Photo via Bandcamp
Sometimes all it takes is a nudge from someone else to tap into a deeper layer of one’s artistic talents. In the case of Milwaukee singer songwriter Nathan Honore, that push came in the form of a tone-deaf question from a potential fan.
“Which album has the least amount of vocals on it?”
That’s when it dawned on Honore—the primary vocalist in orchestral folk group Whiskey Doubles—that he had unintentionally trapped his creativity within a framework forcing himself to sound a way that just wasn’t working.
“I realized I was singing in ways that weren’t great,” Honore says. “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should—I was writing for that space in a quantity and quality that wasn’t good.”
So, in 2018, Honore stepped away from the band. On its bandcamp page, Whiskey Doubles defines itself as “four musicians” playing “way too many instruments.” Honore steps away from those qualities and does a complete 180 utilizing just his acoustic guitar and voice.
Lamentation and Optimism
And thus Next Paperback Hero was born, and after a series of singles and EPs, Honore has released his debut full-length album titled Morning Skies & Heavy Eyes. Spanning nine tracks, the new album drifts between haunting lamentation and folky optimism, often shakily riding the line between the two. The stars of the show are Honore’s low-register vocals and down-tuned acoustic guitar—a dynamic duo that carries a heavy weight behind it. But its also that sort of sad delivery that makes the more optimistic sections of the album all that more convincing.
“I have this range and I’ve always assumed that one end of it was better than the other versus what sounds best and most natural for me,” Honore says.
Morning Skies & Heavy Eyes was written partly before the pandemic and then finished in the spring and summer of 2020. Much of the inspiration for the latter part of the songs written came from Honore’s introspective visits to the Seven Bridges Trail in Grant Park during the pandemic.
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“At 7 a.m., when the sun is rising, there is an overwhelming power of potential and there’s just an opportunity to reset,” Honore says.
Never Undercooked
Making that trek twice a week, Honore would spend his time taking notes and recording voice memos. Once home, the songs would come pouring out. The seventh track on the album, “Breaking Down,” is one such song that was written almost entirely through voice memos and notes.
But even though Honore took a DIY approach to writing and recording the album, the music never feels under-cooked. Even the more bare-bones track “Say the Word” features layered harmonies of Honore’s baritone vocals and a piano lead accenting the acoustic guitar. These are the tracks that carry the melancholic tone of the album best, but then are juxtaposed with tracks like “Finish Line,” which carries itself a little more like a traditional full-band folk song with encouraging lyrics.
“The flexibility with this new project is tenfold, and it becomes this game of what I am capable of versus what I am best at,” Honore says. “And that’s where a lot of the recording took shape.”
The album culminates in “Don’t Take My Energy,” an upbeat declaration of taking back control of one’s mental health. In a way, it’s the perfect song to wrap up an album born from reinventing one’s own artistry. Honore sings, “Sun is shining for the first time today/In three days, nothing but pouring rain/The doubt and cloud of yesterday fade away.” As the curtain drops on Morning Skies & Heavy Eyes, it’s clear that the self-doubt Honore experienced in previous musical endeavors has, at least for now, been extinguished.
“It’s a jumping off point—this is the closing of the story of this record,” Honore says. “It frees me to do what I want moving forward.”
