Photo: Hailey Adelson
Female-fronted hard rock outfit Honey Trap recently unveiled their latest single/music video, “Saints And Sinners,” a tasty blues-rock song that escalates to a thrashing anthem.
New York City-based, Honey Trap comprises Jessica Rendon (vocals), Vasilios Bouras (guitar), Angel De Los Santos (bass), and Cody Hager (drums).
The video, directed by Tom Flynn, features not only the band, highlighted by Rendon’s outstanding vocals, but a beautiful boa constrictor draped around Rendon’s shoulders, adding authenticity to Garden of Eden leitmotif of the visuals.
Kicking off with a bluesy riff from Bouras under Rendon’s sultry vocals, the song steadily builds to a potent head-banger. Written during COVID-19, Rendon’s lyrics reflect on the great equalizing effect the pandemic had, affecting everyone, both saints and sinners.
Tattoo.com spoke with Honey Trap to discover their influences, how they got started in music, and how “Saints And Sinners” came together.
Who are your biggest music influences?
The band draws inspiration from a multitude of sources. Our lead singer is heavily influenced by bands like Alice In Chains, Soundgarden/Chris Cornell, and other great grunge bands that came out of the ‘90s.
Vasilios, being a lead guitarist, fell in love with classic rock bands that are known for their great guitar work like Guns N’ Roses, Led Zeppelin, and a more recent infatuation, Alter Bridge.
Angel’s main inspiration comes from the band Rush the first time he heard them he was hooked. It’s easy to see where the melodic bass lines come from, while the faster, heavier, funkier, and weird unnatural tunes are inspired by a current favorite band called Dance Gavin Dance.
As for our drummer Cody, a mix of the funky Red Hot Chili Peppers beats with the heavy-driving Royal Blood rhythms is what shaped his sound into what it is today.
What made you want to become musicians?
Vasilios: For me, I started getting into music when I was very young. Two of my uncles introduced me to bands like Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, and Led Zeppelin which led me to want to pick up the guitar. At 16 I joined a music class in school and decided to form a band before I could even play a chord. The real defining moment I’d say was when we decided to play ‘Wish You Were Here’ at the high school talent show. I had the worst stage fright and couldn’t even move or look up at the audience. At one point, I gathered the courage to look up and I remember a sea of people just waving their hands and lighters in the air. That’s when I knew I wanted to keep doing this.
Jessica: I’ve always known music since before I could talk. I feel like my first words were singing along to a Disney song. I love the storytelling aspects of songs and enjoy bringing people into the world of my imagination, my perspective of the world.
Angel: I cannot remember. I would say I got it from my family, but they really just introduced me to a lot of Spanish music. I would say I picked it up from listening to AM/FM radio every day and recording tapes, making my own mixes, and playing along grabbing anything I could make an instrument of. I performed a lot when in school as well, playing the recorder, congas, trumpet, and many forms of percussion including drums. I was always a musician, and I can’t think of a time when I wasn’t.
Cody – My main motivation for becoming a musician was due to the influence of my cousins. I was the youngest out of all my cousins so of course my musical tastes were influenced by them. All of them were older millennials so a lot of that was grunge, thrash, classic rock, country, punk, nu-metal, and anything in-between. They gave me an open mind to appreciate all kinds of music and sent me on my own journey towards creating my own. I have fond memories of using Acid Planet and scraping free loops off the Internet and mixing my own songs – none of them were great but they only served to fuel my creativity and desire to become a musician. Finally, two of my cousins wanted to start a band and bought me my first drum set, then the rest is history.
Could you tell us a little about your songwriting process?
Usually, Vasilios or Angel will bring a melody to Jessica and they will sit and go over the changes. Jessica will come up with the lyrics and vocal melody and then they will play it for the guys. Several times though, Honey Trap will jam, and the song comes together on the spot!
Could you tell us about “Saints And Sinners?” What was the inspiration behind it? How did the lockdown influence this song when you wrote it?
Vasilios: Sometimes when we write a song the inspiration behind the music arrangement might not always be the same as the meaning of the lyrics. But in the end, we’re able to fuse it together and create beautiful art. For me, I started writing the melody of this song during the early lockdown stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. I had never been through more troubling and uncertain times than at that point. I wasn’t allowed to work, our former drummer had just left the band, we weren’t able to get together to rehearse, and all our shows got canceled due to these lockdowns. The band that I traveled across the country to be a part of and work on music together for years seemed like it was falling apart, and the world felt like it was literally about to end. When I picked up the guitar, the beginning line from ‘Saints And Sinners’ was the first thing that came out.
As soon as things started normalizing and we started meeting for practice again I showed the rest of the band the song, and they added their finishing touches.
Jess: I’ve always found a tie between religion and mysticism. I like to play with these dark, twisted, and sometimes sexy themes. My singing background began in church and later my lyrics, when I began writing, were inspired by gothic authors like Edgar Allan Poe, Keats, and Mary Shelley, which inspired the lyrics of the song.
Which line from “Saints And Sinners” has the most personal meaning to you?
Jess: The line in the bridge ‘The good book says to make a noise, make a joyful noise unto the Lord…He didn’t say it had to be a pretty one’ was a line my Grandaddy told me.
I would go to day service with him up the block in the church where my parents married, where my great-grandfather was a missionary, and we would sing hymns. My Grandaddy couldn’t sing. He sounded like a dying cat, and he knew this. One day he saw my face cringe in honesty as kids’ faces tell, and he leaned down to me and said, ‘The good book says to ‘make a joyful noise unto the Lord. He didn’t say it had to be a pretty one.’ And this line always stuck with me. I have it on a bracelet and I find myself repeating it to girls who tell me they love to sing but would never because they suck at it. Singing is more than trying to sound pretty. It’s about passion and surges of emotion, movements that sway you to your core.
Did you face any creative blocks when writing “Saints And Sinners”? How do you usually overcome them?
Jessica: ‘Saints And Sinners’ came together very organically actually. We have suffered creative blocks from time to time, but then we just jam and let it flow out when it’s ready. I keep a book of poetry and lyrics, odd lines. So, in those moments of jamming, I sit back, listen to what the guys are coming together on, and then flip through my book, to see if any lines go to the mood of the instrumental melody.
What was the experience like working with director Tom Flynn on the music video for “Saints And Sinners”?
It was a pleasure working with Tom. The man is truly a master of his craft. We actually contacted a significant number of people to produce the video but when we landed on Tom, we knew the chemistry was just right.
He definitely went above and beyond for us and we’re grateful that he was able to find the time for our video with the vast amount of large projects that are on his plate. At one point he even had to fly out to Vegas in between filming our video to work on a Lionsgate production.
In the end, we couldn’t be happier. The music video to ‘Saints And Sinners’ exceeded all our expectations.
What is next for Honey Trap?
Going into the new year we want to start doing more collaborations with local and national artists. It’s a great way to give fans more variety and reach more people.
There’s also talk of meeting with our producer Dave Schiffman in Toronto to start working on our next big project. He will be there recording another band already and figured why not just turn it into a tour where we release a new single on the way!
