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Photo by Deven Bussey

Formed in 2020, LA-based duo Honey Revenge is known for seamlessly blending catchy pop and rock elements into their music. Their sophomore album, Loving and Losing, is out now. We sat down with vocalist Devin Papadol to chat about their new album, touring, video games, and what else is next.

OnesToWatch: For anyone just discovering you, who is Honey Revenge?

Devin Papadol: Honey Revenge is a pop rock duo from Los Angeles. It's myself, I'm Devin, and our guitarist, Donny. We're originally from Georgia, and we started the band in 2020. It was the end of one band into the beginning of a new band, where we’re kind of just trying to fuse all of our favorite musical elements of heavy music with pop radio, which we grew up on both equally. We're both very much scene kids, but I think our core musical memories are discovering Katy Perry, LMFAO, Kesha, party music, and I think that was such a pivotal time for pop radio in the sense of what was being put out. But simultaneously, we're very much still at our scene, emo, rock roots. And I think we really try to take those two elements and fuse them together and make emotional music that you want to dance to.

As you mentioned, being able to easily fit in with pop or in the alternative scene… do you take any of that into consideration when writing your music?

I think it depends on the song, it depends on the day, it depends on the headspace. Absolutely, we would love to do big pop tours. I think that's the dream, you know, to tour with a Muna, or a Remy, or a Kesha, or a Pink; these huge pop artists that had such an important role in our musical lifespans. But yeah, gotta stick to our roots. I feel like we've been so welcomed with open arms in the rock scene.

I think the whole mission statement of Honey Revenge is fusion. The name Honey Revenge, I feel like It's a great blanket term for our music, which is why we chose that name. Honey is this pop, sweet, feminine energy, and then Revenge is this angst, this anger, this more adrenaline rush of rock, and for us, we want to be able to do whatever. We don't want limits on our music, we've never ever gone into a session trying to be one kind of band, we just want to be ourselves, and I think that really is present when you listen to our music, because it's not just one thing. We're just trying to be Honey Revenge, and I feel like our identity is there with all of that.

Lyrically, how does the new album, Loving and Losing, differ from your previous releases?

I think lyrically there's more of a theme present, which was really important to me going into the writing process. I always say that we wrote our first debut record, Retrovision, as more of a “for fun” kind of thing. We didn't know it was gonna have the impact on our lives that it did. We never necessarily expected, obviously, you can hope and dream, but we didn't expect it to take us on tour for 3 plus years, and take us all over the world, and allow us to make music our full-time job. That's obviously the long-term goal, but we were so fortunate to have that happen for us so early on. But we wrote that album for fun, we wrote that album not necessarily expecting that many people to hear it.

Whereas now, with this record, so much has happened in our lives since then. We've lived so many lives since then, and going into the writing process, I really wanted that to be present. I wanted it to be personal, but also something people could take away to their own lives. And I think I'm always writing from a very personal perspective, and something that I'm always very proud of is, even though it's very much my perspective, I always have people coming to me saying the sweetest things about how it feels like I took a page from their diary, and I'm writing about a thing that's going on in their lives. And I think that's the most beautiful part of music.

I think the theme of the title is you love, you lose, it's a cycle. That was really what I wanted people to take away from it.

The track list for the album, there are 15 songs, including the intro. Did you have more contenders for the album, and how did you work about narrowing that down?

It was brutal. We wrote probably 50 songs for this record. We've been writing for it since the deluxe era of Retrovision. We have songs on the album that are from those writing sessions when we were writing for the deluxe of Retrovision. We have songs that we played on our headlining Loving and Losing Tour last summer that we thought were coming out, that people are still asking about, that didn't make the cut. It was really difficult.

I'd love for some of those songs to still see the light of day. I hold out hope that all the songs that are meant to be in the world will, you know? That's kind of also the message of this record, is, like, what is meant to be for you will be. But it was really, really brutal. We had so many songs. And we still have so many songs on the album. I tried to put as many on there as we possibly could without it being overkill.

Do you think, in this day and age, that with so many songs just being released as a single and maybe not a cohesive album, do you think they'll be released like that?

I'd love to do more mixtape-style things. I'd love to have the opportunity to put out EPs. I think the funniest part of this band is, like, Retrovision was supposed to be an EP, but we were so stoked on every song that we were like, why not? Let's just make it an album. And I think about if we hadn't done that. And the fact that we toured on it for so long; that was only 12 songs, you know? I think, again, everything we did with Retrovision was a lesson. We have been playing those same 12 songs, 13 songs with the deluxe tracks, for so long, which is again, we're so lucky to have been given that gift.

But we really went into Loving and Losing with the mindset of, okay, are these songs that we are going to want to play for that long? Do they have the quality in which they need to have that lifespan? Are we putting out enough songs to give us the canvas to do all sorts of setlists, where we can, like you said, go on a pop tour, have a setlist for a pop tour, have a Warped Tour setlist, have a tour setlist for a Spiritbox tour, like we got to do, you know? Are we giving ourselves the tools we need to make this band take that next step?

If someone had never listened to Honey Revenge before, what song would you recommend they start with, whether it's on the new album or a previous release?

I try and do a mix. I think Trust Issues is a great one. For the pop side, I think "Sunday Scaries". I love "Butterfly Effect", that's probably my favorite song. So I'd probably say "Butterfly Effect." And from the old stuff, I'd say "Recipe For Disaster" because I think that was a great chapter buffer between Retrovision and the new album. It has those party elements like in "Sunday Scaries". And "Hot Commodity", it's very dancey, but it still has, like, rock elements.

I think prior to hearing the new songs, "Recipe For Disaster" was my favorite song.

It was a sleeper, we did not expect it to connect so heavily, but people love that song.

It's great. I think my favorites on the new album so far are probably "Sorry Much" or "Inevitable."

"Inevitable" is another one that we wrote so early on, and it's kind of a little different. It's a little more like rock radio. But it's so cool, and honestly that one, full transparency, I thought that was gonna be the title track. I wrote that song with it in mind to be the title track, because I thought that it was such a good blanket song for the message of the record. It had the thesis in mind when I was writing it. And originally, that one was called Loving and Losing, before we wrote the actual "Loving and Losing" track. I love that song.

Going back to touring, when we were talking about how you could fit in with pop or alternative, what would be your dream pop tour lineup?

I think my dream pop tour would be Remi Wolf, The Band CAMINO & us.

So then in the alternative space, what would be your dream tour on that side?

I'd love to tour with Pierce the Veil. I feel like us, Pierce the Veil, The Plot in You. I think they're really cool, and that's what I admire about Pierce the Veil, is they're one of those bands that are so tapped into up-and-coming music.

You were on the Idobi Radio Summer School tour this summer. It featured a lot of female, femme, and non-binary artists. How did it feel to be part of a tour package like that, in a scene that's typically more male dominated?

You know, I always say that we're so, again, fortunate, and I could say that till I'm blue in the face, but I'm almost so ignorant to all of that, because Honey Revenge has always toured with outside of the norm of what a rock tour should be.

With Summer School specifically, we got to do that tour the first year it ever happened, and when we got to come back and headline it this year, we had a say in who was on the bill, and I was very passionate about that specifically. For me, it's not even intentional, it's almost like an accident, because we're just peers with and we admire and are fans of so many bands that have queer, people of color, women, and non-men. It's just how we are as a band, that's how we've always been. So, to me, it's just another Honey Revenge tour, but I'm so glad that it sets that example, and it sets that foundation for future tours.

All of those bands to me, like, Winona Fighter are so inspirational. Chloe is such a powerhouse front person, and makes me want to be better. South Arcade, to me, are the prime example of fusion, genre-wise. You know, I could, again, yap about all these bands all day long. Games We Play, we've been friends with them for so long, and they seem like just a bunch of dudes on the outside, but they're so sweet and genuine and kind. And Chase Petra played our first Honey Revenge show ever. They played my old band's EP release show. Those are, like, our oldest, oldest friends in the genre.

You’re heading out this fall with Dead Poet Society, HUNNY, and your fellow Thriller Records labelmates, Broadside. What are you most looking forward to about touring with these artists?

Watching them. Genuinely. I mean, people that know us know that Broadside were on our first ever tour, and also, people that really know us know that I've been a Broadside fan for over 10 years, so I love Broadside. I'm really looking forward to hopefully getting to finally do the song I'm featured on on their, not their most recent album, but Hotel Bleu. I sang on their song Lucid, and it's such a beautiful song, and we've never had the opportunity to do it together, so I hope that we get to do that at least a couple times.

I think Dead Poet Society are probably the coolest band out there right now. I have been very passionate about that for years, and I never necessarily saw a world where we got to tour together, but I hoped. They were definitely a band that I was bringing as a reference when we wrote Loving and Losing. I think they're so experimental and cool.

And I have been listening to HUNNY forever. They were on one of our first bills as a local band. We got to open for them, so it's so cool to come full circle and tour with all these bands, either again or for the first time as a fan, so I'm just so excited.

A very exciting moment for Honey Revenge – your song "Airhead" is going to be in Stage Tour, a new video game coming out. Congratulations! What was the process like for that?

Thank you. Honestly, I thought it was a prank. I saw the email, and I don't know enough about video games as much as I would like, because my parents didn't let me play them growing up, so I just have this whole chunk of my brain that, like, I'm not familiar [with].

But Donny was locked in and immediately hit the group chat and was like, we have to respond to this. And I was like, are we sure this is real? Because, you know, as a band and as people in general, I feel like we get so many spam emails that you can't tell what's a real opportunity and what's clickbait, essentially. And I think, apparently, one of the guys who works on the game saw us with Spiritbox and thought we were cool, which is just an example of how you never know who's watching and who's in the crowd. And that happened months ago and we didn't know when it was getting announced. We didn't know who else was on it. And we're amongst so many legendary bands and artists. It's so cool.

What else is on the horizon for Honey Revenge?

I mean, you kind of said all of it that I know of. We're doing Warped Tour in the fall as well; our last Warped Tour of the year. We're doing our first cruise, which I'm so excited for. And… I don't know. I want all my favorite bands to take us on tour, I want to go to so many new places. There's lots in the works, but nothing beyond the cruise that's locked in, so I'm really just looking forward to what's on the horizon.

I can feel in my gut that this album's gonna take us to new places and connect with so many new people. I'm getting to talk to so many new people, just like this, as an example. I feel like it's already brought us so many great opportunities, and it's not even out. We've gotten to connect with so many amazing creatives in this era. I'm really excited for the message. I'm excited to see it take on its own life, I feel like because it's kind of like raising a child, like you have your own expectations for it and your own hopes and dreams, but then once it's out in the world, it has a life of its own and you can't really control it or tame it. So that's the cool, beautiful thing about music that I'm really looking forward to.

Who are your OnesToWatch?

There's a band from the UK called Love Rarely. I think they're excellent. If you love, like, a Bring Me the Horizon electronic pop rock alt thing, I can't lie, I'm biased, it's my boyfriend's band, but I got to write on a lot of the album that they're putting out. They're called Aurora View and the album is called rot star. It's so good. Oh, there's this band from Minneapolis. They have like 140 monthly listeners, and they're called Psylo, and they're so cool.

Listen to Loving and Losing below: