HONNE

Bow, 2014, and a word borrowed from Japanese

Andy Clutterbuck and James Hatcher met at university and began working together in Bow, east London, in late 2014. Clutterbuck sings and produces; Hatcher produces. The name comes from the Japanese 本音 — the feelings a person actually holds, as against the face they show the world — and the same vocabulary gave them the name of the label they set up in 2015, Tatemae Recordings.

The early tracks went out on SoundCloud rather than through a campaign. "Warm on a Cold Night" appeared in 2014 and, by the duo's own account, took thousands of plays within days and led straight to a record deal. They have since told interviewers that the growth came from listeners passing songs between themselves rather than from radio play or money, and they have kept describing the project in those terms ever since.

Four albums, a mixtape and a long list of guests

The debut album, Warm on a Cold Night, came out on 22 July 2016 and reached No. 37 in the UK. Love Me / Love Me Not followed on 24 August 2018, the mixtape no song without you on 3 July 2020, and Let's Just Say the World Ended a Week from Now, What Would You Do? on 22 October 2021. Across that run the duo worked with Aminé, RM of BTS, Khalid, Griff, NIKI, Pink Sweat$ and BEKA, and wrote or produced for other artists including JONES, Liv Dawson and Beka.

The fourth album, OUCH, arrived on 6 September 2024, led by the single "Backseat Driver" in July of that year. Mystic Sons gave it seven out of ten, calling it an absorbing listen that flows from one track to the next while conceding it is short on anthemic radio moments — a fair summary of a catalogue that has never depended on singles doing the heavy lifting. The Telegraph's early description of the pair as futuristic soul has followed them around for a decade, and the records have drifted between synth-pop, R&B and something closer to sophisti-pop without ever abandoning the same warm, low-lit register.

The audience is mostly not in Britain

The gap between a No. 37 UK debut and what HONNE actually are is enormous, and it is geographic. Warm on a Cold Night went six times platinum in South Korea, and the duo hold gold, platinum and multi-platinum certifications across South Korea, Thailand and Indonesia. That is the commercial engine, and it shapes everything about how they tour.

It shows in the 2026 itinerary, which gives Asia far more nights than Europe: three consecutive shows at the Lotte Concert Hall in Seoul on 16, 17 and 18 July, Bangkok's KBank Siam Pic-Ganesha on 25 July, three nights in Singapore from 4 to 6 August, two in Kuala Lumpur on 7 and 8 August, and Jakarta in late August. It shows in the collaborators, too — the re-recorded "Location Unknown" with the Indonesian singer NIKI took Spotify viral chart placements in Indonesia and the Philippines and, according to the duo's publicity, close to ten million streams in its first two months.

HONNE — 10, and what a re-recording is for

On 15 May 2026 the duo released HONNE — 10, a twelve-track project marking the decade since their debut. It is not a compilation and not a new album: it is the old songs recorded again, acoustically and with most of the production removed, drawn from the first two records. "To mark 10 years of HONNE, we went back to the songs that started everything, recording stripped-back acoustic versions from our first two albums," the pair said on release, describing the exercise as a reminder of why they started.

The singles came out in sequence — "Warm on a Cold Night (10 Years)", then "Location Unknown feat. NIKI (10 Years)", then "Crying Over You (10 Years)" with BEKA, whom the duo describe as one of their closest friends. On their own site they frame the whole thing plainly as a thank-you rather than a new chapter: the songs "recorded again, stripped back, and shaped by who we are now". The vinyl went out as a double LP.

There is an obvious commercial logic to re-recording a back catalogue, and the duo have not pretended otherwise about the anniversary framing. What makes this one more than a rights exercise is that the arrangements genuinely change the songs — tracks built for headphones and late-night playlists turn out to carry a room when the synth beds are taken away.

The 2026 routing

The 10 Year Anniversary Tour opened in the Americas in June: Teatro Metropólitan in Mexico City on 8 June, then the Somerville Theatre outside Boston on 11 June, The Town Hall in New York on 12 June, the Danforth Music Hall in Toronto on 13 June, the Vic Theatre in Chicago on 14 June, the Wiltern in Los Angeles on 17 June, the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco on 18 June and the Vogue Theatre in Vancouver on 21 June. Every one of those is a seated theatre — a deliberate change from the standing rooms and festival stages the OUCH cycle used.

Asia took July and August, finishing with an in-hotel session at the Aloft Jakarta Kebon Jeruk on 22 August and a set at LaLaLa Festival at the Jakarta International Expo the following day, which showed they have not given up festival slots entirely.

Europe comes last. The listed dates are TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht on 12 October, Säälchen in Berlin on 13 October, Stadthalle Köln-Mülheim on 14 October, two nights at Café de la Danse in Paris on 15 and 16 October, and the London Palladium on 20 October. The Palladium is the largest room of the European leg and the only British date on the books.

Where they stand now

As of late September 2026 the most recent documented HONNE performances are the Jakarta pair in August, with the European leg still ahead. HONNE — 10 remains the current release, and the duo have announced no fifth studio album to follow OUCH.

What the anniversary has clarified is the shape of the career. HONNE are not a British chart act who happen to do well abroad; they are a South East and East Asian touring proposition with a London base, running their own label and filling multiple nights in Seoul, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur while playing one show in the UK. The re-recordings and the theatre routing are consistent with that — a catalogue act consolidating an audience it already has, rather than a band chasing a new one.