HONEYMOON SUITE, EH?
DETROIT—“I consider us neither new wave, nor heavy metal,” quips Honeymoon Suite songwriter/guitarist Derry Grehan. The authors eagerly nod in agreement. “We are power pop heavy metal,” Derry continues. “We’re not heavy metal. We’re not pop.
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HONEYMOON SUITE, EH?
DETROIT—“I consider us neither new wave, nor heavy metal,” quips Honeymoon Suite songwriter/guitarist Derry Grehan. The authors eagerly nod in agreement. “We are power pop heavy metal,” Derry continues. “We’re not heavy metal. We’re not pop. We’re...in between. We are rock ’n’ roll, but the music makes sense, has melody, and has meat to it.”
The boys in the band hail from various regions of Canada. Their name? Yep, you guessed it, it’s due to the fact that one of the members come from the Niagara Falls area. Good idea, eh? Drummer Dave Betts notes, “We grew in different parts essentially, and we’re all into the same bands. I was into Deep Purple and heavily into the Who.”
After listening to their debut LP, imaginatively titled Honeymoon Suite, we concluded that when drummer Dave said he was “heavily into” the Who, he most certainly meant his collection of their records weighed a lot. For there is no evidence of learning by listening. While it’s easy to consume their popular single, “New Girl Now,” the rest of their LP offers no challenge—each following track is a variation of the same musically-redundant theme. “We sing about love and pain,” confesses Derry. Not to mention pain. And more pain. Honeymoon Suite have had their collective heart broken enough to sublet the entire Heartbreak Hotel.
Speaking of pain, their stunningly unstunning debut album reeks of it. Let’s examine the cover. It features a heart-shaped bed in a hotel room—possibly a honeymoon suite—with rows of long spikes protruding from the matress. Writer Rabinowitz asks, “Is this Spinal Tap?” Writer Norton concludes, “The spikes merely impale taste.”
“It was one of the many designs submitted,” Derry says of the cover, “it cracked me up when I saw it. I thought it was the most clever idea. We needed something related to Honeymoon Suite and this one...went along with the theme of the record, which is the ever-changing roles between men and women, and what does marriage really mean...?” Heck. You mean life isn’t a bed of roses?
Painfully, it is suggested that Honeymoon Suite stole everything they know from Loverboy. “Loverboy,” says drummer Dave, “especially. People compare us to Loverboy. That’s what people say. But I think we’re different, a bit anyway. I think we’re a title ‘flipper,’...we use synthesizers a little more than Loverboy.”
Honeymoon Suite—profundity you can bank on.
Mark J. Norton and Howard Rabinowitz
