By Jim Barber
It wouldn’t be summer in Canada without a bunch of hot, sweaty and super fun concerts from one of the best rock and roll party bands to ever come from the Great White North – Honeymoon Suite.
More than four decades on from their much heralded and now classic 1984 self-titled debut album, which is highlighted by timeless radio staples such as ‘New Girl Now,’ ‘Burning In Love,’ ‘Wave Babies,’ and ‘Stay in The Light,’ the seemingly ageless quintet is set to bring their wonderfully popular brand of Canadian melodic hard rock and powerhouse onstage energy to Ontario, including Brockville, Petawawa, Thunder Bay, followed by a swing through the Maritimes before heading out to western Canada with shows continuing into the fall and early winter, including at The Empire Theatre in Belleville on Sept. 27.
Co-founder/lead guitarist/songwriter Derry Grehan talked to Music Life Magazine about the enduring popularity of the band and his rationale as to why they are not only still a must-see attraction for long-tenured fans but also for an increasing number of younger music lovers.
“Part of it is because we’re a live band. We’ve always been a live band. We’ve got almost all the original members; we’re still friends and we sound great together. We can’t wait to get up on stage to play every night because it’s still just too much damn fun. I love doing it, it doesn’t get old for me. We’re a rock band, and people of all ages like a good rock band. We play loud, we play hard,” Grehan said.
“A lot of the kids’ music today, it’s all just so much computer-generated stuff. There’s no bands anymore. It’s all just kind of canned music and autotuned and it’s not really geared toward a live band. So, I think the kids come out and when they see a real band playing, that’s not all tracks, and a really good singer and all the energy we put out – nothing beats a live band. Nothing. And there are a good number of kids really looking for that experience.”
One of the ways the band remains vital, and continues to pursue their musical adventure with such high-octane energy is the fact that the proverbial creative juices continue to flow, as well as they ever have, with Honeymoon Suite releasing their ninth studio album, Wake Me Up When The Sun Goes Down on July 25, a little over a year since the release of the critically acclaimed record Alive. Both were released on Italy’s iconic melodic rock/metal label Frontiers Music, internationally, and on BCM Records for domestic consumption in Canada.
At first it may seem a little jarring for a band hailing from Niagara Falls, Ontario to be working with a label way across the Atlantic Ocean in Milan, but Grehan said it’s been a long and fruitful relationship between the two parties, and one he and his Honeymoon Suite bandmates were excited to engage in again for the last two albums.
“We’ve been working with them for a long time, actually. At least 10 or 15 years. We’ve done a few projects with them here or there over the years. So, this isn’t our first go round with them. We’ve done other albums with them. They’re a melodic rock label and I guess they wanted to have a band from Canada. They’re not just hard music and metal, there’s a lot of different stuff on the label,” Grehan said from his home in Nashville where he and his family spend time apart from their long-time residence in rural Illinois.
“They’ve worked with Whitesnake and Journey and they’ve widened their perspective. Originally, they reached out to us. We made a bit of noise in Europe and the U.K. back in the day and we’re still a presence there. And the fact that we’re all still together and still putting out music made us attractive. Their A&R department, that’s their job to find bands like us. And then around the time we had the Alive record all finished and were looking for a label. I put an email out to them, and they came back with the best offer. Even though they’re considered independent [meaning they have no official entanglements with the major labels] they are still a proper record label, with an office and staff and an A&R department and a booking side for shows. So, they’ve got a full organization with a proper promotion team, which will promote the record in Europe and Japan, and they have people in the U.S. as well. It’s nice to have somebody, a label, working on your behalf and putting it out there properly, lining up the press and videos and things like that. Whereas we’ve done a few albums where we just did everything ourselves and when you’re on your own, you’ve got to hire a publicist and all that. So, it’s nice to have a proper label that believes in what we’re doing.”
Wake Me Up When the Sun Goes Down, as with Alive, was produced by fellow Canadian Mike Krompass, the second straight album with which he has collaborated with the band. In Canada, the record also comes out on his own boutique record label BCM.
“Canada’s obviously our bread and butter so we wanted someone who knew the market really well and could focus on just this country. Technically, we’re signed with BCM and then Mike actually licences the album to Frontiers. So, we have total control here in Canada, which is nice, and we can do what we want in terms of what singles and videos to release and where to play. So, really, everybody’s happy. And also having a deal with Frontiers, they’ll actually manufacture the CDs and vinyl and distribute them and even though everything is recoupable, it’s nice to have them take care of the upfront costs. We will manufacture our own vinyl and CDs in Canada with another manufacturer, and we get to keep all that money,” Grehan said, adding that he had heard about Mike, who was working out of Nashville at the time a few years ago and decided to give him a call.
“I’ve been living where I am in the U.S. for about 20 years now, but I’ve been making a lot of trips down to Nashville in those last 20 years too. Every once in a while, I’d come down here to do some writing trips. I heard that Mike was living down here and was this guy from Toronto who was a pretty good producer, and I think someone said I should just reach out to him because he’s also a guitar player. So out of the blue I just DM’d him and he’s like, ‘dude, I love your band! Why don’t you guys come down.’ At it was when I was going down with [daughter] Leah at lot, because she was writing songs down in Nashville with people too.
“On one of those trips we actually went to his place because he was producing a lot of pop for a lot of young singers. So that was my first in-person introduction to Mike. We wrote and recorded a few songs down there for her and from the Mike asked me what’s going on with Honeymoon Suite. I told him we were writing and wanted to make a record and one thing led to another, and Mike offered to produce the record, which was Alive. So, that’s how it went.”
The new album features the signature sound of Honeymoon Suite, with a more modern, 21st century approach that allows for their classic rock vibe to shine through, without sounding cliché or anachronistic. And it rocks with all the impact and energy that only veteran musicians and songwriters who have been around one another and collaborating with each other for decades can engender.
“Mike Krompass is responsible for a lot of that. He’s a Canadian dude; he’s a producer and he’s also a guitar player and multi-instrumentalist. He’s a little younger than us and he grew up listening to Honeymoon Suite; we were one of his favourite bands. So, as a kid he was learning my licks to the point where he knows the band and our repertoire inside out. And because he’s younger, he’s very slick in the studio with all the tech. He’s got all the new production tricks and knows Pro Tools inside and out. So, he doesn’t so much change our sound as make it sound current. The three of us, Johnnie, Mike and I, we wrote the whole album together and Mike’s really good at balancing things off. When you listen to the album, they’re great melodic tracks, but they sound fresh – they don’t sound dated. It’s sounds very new, but we’re definitely not sounding like a pop band. We’re still Honeymoon Suite,” Grehan said, adding that there is always going to be a natural progression in a band that is still fully engaged creatively, and attuned to one another’s vibe.
“It’s all real players playing real instruments. It’s not churned out of a computer. And, yeah, the guitar sounds are a little over the top and crunchy, but that’s just the difference in working with the producer and different gear now. We never make the same record twice, so this is what we’ve come up with now. It sounds like us, but it’s not a copy of The Big Prize (1986) or the first album. I wouldn’t want it to. In itself, it’s sounds great.”
Internationally, the first single released via Frontiers was the compelling and optimistic vibe of ‘I Fly,’ which was one of the compositions Grehan initiated and brought to Dee and Krompass.
“I came in with that one and I had those chorus chords. I was messing around one day and the way I write is it always starts with guitar; it starts with a riff or chord progression. And eventually one day I was writing I just kept saying, ‘when I fly, when I fly,’ over and over. I couldn’t get that out of my head, and I didn’t know what it meant, but that’s the only lyric we had at the start,” he explained.
“Then when all of the music finally came together, and it was time to write the words I kind of based it around flying because it just sounded like that; and its metaphorical. The first verse is about taking off, leaving the ground, and passing through the clouds, which we do so much when we’re touring. And then it’s also metaphorically comparing that to someone’s life when they’re leaving a bad situation or a relationship – they’re leaving that behind as they fly up to something hopefully better and freer.”
‘Crazy Life’ is not planned to be a single, but could be, and is a song that only a veteran touring band could write with any authenticity, as it’s a gritty, but fun take on life on the road.
“Again, that’s one that I sort of started. It’s not country, but kind of blues-rock country-ish, although more like just straight blues rock. And that’s just me having fun with a drop-D guitar and a riff. I’ve been trying to write that song for a few years now and we finally pulled it together. It’s kind of a party song. It’s about being on the road and it’s just a down and dirty rock song. And we needed one of those on the album. Even though it’s been 40 years, not a lot has changed. It’s still lots of late nights and early mornings, and that goes whether you’re a young band or an older band. That’s still the way it is.”
It’s been a rocky road at times for this venerable band. After the first blush of commercial and popular success throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s, radical changes in the musical landscape with the advent of digital technology and the explosion of the so-called Grunge movement, nearly sent the band packing as it did many a melodic hard rock band at the time.
Band members left, record deals disappeared, and venue sizes diminished, but the core duo of Grehan and vocalist/frontman/co-writer Johnnie Dee stood firm, weathering the slings and arrows of sometimes outrageous rock and roll fortunes. And they continued to release albums, starting with Lemon Tongue in 2001 (independently, with the album called Dreamland in Europe, featuring some different songs).
A full fledged reunion with original members Gary Lalonde (bass), Ray Coburn (keyboards), and drummer Dave Betts took place with great fanfare in 2007, leading to the new album Clifton Hill in 2008 (released internationally on Frontiers) although Coburn left just two years later, former member Peter Nunn stepped in and has remained a key contributor to the band live and on record for the past 16 years.
“Gary and Dave have been back for a long time now. They left the band for a while earlier in the 1990s. When the 1990s came in, things just kind of fell apart, not just for us. I think for every melodic rock band it was a rough time then. But Johnnie and I soldiered on; we kept going. We got other players in because we weren’t working as much, but we managed to get through the 1990s. We had great session players who came and went, but they weren’t Dave and Gary. It never actually sounded the same, it wasn’t really us. So, after many years of that, in the early 2000s I said to Johnnie that we needed to try to get everyone back,” Grehan said.
“We were all still friends when we parted ways, we never had a big blow out. It’s just the way things panned out. So, I just took a chance and called them all up and asked if they were interested in maybe coming back and trying a few shows, because I missed them. We started slow and we built, and we’ve continued to build it, man. And with those guys, there’s a chemistry with the five of us, including Peter. We make a sound that only we can. We’ve had other players that are technically better, but they never sounded like the same band. So, when you have the same guys who played on the albums playing in the actual band, you can’t beat that. And even though Johnnie and I are sort of the core and in every band the core is usually the singer and the guitar player, but you’ve still got to have the songs, and you’ve got to have the voice, and have that chemistry. So, yeah, we’re lucky that we’re still friends and partners alongside Gary and Dave and Peter too.
“And through all the tough times, I guess we were just too stubborn or dumb to do anything else. And, you know, I don’t want to do anything else. But there were some really rough years in there in the 1990s when Grunge was in. There wasn’t much for any of the bands like us to do. Our music was out of style. But now since the early 2000s, melodic rock came roaring back and we’re doing so, so much better there days. And it’s great. I’m a lifer anyways. I’m a songwriter and I do everything. Honeymoon Suite is like the mothership for me and it’s great because it enables me to do other things in music. I write and produce outside of the band. And as long as I can stay in it and make a living, which is really rare to be a musician and make a living and be able to buy a house and support a family. I am very thankful and grateful for that. And this dang band just keeps going. And I don’t know why, but I do know we’ve got great fans, we’ve got a great catalogue that’s still getting airplay. The songs have withstood the test of time, and I am very happy about that.”
One of the most significant of Grehan’s non-Honeymoon Suite gigs is being the father of up-and-coming Nashville-based singer/songwriter Leah Marlene. Already a rising star, she gained international attention after finishing third in the 20th season of American Idol. She’s released two albums and a slew of singles, self-written and self-produced for the most part, with her dad playing more of a supportive role, allowing the precociously talented and driven young artist to forge her own path in the music industry.
“Of course, her mother and I are extremely proud. It’s just been crazy what’s happened with her in a short period of time. And it’s a wonderful thing that happened with American Idol, because it really boosted her career, but she knows she’s got a lot of work still to do and she’s working hard on it. She’s done it all herself so, yeah, it’s wonderful to see,” Grehan said.
“She’s a pretty smart girl and she’s pretty on top of her own business. The music business that she’s in is completely different from the one that I came up in these days. So, we do talk about it, but it’s changed so much, it really is different for these kids these days and how things go. It’s a whole new world for them. I learn a lot from her actually. The kids know all about what’s going on and how to get your music out there; it’s all about social media now. And she’s got a pretty good handle on all of it.”
Proud day, iconic Canadian rock star, and axe slinging expert, Grehan is proof that sticking it out in tough times, staying true to yourself, your roots and your authentic self can pay off!
For more information on the new album, tour dates and other band news, visit https://www.honeymoonsuiteband.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, Ontario, Canada, who has been writing about music and musicians for more than 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavors, he works as a communications and marketing specialist and is an avid volunteer in his community. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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