Even Butterflies Make A Sound presents two talented trios and a fantastic foursome from France on Wednesday, 4 November at Chelmsford’s Hot Box venue. Please click here to head to DICE to get your tickets.
Waves Crashing come from Olympia, Washington State, Healees’ home is Paris, France, and Hibiscus Haze hail from Colchester, Essex.
days
hours minutes seconds
until
Incredible Hot Box show!
The genesis of this show is quite interesting. A Waves Crashing fan, knowing the band were seeking dates, contacted me and suggested I promote it. Maybe the fan had been to the recent Lorelle Meets The Obsolete gig? Or my first-ever promotion, which was Giant Drag. That gig was before this blog was launched unfortunately.
Back to now, Waves Crashing recommended their old muckers Healees. And, being keen to promote local, female talent Hibiscus Haze fit the bill.
Read on and you’ll see how excited we’re getting about the event. I’m so pleased the three groups took time to answer some of my Victoria Derbyshire-style questions.
Wave Crashing Q&A
So over to Josh Calisti (photo middle) of headliners Waves Crashing. But first check out an ace review of the band’s new LP here.
Tell us about your bandmates.
I met Bryce (left in photo) in Tacoma through my Craiglists ad looking for a drummer in 2020. I met Zach several years later in Olympia through a guitar repair customer of mine. He joined the band almost 2 years ago.
Where do you all connect in musical sensibilities terms?
All our musical backgrounds are quite different. I am the 80-90s alternative guy while Bryce likes a wide range of rock, punk, and metal (Deftones), but we align on early Smashing Pumpkins albums. Siamese Dream is the perfect album. Zach’s golden era is 00’s emo. He’s a killer architect on the bass and six-string guitar. So we sort of blend it all together with keeping a focus on gazey, post-punk-alternative rock.
This is Waves Crashing’s first tour of England. Please have each band member give a one-word answer about how they’re feeling about the shows.
Yes, this our first time playing outside the states! We are all equally very ‘excited’!
The band’s new LP is called In The Blur. You must be delighted with the positive reaction it’s received?
It’s done okay. We’d love for it to grow. It’s really hard to reach new audiences and it’s a constant challenge in these modern times of algorithms, especially doing it all DIY. We released Effection only last year. We feel they pair nicely. Very proud of both albums.
Tell us how the accompanying remix LP came about.
I’m a big fan of remixes and a lover of post-punk and dark wave music. This remix EP is a collection of some tracks from In The Blur sourced out to several different engineers (who are friends), who provided their own remixes with little direction and a lot of freedom. I just told them what vibes I’m looking for and each one nailed it in their own way. I let each engineer select the song they wanted to remix. It’s really cool to have a song I wrote work in such different genres that I love.
Please let the readers know what is your most hoped for ‘tourist’ experience when you visit England.
Zach and I have been to London at least twice, I believe. This will be the first time for Bryce, so lots for him to see but as usual with touring there isn’t a lot of time to sight see. However, I am hopeful that we can tour Cadbury World in Birmingham after our last show. London is so much fun though. From the Tower of London to all the music shops on Denmark Street, it’s really a special place. I am very fond of your country and its culture. Especially the great music history it possesses. It would be really great to get back to the British Museum and spend some more time there.
Thank you and see you soon!
Healees Q&A
Please tell us about your bandmates, Bryan (far left in photo).
The band is myself on guitar and voice – I’m a former Brooklynite, previously in a garage psych band, who moved to Paris in 2015. Then there’s Renaud, also on guitar and singing – he’s originally from Brittany and a former art troupe theater actor. Hillevi is a Swedish ex-punk rocker, she plays bass and sings harmonies. Hugo is the drummer, he’s also from Brittany and he’s an actual serious musician who can like… read notes and everything. Wild.
Hillevi and I are married, we moved to Paris in 2015. I met Renaud through online classified ads, I posted one saying I wanted to start a cross between MBV and Spiritualized (I don’t think Healees really worked out that way). Once we had a few songs, Hillevi was drafted as you can’t have a shoegaze band without female vocals. Hugo we met through our pal and fellow Parisian expat Erica from the band Special Friend, she knew we needed a new drummer after our old one moved to Canada and she recommended him.
Where do you all connect in musical sensibilities terms?
Renaud and I have a special affinity in that despite having done it for decades, neither one of us knows how to play guitar. We pretty much sucked until we started using alternate tunings, then things started coming together. We initially bonded over a love of The Cure and Red House Painters, then Echo & the Bunnymen, The Wedding Present, etc. Finally we admitted we really just want to do Dire Straits covers (badly, as neither of us can play guitar) but by then it was too late.
I guess the centrepiece of this short tour is your headline slot at the Shoegaze Weekender at the Strongroom in Shoreditch? What are your favourite memories about playing in London?
Our first shows in the UK were thanks to OtherSide Promotions who run the Shoegaze Weekender – Yuki, the wife of Elios the main OSP promoter, had found us somehow and convinced Elios and his partner Terry to bring us over. We love playing London, the audiences have always been great for us but apart from that we love coming and hanging out with the friends we’ve made here, mainly revolving around the OSP crew.
It’s been nearly (checks calendar), ahem, two years since the release of your classic Coin de l’œil LP. Can you speak about a follow-up release? Purleeease?
Ah ha, get the band comfy and then ambush them with the “where’s the new record you lazy bastards” question, I see!! 
LP2 has been fully written and demoed out for like… almost a year now? We hit a bunch of setbacks in 2025, nothing serious but enough to put several hitches in our schedule – suffice to say it is currently in production and we hope to have it out early next year. In the meantime we plan to drop at least one single before we come over to the UK and our live set is at least half new songs these days. It’s coming, swear!
Even if you cannot give details, I bet you’re working on something. Are there any discernible differences in the band’s approach to studio work this time?
We are indeed taking a slightly different approach to recording this time. In the past, everything was done at home. This time, we booked a proper studio here in Paris to record drums and bass – we’ll still be doing the guitars at home though, if only because Renaud and I need like a million takes to play anything right so doing everything in the studio would be prohibitively expensive.
Please let the readers know what is your best tourist experience when you’ve visited England before.
Being on tour, especially a shoestring tour, doesn’t usually leave a lot of time for touristy activities. We did once tour Cardiff Castle on a day off, not sure I would pay for that again… Honestly we can usually be found, in the words of the great Mancunian Jim E. Brown, in the queue at Greggs, packing on a few kilos in vegan sausage rolls. Or trying to test every single variety of Tesco sandwich, or downing pints at 10 am in the nearest Wetherspoons… you know, typical English stuff.
Thanks much, we’re really looking forward to our first show in Chelmsford at the Hot Box!
Jim E. Brown
Editor’s note. Must confess I had no clue about Jim E. Brown. According to Farrago Magazine, he is an enigmatic cult-following internet personality, poet, and musician who comically and persistently claims to be a 19-year-old alcoholic from Didsbury, Manchester, born one day before 9/11 (September 10, 2001).
Hibiscus Haze Q&A
Tell us about your bandmates please, Grace (drums).
I love any chance I can get to rave about my bandmates Ella (guitar) and Immy (bass). We met during college in our English Literature course. None of us actually studied anything music related while there so I always think it’s pretty special that the three of us ended up in that English class. I found out the day I met Ella that she was a singer and guitarist. I immediately thought… when’s too early to ask someone you just met if they want to form a band. Also, when’s a good time to force someone you just met to learn bass. Four months later, we started Hibiscus Haze off with a video of us playing ‘Creep’ by Radiohead in my cramped garage.
Where do you all connect in musical sensibilities terms?
A lot of our early songs were built off acoustic demos of chords and lyrics Ella had written before we all knew each other. So from early on I think we’ve all mutually prioritised the lyricism in our songs as we would build the song up revolving around the lyrics. We are really fortunate that we bounce off each other’s ideas and as a result end up writing new songs every time we’re together. Our song ‘Danny’ was only born because I insisted we write a song that sounded like the noise Ella’s bracelet accidentally made on her guitar strings. Or the outro to our song ‘Superman’ only being added in because we liked the sound Immy’s rings made being hit over her bass strings. I think we all connect by just taking the most random idea floating around in the rehearsal room and just running with it.
Hibiscus Haze recently supported Part Chimp at Colchester Arts Centre. What a great venue! That must’ve been your band’s biggest show so far. Tell us about your favourite part of the day.
We had a great time supporting Part Chimp! We love playing at the Colchester Art Centre; it’s personally my favourite Colchester venue. The sound in there is always incredible so we really enjoyed listening to Greebo’s and Part Chimp’s sets. Like most gigs, my favourite part of the day is getting the chance to meet new people and chatting about music to likeminded people. Also just love spending a day together with the band, nothing like your hangout session including getting up on a stage and playing to a crowd.
The band has released two singles so far, ‘Danny’ and ‘Photobooth’ that have been so well received. Any plans for a new release?
Nothing concrete yet but it is definitely our plan to start releasing some of the new songs we’ve been writing over the past few months. We’ve been playing around with them for a while and tested some out at gigs and we’re really excited to keep working on them and hopefully release them in the foreseeable future.
Do you all contribute to the lyrics? I ask because some of the songs are pretty scathing!
As much as me and Immy wish we could write lyrics, we are definitely not the ones behind them. For that, we owe credit to Ella. One of my favourite parts about when we add lyrics to our songs is when me and Immy throw out words and ideas and Ella moulds them into something that actually makes sense. In ‘Photobooth’, a lot of the lyrics are harsh because to us ‘Photobooth’ is a song about how harsh we are to ourselves as young women and this culture nowadays to express such disdain to ourselves through how we filter ourselves on social media. We take a lot of inspiration from bands like Hole, Veruca Salt, and L7, female-led bands who were unfiltered and not afraid to be loud and crude.
I’ve asked both Waves Crashing and Healees this question, so it’s been altered a bit for you. Please let the readers know what is your best tourist experience when you’ve travelled around England. You can say Colchester as it’s a special town.
We haven’t travelled far as a band yet. But playing in Colchester is always a treat for us because there is something so exciting about the current music scene. There’s so many fresh and new artists entering and passing through so it’s really cool to be a part of that. We’re really lucky with the venues we’ve got here in Colchester. We also loved our gig in Felixstowe (I know not super exotic) as we went full tourist mode by taking a trip on the Ferris wheel.
Conclusion
So, it’s less than 40 days till this excellent event at Hot Box. All three bands are excellent and deserve your support. Why not head over to DICE now and pick up your tickets? Thank you.
Upcoming live dates
Waves Crashing
4/11: Hot Box Live, Chelmsford
5/11: Ramsgate Music Hall, Ramsgate
6/11: Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds
7/11: Strongroom, London
8/11: Hare & Hounds – Venue 2, Kings Heath
Healees
4/11: Hot Box Live, Chelmsford
5/11: Ramsgate Music Hall, Ramsgate
6/11: Strongroom, London
7/11: The Lab, Northampton
8/11: Hare & Hounds – Venue 2, Kings Heath
Since you’re here and paying attention, I’d like to mention that the next Even Butterflies Make A Sound promotion. Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan (below) plays Hot Box on Sunday, 9 May. The incredible bada duüm supports. Tickets are selling fast so get yours soon to avoid disappointment.
Why not spend some time having a read about some of the gigs your caring, sharing blog has been involved in? Just click the picture carousel below.
