Meet Honin | Songwriter and Musician

We had the good fortune of connecting with Honin and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Honin, what makes you happy? Why?
What makes me the happiest is surrounding myself with beauty, whether it’s my books/comics, tending to my plants, and most importantly, creating music with others.

Life can be difficult sometimes, music is a way for me to let out those feelings of great happiness and great sadness, whatever I’m going through 🙂 and it’s just a great way to connect with people, whether going to shows, friends coming to my performances, or collaborating in my living room with peeps!

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Currently, I’m working to learn how to play shows as a solo artist: bass in one hand, chords in my right hand, while singing and playing tracks. I just love having control over how each element flows in and out of alignment, playing with how they respond with each other and then align together perfectly. [Come see me attempt this on August 24th at The Silverlake Lounge 😉 ].

I’ve been playing piano for about ten years now, and when I finally felt like I could play a whole set by myself, well it felt real nice! So knowing that I can eventually do anything I set my mind to, even if it takes years to get good at it, I’m gonna try to do it.

Also, something that I feel has helped me along my journey and something that I continue to seek out are good musical relationships with other female artists. As a vocalist that grew up with a jazz background, it was difficult to see myself becoming a better pianist/artist/producer when almost all the musical connections/musicians I knew were men. It can feel isolating without you realizing. But, I also realized that I wasn’t seeking out these connections that I wanted in my life. One of my favorite examples of this was meeting my friend Jasmin, and starting a Dua Lipa coverband together! I can’t even remember who initially made a post singing a song on their story, and who replied ” omg we should get together and sing her songs!” but that one message has led us to performing different projects together, not to mention having grown into great friends.

Taking the time to create connections with other female artists/instrumentalists in the music industry has been so worth it to be able to have that camaraderie of encouragement and helping each other grow! Most importantly, I just really want younger women to know that if they want to be a musical artist, they can have a hand in how their music is produced, and they can work hard to know exactly how they want to perform it so that it’s true to who they are.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Oooh, some go-to spots for listening to live music would be the Goldfish LA – very cool atmosphere to watch a show at, and I do feel like I’m indeed inside an aquarium when I’m there, teehee. Aaaaand if they happened to be in LA on Aug 24th, I would recommend going to the Silverlake Lounge to see myself and some other cool artists play!

Echo Park is beautiful and the lake with the swan boats is so sweet and cute to walk through :’)

Dinosaur coffee! There’s not only so many little dinosaurs everywhere, but they also make a nice cold brew.

As a comic/graphic novel lover, one must go to the Secret Headquarters! They have a neat collection, including some really dope stories by local artists.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
All the people in my life who have supported what I do (my partner, my friends, and my family) along the way are the people to thank. I don’t know what I’d do without them! Probably would keep playing music, but it’s much easier to keep going when you have lovely people who support you.

A close second dedication would be to books. So many realizations have come from reading the different perspectives on what life could be like. More specifically, I dedicate my ambition over the past couple of years to these next two books:

The Four Agreements – all about not letting the cloud of what others expect of you keep you from pursuing your own dreams.

The Alchemist – a story about a Spanish shepherd’s journey to find his “personal treasure.” I think most people could relate to the struggle of trying to carve out your own path in life, when it’s a path or experience that you have never tried before. When I’m nervous to try something new, I think of the shepherd who had only known tending sheep, but ultimately went in a whole new direction and go after his dreams.

Instagram: instagram.com/honinmusic

Twitter: twitter.com/honinmusic

Youtube: https://youtube.com/@honinmusic

Image Credits
Daven Martinez