Dirty Honey
Dirty Honey was the first unsigned band to ever top the Billboard Mainstream Rock Songs chart as “When I’m Gone” went to #1.
When I’m Gone
Four years earlier, Dirty Honey formed in L.A. when guitarist John Notto and vocalist Marc LaBelle left Ground Zero, a band that played covers and some LaBelle originals.
Known early on as The Shags, LaBelle came up with the band’s name after hearing Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin) mention his band the Honeydrippers in an interview with Howard Stern and thought it sounded like a “dirty” Rock and Roll name.
In addition to LaBelle and Notto, bassist Justin Smolian, and drummer Jaydon Bean signed on.
After hearing “When I’m Gone,” Mark DiDia, a band friend and music industry veteran became their manager and booked them gigs opening for Slash (Guns N’ Roses).
Dirty Honey’s self-titled, self-released EP dropped 2019. While they were recording the EP in Australia, of all places, band members were contacted by friends and family telling them their music was being played on the radio.
With the COVID-19 pandemic the band decided to stay in Hollywood to record their debut full-length set with producer Nick DiDia virtually supervising. The album dropped in ’21.
Two years later, the band released their sophomore set, “Can’t Find The Brakes,” featuring the tracks “Won’t Take Me Alive” and the ballad “Coming Home (Ballad Of The Shire).”
Won’t Take Me Alive
Coming Home (Ballad Of The Shire)
There was also a companion four-part video documentary, recorded in North America and Europe on the band’s “Can’t Find The Brakes” world tour.
“‘Home’ has become wherever it is that we’re playing music, rather than a particular place,” offered LaBelle. “We wanted to showcase our separate journeys, knowing full well that the music will always call us back home.”
Dirty Honey then issued “Mayhem And Revelry Live,” the band’s first live-in-concert set.
“I believe this album features the band in its most honest form, feeding off the audience and walking the wire with a grin and a dash of reckless abandon that can only come from that magical place we get to onstage with… the audience,” shared Notto.
“When I’m Gone” was a featured track.
“There’s something beautiful about a band’s unbridled live energy mixed with an audience’s excitement that breathes new life into songs,” LaBelle added. “The guys in the band and I have long been told ‘your records are awesome, but you’re even better live.”
When I’m Gone Live
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