You know we always have your back here at The Honey POP! We’ll always bring you artists that deserve your attention, and this is no different. We’ve introduced you to this boyband a couple of times before, but in case you’ve forgotten… Here At Last consists of five members, Pedro, Tommy, Zach, Ryan & James. They first started off doing their own things. That includes posting song covers on YouTube, eventually making their way to TikTok, getting discovered by each other, and then after that, the rest is history. One of their first releases, ‘Happy,’ has gotten them 8 million streams on Spotify and 59K views on YouTube, which we say is not too shabby! Everyone, including ourselves, has named them UK’s next big thing, and with the track they are on now, the future is looking very bright.
This year, Here At Last have a lot of releases coming up. A big one is an EP set for release in August, which we are super stoked for! But that’s not all! July 14th, the group has a new single, ‘God Took His Time,’ out, and y’all, it is so good! And you know what else is so good? We get to talk to the band all about the track, favorite covers, and the EP. We’ll also talk about things they’ve learned from each other. Check out our interview with the band below!
We really wanted to make a pun of, “You’re finally Here At Last at The Honey POP,” but we weren’t too sure if it was overused, because honestly, we are super excited to have you! How are y’all feeling especially ahead of some pretty exciting releases?
James: First of all about the pun, we get that all the time. That’s why we came up with the name. Well, Tommy came up with the name and we liked it.
Pedro: We are really, really excited for ‘God Took His Time’ and its new release. It’s a bit of an American pop-style song and in terms of explaining the song itself, it’s about telling someone, a partner, or whoever it may be, whether it’s your dog, your mum, your dad whoever, how beautiful they are. But most love songs tend to be quite sad but the fact this is quite upbeat and a bit different, we are excited to see what the reactions are going to be with the fan base.
Let’s first go back to the beginning when each of you were releasing covers on YouTube. What’s your favorite cover from each member?
James: Tommy does a wonderful cover of ‘Easy On Me’ by Adele. It’s the staple of Tommy’s TikTok. Pedro, I don’t really listen to your TikToks, I hear enough of you – haha!
Tommy: Pedro did a cover on the guitar at his mum and dad’s house singing ‘We Don’t Have To Take Our Clothes Off.’ James’ was ‘Boat’ by Ed Sheeran.’
James: Ed Sheeran commented on that!
Tommy: And then Zach’s is all the ‘Why We Don’t Sing With A British Accent’ videos! Zach: I think my favorite for Pedro would be his ‘Fine Line’ cover. That was really, really pretty. I would agree that yours is ‘Boat.’ That was really, really good. And then Tommy’s ‘Stitches’ by Shawn Mendes. I love that one.
James: I love Zach’s Taylor Swift ‘You Belong With Me’ cover.
Pedro: Yeah, that was a bloody good one.
James: We don’t really watch each other’s videos.
Zach: We hear each other doing them.
What’s one thing you’ve learned from each other, whether it’s about music or life in general?
James: I think we’ve all picked different bits up of each other, to be honest. I think living with each other, obviously we spend every second of every day together and so we’ve kind of picked up each other’s habits and each other’s different routines. I think we’ve all molded over the same type of person over just exposure therapy and yeah just being around each other. Tommy’s made me a lot more organized than I used to be and a bit more on the ball. Pedro, yeah I’ve learned lots of swear words in Portuguese…
Pedro: You’re welcome!
You’re a relatively new group and have achieved a lot this year, especially with your success on TikTok. How important do you think it is for new artists to put themselves out there on social media platforms?
Zach: It’s vital. Unfortunately in this day in age, you could have all the talent in the world but if you’re not on social media, and if people don’t know you exist, you’re just never going to be discovered. And I think that we were very lucky when we started, TikTok was just on the rise so we literally jumped in as soon as the train started moving. So, I think it is very important for new artists and upcoming artists, no matter what you do, whether it’s singing or playing the guitar, anything.
James: Even comedy now!
Zach: Anything. Any skill you want to do or with artists, production, anything. Just put yourself on TikTok because, you know ten videos could do bad, but if just one video does good, it will help improve all the views on your videos and the views on future videos as well. Use social media while it’s still booming, because you never know one day, TikTok could no longer be a thing or Instagram could no longer be a thing. So, use it now while it is available.
Okay, let’s talk about your upcoming track ‘God Took His Time,’ we had the opportunity to listen to it before its July 14th release, and we love it so much, especially the guitar throughout it. How long did the instrumentals and beats take until you guys knew that’s what the track should sound like?
Zach: Production can change in terms of the amount of time it takes and depending on how complicated the track is. Sometimes you can put down the track in 5 minutes and sometimes you’re still adding instruments in a week later. It very much varies between the songs. With live instruments like guitar, it can be way easier because you can just put a guitar on a loop and it will sound amazing in a pop song the whole way through. So the time varies very much and there’s not really a set time of how long it takes you to do the production behind the song because as I said, you can add something every two days if you wanted to, and it could completely change the song.
Each of you got to shine vocally, how did you know which parts each of you would be singing?
Pedro: Now that we live together, it’s easy because every time we do rehearsals or we end up doing covers, we’ve pinpointed over the year where everyone kinda fits. So when we do listen to a song, it comes naturally for us to go, “oh Ryan would sound really good on that” or “James would sound really good on that”. So I think it’s the way we have molded and the fact we live together, we just do everything together, and when we sing, we are always together. I think that just made it so much easier.
James: I think we are just at the point now where there’s never any debates or any “ooh do you think I should do this bit instead?”. That never happens because we are so all on the same page about where everyone sounds good. So whenever we write a song or go to record a song, it is literally just, “obviously James is doing that bit” or “obviously Zach sings this bit, this bit is quite high so Tommy is going to sing that”. So it’s actually really easy.
The song definitely has a “song of the summer” kinda vibe, what songs are you jamming to this summer?
Zach: Wow, what a question! That new Will Linley song is brilliant, it’s called ‘Tough.’ It’s a great song. He’s a really good artist, really underrated.
James: I’m all over the new Jonas Brothers album. On repeat, constantly. It’s so good. ‘Celebrate’ is really good, ‘Summer In The Hamptons’ is incredible. The whole album is just flawless.
Pedro: I’ve been listening to a lot of Thomas Day.
Tommy: I’ve been really in my feels, crying in my room to SZA.
You also have an EP on the way which is very exciting! We love that you included some older tracks. When putting together the EP you get to listen to all the tracks you’ve previously released all in one project. To us you can hear the growth from your first release to ‘God Took His Time,’ how cool does it feel knowing where you started and where you are now?
Pedro: I think in terms of sound, we wanted to see how far we can push it. I mean we had ballads, we had a house, we had almost slightly DnB track, and then just really, really happy tunes. We kinda all just wanted to do different things. And by the end of the EP, it feels really nice to finish with an extra track and to be able to move forward from that and kind of close that chapter with this EP. But it’s really exciting and nice to look back on everything we have done but at the same time look forward to everything we are going to do.
What are you most excited to show listeners with the EP?
Tommy: I was going to say, although it’s not even music related, but we spent hours on end with our manager going through loads of unseen photos that are in the booklet and some are horrendous, but it’s actually jokes.
On top of a new single & EP on the way, you are also playing BST Hyde Park as well as going on a 5-day tour. How do you prepare yourselves when playing in front of people who may not have heard your music before compared to your fans?
Zach: I think it is part of the job. I think we are so used to performing in front of people, whether it’s new fans or fans that have been with us since the beginning, but the whole couple years we have been in the band. We look forward to performing for people who don’t know our music or us as a band because it gives us an opportunity to create more fans. And we like to think we are very lovely and that we come across well on stage so if people like us and like our music, we are always happy to have them on board.
Speaking of BST Hyde Park, how excited are y’all to be playing alongside other awesome artists? Who are you most excited to see?
Zach: Gary Barlow!
Pedro: I’m excited to see Sugababes.
Zach: All of them really, we actually listen to all of them. Like Take That we have on repeat.
James: We used to play ‘Leave Right Now’ every day in the car and used to sing it at the top of our lungs. It was like our motivation song.
Zach: We love them all, and of course, we know The Script a little bit so we are very very excited to see them again. It will be nice to see their set as well because we have seen them live before and they always have it, they are just incredible.
Now as we mentioned your 2023 is pretty packed. What are y’all most looking forward to?
Zach: We love going on tour, we love performing for our fans and I think we are more excited for this one as well because we get to go to more places, venues we’ve never been before, and different parts of the countries and other countries. We are going to Scotland! So it’s really really exciting to perform there and go someplace different. And if this one goes well, then the next tour will be more places, new places hopefully, and then eventually go into Europe and all this kind of stuff. Every time we do tours like this, it feels like we are taking a new step into something different and the next step adds to the development so it’s always exciting to do something like that.
And finally to wrap it up, give us your best inspirational quotes your listeners need to live by for the remainder of 2023!
Zach: “There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” My mum said that, and got it tattooed on my arm.
James: “Everything happens for a reason.”
Tommy: “You don’t know your backs gone until it’s gone.”
James: “The first step is the most important step you’ll take.”
Pedro: “Keep on your vitamins.”
Honestly, we can’t tell whose inspirational quote we’ll be going with for 2023. They’re all so good, and so are the group! Just by their releases and talking with Here At Last, we know we’ll always be big fans of the band and wish the absolute best for them. Make sure to be on the lookout for the EP, and don’t forget to stream ‘God Took His Time!’
As we said, we love Here At Last, and we know you do now as well! Let us know what you think of the band in the comments down below. You can also reach us on Twitter @thehoneypop, and don’t forget to talk to us over on Facebook and Instagram!
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