes. That is to say, we don’t make the kind of mistakes live that ruin a show, but when you start recording and putting mics on everything, and looking at things under a microscope, those mistakes seem a little more glaring on tape. Plus, we’re analyzing ourselves; we’re our toughest critics so… That was the challenge, to find those performances where we had the swag, but we also had a decent amount of exacting in terms of the parts and how the song goes.”
So many live albums in the past were doctored in the studio with bands doing touch-ups or overdubs to get rid of their mistakes. That doesn’t appear to be the case on Mayhem & Revelry Live. “Yeah. Here and there, there might be… if somebody accidentally bumped their instrument during a gap, we might mute that. But nobody went in and did overdub sessions. So, the performance is how we played it. I think what you’re referring to is knowing that some guys went in and just re-recorded their whole part. We’ll leave their names out of the interview, but I’ve talked to literal classic rock legends who, in private, have said that to me. I’ll leave it at that. But we knew that anyway. Those stories have made it out after 50 years. That was the upper hand of the record industry at that time. There was no Internet, there was no Twitter, there was no Instagram. There was no place to be tattled on. You could go in secretly and re-record it ‘live’. You could even play it live in the studio, so it’s like live, but you re-did it. Those guys did that. We just realized, we have enough shows, that we can find where everybody killed. Like I said, if there’s some sort of weird little funny sound, we might mute that. But otherwise, nobody spliced any takes. There’s no songs where we used the second verse again for the outro – none of that. No re-doing of anything.”
However, there is a notable difference in sound between North America and The UK / Europe. They’re both completely cohesive, but comparing the front half and the back half, Europe has more of a bootleg feel to it, and the rhythm section is more pronounced. Whereas North America is a little more polished. “It’s interesting you brought that up. It’s something that I discovered when we were listening to all the takes,” says Notto. “For a minute there, I was actually pushing to have the record just be North America because the difference that you’re hearing is – North America is all of our own gear that we’ve curated over the years for the sound we want. And in Europe, we just don’t have the budget to fly all of that gear over. So, we’re not playing any of our gear. My sound, that I’m proud to have worked on over the years is a 1987 Silver Jubilee. Jaydon has his drums over here in America, and Justin has his quirky little bass setup with his two amps. When we hit Europe, it’s the closest we can get with rentals. In my case, it wasn’t very close at all.”
“It’s still our guitars and our pedal boards and our energy, but there’s a huge difference in backline and that does change things. And part of it too, Europe, even from track to track is a little more hard to pin down sound-wise because the rooms over there are so different. You play this vintage catacombs wine cask basement in Prague, and then the next night you’re playing this big, open, tall ceiling hall that used to be a meeting place for The Illuminati. It’s so all over the place venue-wise in Europe because of the history and the old buildings. So, all those factors; I’m glad you mentioned that because I really felt proud when I heard the American thing. I was like, this is the first time I’ve heard my tone that I’ve curated, and I really, really like it. And it’s not on the Europe side. I think fans will notice, but at the same time, the Europe performances are great, and I think that shines through.”
The album cover is killer! John shares his memories of that photo being taken. “That was a place called The Showbox in Seattle. It’s by a photographer named Mike Savoia. We have worked with him for quite a few years now. He’s an excellent rock photographer; he’s got a lot of years in the game. He found us. He’s got a good ear to the ground on good bands coming up, but I think he mostly works with Journey.”
Looking at that picture of Notto crowd-surfing as he plays guitar, Guns N’ Roses live at The Ritz in New York City in 1988, which was filmed for MTV comes to mind. When Axl dove into the crowd, fans were ripping the shirt off his back, trying to steal his jewelry. It would be so easy for an audience member to hit a tuning peg or pull a string, yank out the patch cord; whether intentionally or accidentally. Thankfully, John hasn’t experienced such a scenario. “People are actually surprisingly supportive – pun intended, I guess. They not only work really hard to keep you up; they also make sure to get me back, cause they know I’m not wireless. They usually get me back on stage by the end of my solo. It’s always worked out well.”
John reveals the origin of the title Mayhem & Revelry Live, as well as the idea to make it look like an aftershow sticky on the artwork. “Actually, our drummer, Jaydon, came up with Mayhem & Revelry. I think Marc was throwing around the word Revelry, and how to use it. But I don’t recall anything other than Jaydon being like, ‘Why don’t we just call it Mayhem & Revelry?’ Cool! And the sticky was our manager’s idea. He always likes to harken back to the days of when rock was big. That’s kind of like his cool little ‘wink wink’ to going to old concerts and getting backstage passes.”
Similarly, the studio version of “Roam” evokes goose bumps every time it’s played, but this live version is truly phenomenal! That song is Dirty Honey’s sleeper hit. There’s no video for that tune, it didn’t get radio play, but it’s a top-notch track to say the least. “Oh, thank you. That seems to be the case with the feedback that we hear and see people commenting on things. It’s definitely a fan favorite; we should include it more than we do. It’s a high note for Marc. I think sometimes it depends vocally. Marc basically wrote that song on his own. He really only wrote it as strummy chords on acoustic guitar; it was beautiful. I was like, ‘What do you think about… I’ve got an idea about how to make this a big band thing.’ So, I started with that intro, then I started with these lines, and it all kind of stemmed around doing a sound that was more like the middle selection on the Les Paul and using a slap back delay with reverb. I just felt like that would have been a nice palette change from where we kind of live all the time. It also leaves room to grow to the instrumental apex of the song, which is the solo, to grow into the sound you always know which is bridge pickup screaming overtop. We don’t get out of a song easily without doing that… but that song is a different path than the normal path with us. So, it’s kinda cool.”
Dirty Honey issued a live video for “When I’m Gone”, which begins with a ripping guitar solo. Are there any more live videos forthcoming from Mayhem & Revelry Live? “Ah, that’s a good question. I’m not sure. We didn’t intentionally do a lot of filming. We did one, sorry. We did Milan, which we’ve already released, just kind of on its own. We released ‘Don’t Put Out The Fire’, and that we do have a whole show. It’s hard to say if we’ll release it all or not. I don’t know. I think it would be cool, but it’s a question of source material.”
There’s also a four-part video documentary being released online only as a companion piece to Mayhem & Revelry Live. At the time of this interview, only part one had been made available, and it was ten minutes long. If the other three segments follow suit, that would mean the documentary is 40 minutes long. Including it as a bonus DVD with the CD would seem like the natural thing to do. “Well, if we could sense that there was a demand for it, then it would be worth the production cost. But we’ve never produced a DVD. You just have to keep in mind, we play with our own money, not house money, usually speaking. We’ve had people invest in records, I’m not sure if that’s a thing we’d be able to grab funding for. It’s not as obvious of a winner necessarily as records. In the beginning, we produced records because we were like, these will sell. And they’re not that expensive.”
Watching part one of that Dirty Honey documentary, it’s wild to see where the group’s first gig was – on a sidewalk! And then the story about how Los Angeles radio station KLOS broke the band, that’s unheard of. It’s so awesome! “Yeah, I mean I don’t think we even really… from a management or strategic standpoint were really even gunning for that radio station because it really wasn’t known to break new bands. The only place to be broken on that radio station at that time was literally that talk show. When they have their time slot, they can do whatever they want. So, they chose to look at New Music Friday on Spotify. But the radio station itself at that time hadn’t adopted the format of playing new music at all. So, they weren’t a thing on the list to go get. But, when we got that, we realized how big that was. I can’t tell you how helpful that’s been for the LA market; it’s just insane! Along with all the other things that we did, in February and March 2019, we went from opening as first of three, with a guarantee for the whole band of $250 a night, to one year later, selling out The El Ray at 900 people. But I think we did that on seven songs. That ride was really spectacular, and they were a huge part of that.”
“The other thing that lucked out with them was, somewhere after that time they started playing new music. So, there were a lot of synchronistic things that happened. You can’t plan for it. We can’t make them turn into a new music station. It is really special. It’s got this magic dust that kind of fell on it. All of those things were part of… they contributed to the feeling we had that year, which was – just keep going, we’ll figure out how to pay for it, whatever it is. Shoot, then ask questions was the whole mantra of that year to get things off the ground.”
Is Dirty Honey going to tour in support of Mayhem & Revelry Live, or work on the third studio album? Currently, there are only two shows booked – July 9th and 10th – both in Italy. “Yes. It’s going to be Europe next. Unfortunately, America, you’re going to have to wait a little bit. We really want to make a record before we come back to the States again. So, we’re working on that now. We haven’t hit the studio or anything like that, but we’ve got a lot of time. Certainly, ample time to take this ever-expanding drop-box of ideas and turn into another record. That’s really priority number one right now until the summer. Then in the summer, I have no idea when, but there’ll be a tour announced, and it will be Europe.”
For the upcoming, as yet untitled third full-length, are you looking at Fall / Winter 2025 for a release date, or will it be pushed to 2026? “I can’t speak on that in terms of plan or anything,” states John. “Obviously, I personally would love to release an album before next winter, but… I think sooner the better is always better with records. It’s just a matter of, can we make something that we’re ready to give to people? You can’t dip out for too long. That’s something that only hit acts from the ‘80s can do. Look how long The Police dipped out. Guns N’ Roses – that was crazy! Yeah, Axl had his bizarro version of Guns going on the whole time, but nobody really noticed that. Then, bam! Slash and Duff come back and it’s like, they’re back to the glory days of Use Your Illusion tour. After 20 years.”
Speaking of the ‘80s, back then live albums were often viewed as a way to fulfil a band’s contractual obligations with the record company because it was easier to release a live album than write and record ten new songs for a studio album. But that’s certainly not the case with Mayhem & Revelry Live cause Dirty Honey is on their own label, Dirt Records. There’s nobody pressuring you to do this, it’s something the band wanted to release. “Absolutely. There was probably a small percentage of childhood goals to have one in there. To have our chapter in there, that represented the albums that really moved us. I think we’re all live album junkies. Anyone who’s a rock band fan, you’d fall in love with the live record. Then the other angle of it was, and this has been a theme with Dirty Honey that we’ve done well, that is, we know this next studio album is going to be a bit, we figure out what can we do in between. We did a good job with it; this is a good thing.”
Marc recently named some of his favorite live albums, including Aerosmith – A Little South Of Sanity, AC/DC – Live, The Rolling Stones – Get Your Ya-Ya’s Out, and Led Zeppelin – How The West Was Won. John lists his favorite live albums for BraveWords. “My favorite live albums as a kid were absolutely The Song Remains The Same – The Led Zeppelin Movie, that one was pivotal! I watched that a thousand times. Then, Live At Donnington – AC/DC. My mom’s record collection had Jimi Hendrix Live At Monterey, that was a huge one. Van Halen – Right Here, Right Now, that was a big one. Those were the real… oh, and Band Of Gypsys (by Jimi Hendrix). Another one is Fillmore East – Allman Brothers. Those jams and the improvisation just blew my mind as a kid. Same thing with the Zeppelin stuff with ‘Dazed And Confused’ – how extended that was. And how extended ‘Whole Lotta Love’ was, and how glued together with this mysterious fog the live version of ‘No Quarter’ was. It was really impactful also to hear Jimmy Page fill the space and make the band sound huge without a second guitar or a third guitar. He really figured out how to adapt all of the stuff he put on as a studio musician into a live setting. Those are the big ones!”
When those live albums were recorded, bootlegging was an audio cassette. Somebody snuck a tape recorder into the venue. Now it’s done on a smart phone and uploaded to YouTube. John offers his thoughts on that side of live music, watching an unauthorized concert video online that was filmed through a cell phone. “You can find gems. Sometimes there’s a magic to the iPhone compression that kind of just glues things together in a way that hides the roughness or the mistakes a little. But when I was in high school and in college, and discovered jam bands, I had an older friend give me a lot of Phish cassettes. The cassettes were kind of that same thing; they were usually kind of low quality, so it was kind of cool. At that same time, early 2000s, Phish started actually releasing board mixes, and I found those to be less enchanting; they were too detailed. Cause they really go wild and make a lot of mistakes. I didn’t like hearing it under the microscope as much. I liked hearing the shitty tape version better,” chuckles Notto. “The YouTube cell phone thing has that element, but it’s not as good. A lot of times it’s no bass. It’s bright and tinny, the angle’s terrible. Generally speaking, it all looks and sounds worse.”
A lot of bands these days don’t want to debut new songs live before the official studio version is released because people’s first taste will be this sub-par, compressed, amateur video. “Yeah, but I’m also like, is that really a worry? I can’t figure that out. Does that really spoil it? I guess. Management and business will always say, ‘Absolutely. We want the first release to be the one we market and the one that’s monetizable.’ It’s a difficult world. I read somewhere that Guns N’ Roses started their Use Your Illusion arena tour six months before the album came out. That’s so fuckin’ cool!” [In fact, GN’R kicked off the Use Your Illusion World Tour in January 1991, and the Illusion albums weren’t released until September 1991]. “Now with YouTube, especially if you’re on a label, they’re not going to let you do that. We could do it, and we actually have done it; especially leading up to the first LP. We played ‘Tied Up’ all the time, ‘Take My Hand’, ‘The Wire’; for sure those three.”
In closing, John reiterates, “I’m really happy to have a live record out that hopefully fits nicely right next to all your other favorite ones.”
(Photos courtesy of: Hanane Zahrouni, Linda Evlov, Mark Horan)
The post DIRTY HONEY – “Rock ‘N Roll Cavalier Swag And Reckless Abandon” appeared first on BraveWords - Where Music Lives.
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Mayhem & Revelry Live is a true representation of what you experience when you go to a Dirty Honey concert. Set for release on February 21st via the band’s own label, Dirt Records, this terrific live album captures the unique energy and endless spirit of vocalist Marc LaBelle, guitarist John Notto, bassist Justin Smolian, and drummer Jaydon Bean on stage in front of their fans.
16 songs were recorded over the course of the 60-date Can’t Find The Brakes headline tour which saw Dirty Honey play in North America, The UK, and Europe throughout 2023-24. On Mayhem & Revelry Live, LaBelle shouts out certain cities, specifically: Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Waterloo in North America. Followed by London, Milan, and Paris for The UK and Europe. However, those aren’t the only locations utilized for this live album, as six-stringer John Notto attests to. “No, there’s a lot more. There’s a lot of cities from each side. I think those are just the ones he happened to call out. In other words, it wasn’t strategic to have those callouts be on the record. We really just chose whatever performance of the song happened to be the best representation we could offer. I believe we are notating on the actual physical release which city each song is from.”
Mayhem & Revelry starts with a bang as Dirty Honey rips into “Won’t Take Me Alive”. “It was not my idea to track list it that way, but that’s a great kickoff,” admits Notto. “For the guitar guys, I hope that they can hear my growth in terms of how I interpret my own song. When I listen to that live version of the riff, I actually wish I recorded it that way. I think I recorded it a little bit more staccato and funky on the actual studio version. But on that live version, it’s just raw and loaded with rock ‘n roll cavalier swag and reckless abandon.”
The live version of “Won’t Take Me Alive” benefits from that extra adrenaline which naturally occurs when the guys are having fun on stage, living in the moment. “Yes,” agrees Notto. “And I think that was the challenge of making this live record and doing it the way we did it, which was to record every show and not make a concerted effort to say, ‘Hey, these three cities are the live record.’ The challenge that presented was, we had to find performances where we had that spirit without a lot of mistakes. That is to say, we don’t make the kind of mistakes live that ruin a show, but when you start recording and putting mics on everything, and looking at things under a microscope, those mistakes seem a little more glaring on tape. Plus, we’re analyzing ourselves; we’re our toughest critics so… That was the challenge, to find those performances where we had the swag, but we also had a decent amount of exacting in terms of the parts and how the song goes.”
So many live albums in the past were doctored in the studio with bands doing touch-ups or overdubs to get rid of their mistakes. That doesn’t appear to be the case on Mayhem & Revelry Live. “Yeah. Here and there, there might be… if somebody accidentally bumped their instrument during a gap, we might mute that. But nobody went in and did overdub sessions. So, the performance is how we played it. I think what you’re referring to is knowing that some guys went in and just re-recorded their whole part. We’ll leave their names out of the interview, but I’ve talked to literal classic rock legends who, in private, have said that to me. I’ll leave it at that. But we knew that anyway. Those stories have made it out after 50 years. That was the upper hand of the record industry at that time. There was no Internet, there was no Twitter, there was no Instagram. There was no place to be tattled on. You could go in secretly and re-record it ‘live’. You could even play it live in the studio, so it’s like live, but you re-did it. Those guys did that. We just realized, we have enough shows, that we can find where everybody killed. Like I said, if there’s some sort of weird little funny sound, we might mute that. But otherwise, nobody spliced any takes. There’s no songs where we used the second verse again for the outro – none of that. No re-doing of anything.”
However, there is a notable difference in sound between North America and The UK / Europe. They’re both completely cohesive, but comparing the front half and the back half, Europe has more of a bootleg feel to it, and the rhythm section is more pronounced. Whereas North America is a little more polished. “It’s interesting you brought that up. It’s something that I discovered when we were listening to all the takes,” says Notto. “For a minute there, I was actually pushing to have the record just be North America because the difference that you’re hearing is – North America is all of our own gear that we’ve curated over the years for the sound we want. And in Europe, we just don’t have the budget to fly all of that gear over. So, we’re not playing any of our gear. My sound, that I’m proud to have worked on over the years is a 1987 Silver Jubilee. Jaydon has his drums over here in America, and Justin has his quirky little bass setup with his two amps. When we hit Europe, it’s the closest we can get with rentals. In my case, it wasn’t very close at all.”
“It’s still our guitars and our pedal boards and our energy, but there’s a huge difference in backline and that does change things. And part of it too, Europe, even from track to track is a little more hard to pin down sound-wise because the rooms over there are so different. You play this vintage catacombs wine cask basement in Prague, and then the next night you’re playing this big, open, tall ceiling hall that used to be a meeting place for The Illuminati. It’s so all over the place venue-wise in Europe because of the history and the old buildings. So, all those factors; I’m glad you mentioned that because I really felt proud when I heard the American thing. I was like, this is the first time I’ve heard my tone that I’ve curated, and I really, really like it. And it’s not on the Europe side. I think fans will notice, but at the same time, the Europe performances are great, and I think that shines through.”
The album cover is killer! John shares his memories of that photo being taken. “That was a place called The Showbox in Seattle. It’s by a photographer named Mike Savoia. We have worked with him for quite a few years now. He’s an excellent rock photographer; he’s got a lot of years in the game. He found us. He’s got a good ear to the ground on good bands coming up, but I think he mostly works with Journey.”
Looking at that picture of Notto crowd-surfing as he plays guitar, Guns N’ Roses live at The Ritz in New York City in 1988, which was filmed for MTV comes to mind. When Axl dove into the crowd, fans were ripping the shirt off his back, trying to steal his jewelry. It would be so easy for an audience member to hit a tuning peg or pull a string, yank out the patch cord; whether intentionally or accidentally. Thankfully, John hasn’t experienced such a scenario. “People are actually surprisingly supportive – pun intended, I guess. They not only work really hard to keep you up; they also make sure to get me back, cause they know I’m not wireless. They usually get me back on stage by the end of my solo. It’s always worked out well.”
John reveals the origin of the title Mayhem & Revelry Live, as well as the idea to make it look like an aftershow sticky on the artwork. “Actually, our drummer, Jaydon, came up with Mayhem & Revelry. I think Marc was throwing around the word Revelry, and how to use it. But I don’t recall anything other than Jaydon being like, ‘Why don’t we just call it Mayhem & Revelry?’ Cool! And the sticky was our manager’s idea. He always likes to harken back to the days of when rock was big. That’s kind of like his cool little ‘wink wink’ to going to old concerts and getting backstage passes.”
Similarly, the studio version of “Roam” evokes goose bumps every time it’s played, but this live version is truly phenomenal! That song is Dirty Honey’s sleeper hit. There’s no video for that tune, it didn’t get radio play, but it’s a top-notch track to say the least. “Oh, thank you. That seems to be the case with the feedback that we hear and see people commenting on things. It’s definitely a fan favorite; we should include it more than we do. It’s a high note for Marc. I think sometimes it depends vocally. Marc basically wrote that song on his own. He really only wrote it as strummy chords on acoustic guitar; it was beautiful. I was like, ‘What do you think about… I’ve got an idea about how to make this a big band thing.’ So, I started with that intro, then I started with these lines, and it all kind of stemmed around doing a sound that was more like the middle selection on the Les Paul and using a slap back delay with reverb. I just felt like that would have been a nice palette change from where we kind of live all the time. It also leaves room to grow to the instrumental apex of the song, which is the solo, to grow into the sound you always know which is bridge pickup screaming overtop. We don’t get out of a song easily without doing that… but that song is a different path than the normal path with us. So, it’s kinda cool.”
Dirty Honey issued a live video for “When I’m Gone”, which begins with a ripping guitar solo. Are there any more live videos forthcoming from Mayhem & Revelry Live? “Ah, that’s a good question. I’m not sure. We didn’t intentionally do a lot of filming. We did one, sorry. We did Milan, which we’ve already released, just kind of on its own. We released ‘Don’t Put Out The Fire’, and that we do have a whole show. It’s hard to say if we’ll release it all or not. I don’t know. I think it would be cool, but it’s a question of source material.”
There’s also a four-part video documentary being released online only as a companion piece to Mayhem & Revelry Live. At the time of this interview, only part one had been made available, and it was ten minutes long. If the other three segments follow suit, that would mean the documentary is 40 minutes long. Including it as a bonus DVD with the CD would seem like the natural thing to do. “Well, if we could sense that there was a demand for it, then it would be worth the production cost. But we’ve never produced a DVD. You just have to keep in mind, we play with our own money, not house money, usually speaking. We’ve had people invest in records, I’m not sure if that’s a thing we’d be able to grab funding for. It’s not as obvious of a winner necessarily as records. In the beginning, we produced records because we were like, these will sell. And they’re not that expensive.”
Watching part one of that Dirty Honey documentary, it’s wild to see where the group’s first gig was – on a sidewalk! And then the story about how Los Angeles radio station KLOS broke the band, that’s unheard of. It’s so awesome! “Yeah, I mean I don’t think we even really… from a management or strategic standpoint were really even gunning for that radio station because it really wasn’t known to break new bands. The only place to be broken on that radio station at that time was literally that talk show. When they have their time slot, they can do whatever they want. So, they chose to look at New Music Friday on Spotify. But the radio station itself at that time hadn’t adopted the format of playing new music at all. So, they weren’t a thing on the list to go get. But, when we got that, we realized how big that was. I can’t tell you how helpful that’s been for the LA market; it’s just insane! Along with all the other things that we did, in February and March 2019, we went from opening as first of three, with a guarantee for the whole band of $250 a night, to one year later, selling out The El Ray at 900 people. But I think we did that on seven songs. That ride was really spectacular, and they were a huge part of that.”
“The other thing that lucked out with them was, somewhere after that time they started playing new music. So, there were a lot of synchronistic things that happened. You can’t plan for it. We can’t make them turn into a new music station. It is really special. It’s got this magic dust that kind of fell on it. All of those things were part of… they contributed to the feeling we had that year, which was – just keep going, we’ll figure out how to pay for it, whatever it is. Shoot, then ask questions was the whole mantra of that year to get things off the ground.”
Is Dirty Honey going to tour in support of Mayhem & Revelry Live, or work on the third studio album? Currently, there are only two shows booked – July 9th and 10th – both in Italy. “Yes. It’s going to be Europe next. Unfortunately, America, you’re going to have to wait a little bit. We really want to make a record before we come back to the States again. So, we’re working on that now. We haven’t hit the studio or anything like that, but we’ve got a lot of time. Certainly, ample time to take this ever-expanding drop-box of ideas and turn into another record. That’s really priority number one right now until the summer. Then in the summer, I have no idea when, but there’ll be a tour announced, and it will be Europe.”
For the upcoming, as yet untitled third full-length, are you looking at Fall / Winter 2025 for a release date, or will it be pushed to 2026? “I can’t speak on that in terms of plan or anything,” states John. “Obviously, I personally would love to release an album before next winter, but… I think sooner the better is always better with records. It’s just a matter of, can we make something that we’re ready to give to people? You can’t dip out for too long. That’s something that only hit acts from the ‘80s can do. Look how long The Police dipped out. Guns N’ Roses – that was crazy! Yeah, Axl had his bizarro version of Guns going on the whole time, but nobody really noticed that. Then, bam! Slash and Duff come back and it’s like, they’re back to the glory days of Use Your Illusion tour. After 20 years.”
Speaking of the ‘80s, back then live albums were often viewed as a way to fulfil a band’s contractual obligations with the record company because it was easier to release a live album than write and record ten new songs for a studio album. But that’s certainly not the case with Mayhem & Revelry Live cause Dirty Honey is on their own label, Dirt Records. There’s nobody pressuring you to do this, it’s something the band wanted to release. “Absolutely. There was probably a small percentage of childhood goals to have one in there. To have our chapter in there, that represented the albums that really moved us. I think we’re all live album junkies. Anyone who’s a rock band fan, you’d fall in love with the live record. Then the other angle of it was, and this has been a theme with Dirty Honey that we’ve done well, that is, we know this next studio album is going to be a bit, we figure out what can we do in between. We did a good job with it; this is a good thing.”
Marc recently named some of his favorite live albums, including Aerosmith – A Little South Of Sanity, AC/DC – Live, The Rolling Stones – Get Your Ya-Ya’s Out, and Led Zeppelin – How The West Was Won. John lists his favorite live albums for BraveWords. “My favorite live albums as a kid were absolutely The Song Remains The Same – The Led Zeppelin Movie, that one was pivotal! I watched that a thousand times. Then, Live At Donnington – AC/DC. My mom’s record collection had Jimi Hendrix Live At Monterey, that was a huge one. Van Halen – Right Here, Right Now, that was a big one. Those were the real… oh, and Band Of Gypsys (by Jimi Hendrix). Another one is Fillmore East – Allman Brothers. Those jams and the improvisation just blew my mind as a kid. Same thing with the Zeppelin stuff with ‘Dazed And Confused’ – how extended that was. And how extended ‘Whole Lotta Love’ was, and how glued together with this mysterious fog the live version of ‘No Quarter’ was. It was really impactful also to hear Jimmy Page fill the space and make the band sound huge without a second guitar or a third guitar. He really figured out how to adapt all of the stuff he put on as a studio musician into a live setting. Those are the big ones!”
When those live albums were recorded, bootlegging was an audio cassette. Somebody snuck a tape recorder into the venue. Now it’s done on a smart phone and uploaded to YouTube. John offers his thoughts on that side of live music, watching an unauthorized concert video online that was filmed through a cell phone. “You can find gems. Sometimes there’s a magic to the iPhone compression that kind of just glues things together in a way that hides the roughness or the mistakes a little. But when I was in high school and in college, and discovered jam bands, I had an older friend give me a lot of Phish cassettes. The cassettes were kind of that same thing; they were usually kind of low quality, so it was kind of cool. At that same time, early 2000s, Phish started actually releasing board mixes, and I found those to be less enchanting; they were too detailed. Cause they really go wild and make a lot of mistakes. I didn’t like hearing it under the microscope as much. I liked hearing the shitty tape version better,” chuckles Notto. “The YouTube cell phone thing has that element, but it’s not as good. A lot of times it’s no bass. It’s bright and tinny, the angle’s terrible. Generally speaking, it all looks and sounds worse.”
A lot of bands these days don’t want to debut new songs live before the official studio version is released because people’s first taste will be this sub-par, compressed, amateur video. “Yeah, but I’m also like, is that really a worry? I can’t figure that out. Does that really spoil it? I guess. Management and business will always say, ‘Absolutely. We want the first release to be the one we market and the one that’s monetizable.’ It’s a difficult world. I read somewhere that Guns N’ Roses started their Use Your Illusion arena tour six months before the album came out. That’s so fuckin’ cool!” [In fact, GN’R kicked off the Use Your Illusion World Tour in January 1991, and the Illusion albums weren’t released until September 1991]. “Now with YouTube, especially if you’re on a label, they’re not going to let you do that. We could do it, and we actually have done it; especially leading up to the first LP. We played ‘Tied Up’ all the time, ‘Take My Hand’, ‘The Wire’; for sure those three.”
In closing, John reiterates, “I’m really happy to have a live record out that hopefully fits nicely right next to all your other favorite ones.”
(Photos courtesy of: Hanane Zahrouni, Linda Evlov, Mark Horan)
The post DIRTY HONEY – “Rock ‘N Roll Cavalier Swag And Reckless Abandon” appeared first on BraveWords - Where Music Lives.
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