This week, Birmingham gloom pop-rock quintet Beaumont return with their second EP – ‘Honestly’. Like the bands debut EP (‘Nothing’), ‘Honestly’ sees the five-piece offer a juxtaposition of dour lyrics and soaring, infectious melodies. However beyond the bright hooks, ‘Honestly’ offers plenty of lyrical substance as vocalist Spencer Edmonds explains.
From the unusual feeling of being happy to doing something wrong to make it right to the threat of nuclear war, Beaumont provide a thought-provoking set of songs on ‘Honestly’. To get a better understanding into what the EP is all about, Spencer provided us with a detailed insight.
1. Happiness/Joy
‘Happiness/Joy’ is about a time when I was going through a rough patch mentally. A lot was getting me down and I was struggling with day to day tasks like eating, sleeping and getting out of bed. The song is about happiness winning over sadness in my mind. Happiness has always been a stranger to me, a utopia and an unattainable goal, but, day by day I’m learning to understand what happiness means to me. If I can come out of the other side then so can anybody else & life can win over death.
2. Satellites
‘Satellites’ was written with every intent to get it on the radio. I wanted to write a chorus that wouldn’t be out of place being sung in a packed 10,000 capacity room. I heard bands on the radio & TV and thought “I want to do that too. It’s not about anything in particular but it’s sort of about being in a relationship while being on tour and being like ships that pass in the night. Being away from home can make it hard to communicate with the people you love the most and this is sort of what I wanted to get across in the song.
3. Hurler
‘Hurler’ is our response to Ronan Keating’s ‘Life is a Rollercoaster’. In that song, Mr Keating famously compares life to a terrifying theme park ride, a comparison which I find offensive. Did the Irishman not consider that some people can’t ride a rollercoaster? It’s not a natural human experience to be hurtled through the air at what feels like 50,000mph. What happens to the people who can’t deal with the ups and downs, and have to get off? I’m proud to call myself one of them. I’ll always have a terrible time on rollercoasters.
4. Rosemary
‘Rosemary’ came about when I wanted to write a song with a woman’s name in the title like ,i>’Valerie’, ‘Roxanne’ and ‘Lucy in The Sky With Diamonds’ which are massive stand out songs for me. The song’s a cautionary tale about how sometimes you have to be on the wrong side of the law/rules to do the right thing, and how sometimes the people in charge making the rules are wrong. Sometimes you have you break a few eggs to make an omelette.
5. Dependant
‘Dependant’ was written the day after the UK voted to leave the European Union. The lyrics in the song reflect how I felt about the result and do take a little bit of a swipe at some people, but its true to how myself and a lot of people felt at the time of the referendum. We called the song ‘Dependant’ as it’s a word for a person that heavily relies on another much like a child relies on its parents.
6. Runner’s High
This was written at the end of 2016 and captures how I felt at the time. Killer clowns were roaming the streets, Donald Trump was elected president and The Doomsday Clock moved closer to midnight. The chorus for this song finally came to me when I was watching the inauguration of Donald Trump. I found myself thinking "this new wave of fascism can’t be that scary if spray tan Hitler can’t even sell out his own coronation” which is where the lyric “Dead on a Friday” comes from.
The verses were written over the winter of 2016 influenced by warnings on TV about nuclear war and terrorism from American broadcasters with wide eyes and expensive smiles. The title also relates to a time when I was super frustrated that I wasn’t achieving things I wanted to achieve and people kept telling me to “enjoy the ride” and “it’s about the journey, not the destination” amongst other sharts of wisdom. Sometimes you’re sick of losing and going through the motions and just wanna grab life by the shaft and take what is yours to take. It’ll drive you mad one day, because sometimes you’ve gotta win.
‘Honestly’ EP by Beaumont is released on 15th September on Reclaim Music.