ALL Aboard The Humdrum Express!

Words: Darci Jackson

Photography: Izzi Glover

What’s better than entrancing dance music, wonky electronica, and a sprinkling of punk energy? If you smash them together, you get not just an eclectic party of the senses but a band called Home Counties. 

As we sat squeezed into a pub booth in West London, armed with overpriced pints on a bitter Saturday afternoon, the London based sextet babbled away comfortably, reminiscing on the past, the present, and also looking ahead to the future. Well, the future meaning as far as their plans for that evening. 

Home Counties are Will Harrison (vocals, guitar), Barnaby Pepin (guitar, vocals, synths), Lois Kelly (vocals, synths), Bill Griffin (bass), Conor Kearney (guitar), and Dan Hearn (drums).

2025 saw the band release their sophomore album Humdrum, as well as heading out on two UK tours and having their song Uptight featuring on the EAFC ‘25 soundtrack. They describe how such a non-stop year has been for them:

“Busy. I haven't actually reflected on it yet - still decompressing,” described Kelly. 

“It felt very long. A long year,” added Harrison

“But a good year!” followed Kelly.

The six-piece have been on the treadmill non-stop since the release of their debut album, Exactly As It Seems, in Summer 2024. Just a year after that release, they were back with brand new single Spain - a more refined version of their synth fuelled witty commentaries on living in today’s Britain. 

Home Counties was always bound to happen at some point or other, with five of the six of them growing up together in rural Buckinghamshire. But from Buckinghamshire to the world, it seems, as Hearn gave a sincere thanks to an American 00s classic: School of Rock. 

“We owe it all to Jack Black really, though. Without him we wouldn’t be here today.”  

“We’ve been basically doing band stuff forever. Like me and Dan started playing together in Year Six,” mentioned Harrison.

“We really bonded in rugby though,” started Pepin - one of many anecdotes in their inherent, deep-rooted friendship.

“In the changing rooms. I remember you know, you [Will] broke your eye, and I was there for you,” he reminisced, as the rest of the band laughed at Harrison’s misfortune. 

“I guess, growing up together there’s lots of lore. Lot’s of backstories,” added Kelly.

“That’s why we’re constantly doing unintelligible self-referential bollocks,” followed Harrison. 

Hearn explained how, after moving to London, they “used to live literally around Weaver’s Fields in Bethnal Green,” so it was “like a walk across the park to each other.”

And whilst they don’t still live as close, Pepin explained: “We still see each other every day. Literally every day.”

Bassist, Bill Griffin met the rest of his future bandmates whilst at uni and he explained how important it is to him to be able to live in each other’s pockets:

“I think it’s the only way it'd be doable, to actually be really good mates, because I think there's so much stuff you have to almost argue about.” 

“I couldn’t imagine doing the amount of touring that we’ve done with people that I didn’t really like. I’d just kill them basically.”

And if you can survive a sixteen hour journey each way across the continent together, you can basically do anything, right?

Home Counties had a roundabout festival season, playing big hitters like Bearded Theory and Truck as well as heading across to Europe for a handful of shows. But Pepin is holding a grudge against festival organisers:

“We always get put on festivals on the Sunday. It really takes the wind out of your sails a bit. It’s like, you’re really excited for the gig, but then you have a whole torrent three days before a festival.”

“And you can feel yourself getting more and more unwell,” observed Harrison with Griffin adding rather dejectedly: “It’s tough to follow Kasabian as well. You watch Kasabian and you’re like, what’s the point?”

The band also made their debut in Switzerland, featuring the sixteen hour car ride across Europe- a ride that nearly ended one unofficial member of the band.

“Dan’s Grandad came for fun - he used to drive us on tour. He used to be like our tour manager, but he’s getting a bit old for it, but he decided to come on that one and I think it nearly killed him,” Harrison explained.

“He stayed up with us 'til seven [in the morning] and we left at eight [in the morning]. And he was in the car and we were like Grandad, are you alright?” added Kelly as Hearn laughed: “We had a sixteen hour drive and he completely raw-dogged it, the whole thing, just staring at the back seat, talking to the radio because he thought someone was talking to him but it was John Hopkins’ survival podcast.”

“I thought he died at one point [and] I was sat next to him,” admitted Kearney, with Pepin recounting: “He was like wheezing in his sleep, coughing all the time, and one of the coughing fits just ended abruptly. And our tour manager was like oh my God, we need to check his pulse.”

But it was at Y Not? Festival (when band and Grandad were safely back in England), which sealed the deal for a huge start to 2026 - when Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos exulted in his love of their music, and conveyed it to a field full of festival goers on the Sunday evening.  

Maybe Sunday’s at a festival aren’t all bad?

Fast forward a few months and Home Counties are set to tour with the Glaswegian rockers across their UK & Ireland dates. 

“It’s gonna be sick. I fucking can’t wait. I’ve told like everyone I know,” exclaimed Kelly, practically jumping out of her seat.

Griffin revealed, “Alex has been really lovely and he’s been very generous, and the lead of us getting the offer. We’ve been in conversation with him a few times and he’s just been really really lovely.”

If you’re heading to any of their UK & Ireland tour dates, Kelly has a request:

“Please smile and jump around otherwise we get very sad.”

And nobody wants a sad Home Counties, do they?

“I’m saying that we should just do Take Me Out because that’s what everyone’s waiting for so we’ll just beat them to it,” joked Griffin. 

Maybe don’t head there expecting to hear a Home Counties take on that rock revival classic (which would be incredible, may we add) but instead all the hits from their second album Humdrum; a more personal and mature offering but still with the same askew charm that you can’t help but fall head over heels for. Harrison explained how they were already thinking ahead, even before their debut record.

“We started writing before Exactly As It Seems came out - we were quite ahead of it, over that Summer we made demos and then went in with Al Doyle in October.”

And the thing that stood out from the recording process is rather unexpected.

“We got like free lunches every day,” reminisced Pepin with Kelly divulging, “From a Michelin star chef!”

“They’d be like ‘you don’t need to come in today Lois,’ and I’d be like, well I’ll just come in for lunch.”

“It was like some of the best food I’ve ever had,” Harrison dreamily recalled. 

“When we were doing the thank yous for the album, I started it with just like, thank you to Laura, the chef, and everyone was like, that's so weird! But that’s the first thing I think about when I think about recording.”

Griffin touched on working with the Hot Chip and LCD Soundsystem musician:

“He's obviously in two of our favourite bands so it was quite nice actually knowing that the songs that we were bringing in were drawn from a similar place that he's spent a lot of time in. So there was a little bit of assurance that he would actually kind of get what we were doing, or what we were going for, which was nice.”

“We all work full-time and it was like just two weeks of like actually just the band every day writing, really being in the music. And it's like, oh this is like full -time musician shit, which is really fun. Often it's like after work, absolutely knackered, like recording the vocals in and it's just like, ‘Oh my God’,” furthered Kelly whilst Harrison confessed: “I was technically working from home whilst we recorded Humdrum.”

Whilst their first album humorously touches on the universal British experience of angry landlords, beer, and the political landscape, Harrison explained how with Humdrum there’s ‘no overarching message,’  

“It is a bit of a depressing lyrically album isn't it? Dan had to write out the lyrics for the vinyl sleeve…”

“And afterwards I messaged Will like ‘what the fuck man, you need to go to therapy.’”

Yet, contrasting their somewhat nihilistic lyrics is Home Counties’ irresistibly energetic live set made for sweaty venues and weekday escapism. It’s truly an image of a group who know exactly what they have to offer and are eager to hold your hand, and guide you through their wacky world of synths and funk.

They also apparently love to make things complicated for themselves:

“We’re trying to learn some of the songs we’ve made this year and we’re like ‘this is fucking impossible.’” admitted Harrison.

“It’s insane. It’s taken me a year to be able to play Uptight correctly!” mused Kearney.

But that’s what makes Home Counties so undeniably likeable; the honesty, humour, and not being afraid to make mistakes. It’s refreshing to see, underneath the surmounting pressure of up-and-coming bands to be a force in the digital age - to be constantly online and switched on - the six-piece are stripping things back to what really matters: connecting with fans, loving the music they make, and enjoying each other’s company.

As they reveal they’re not sure what the year ahead holds for them, Kelly admits she’s hoping for “lot’s of fun, exciting things.”

And if you want to be on top of all things Home Counties, Pepin urges you to “Check the mailing list.”