![Wollongong band Dropping Honey emerge from the darkness this Friday at La La Las, with their first new music in 23 years. Wollongong band Dropping Honey emerge from the darkness this Friday at La La Las, with their first new music in 23 years.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/4FavSveeQdYEHssZq5umRQ/5d596a8c-a56c-4e59-9e0b-22325b641439.jpg/r0_0_3300_2184_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
When your day job involves writing music and you're in a band, how do you know who gets the new tune you've written?
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Damien Lane is an award-winning composer for film and TV and, in the late 1990s he was the frontman and main songwriter for Wollongong band Dropping Honey.
That band broke up some time ago but, in recent years, the members decided to reform and play the occasional gig.
This year, things have gotten more serious - in part due to the interest from new local label Silhouette Records. That and the bulk that most of the band members now live in Wollongong for the first time in ages.
That label interest will see the band's first new music in 23 years - a single called Branches - launched this Friday, and an album expected some time next year.
That means there's a need for some new material, though Dropping Honey haven't been playing many old songs post-reformation. Which raises the question posed in the introduction - when new tunes come up, does the day job or the band get them?
In the case of Branches, well, they both do.
"It's actually based on a little bit of music that was written for a film that ended up not in the final cut," Lane said.
"There was just like this little sort of fragment of melody that I really liked. And I remember thinking, 'should I put this in here or do I want to keep it?'. I put it in and then as happens sometimes, there was an edit change or something and it just didn't have a place there.
![Dropping Honey branches out with new single Dropping Honey branches out with new single](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/4FavSveeQdYEHssZq5umRQ/060e97be-75be-435e-beb5-1918551bb2a5.jpg/r0_0_2613_2550_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
"So that became the basis of this song."
While the sound of Dropping Honey was always a post-punk fuzzed-guitar sound (think My Bloody Valentine or Ride), Branches is a song Lane describes as an "outlier in our set".
Boasting a slower pace, it has more of a dream-pop vibe going for it.
"It kind of appeals to me, the idea that it doesn't sound like all of our old songs," Lane said.
"Although I don't think it's a huge departure in that it's got the same kind of influences in it. But yeah, I kind of like the idea that it's a bit of a reset.
"But there are some other songs that will be coming out that will allay anyone's fears that we've changed that much."
Lane said the song wasn't written after the interest from Silhouette. Branches had already been part of the band's set of new songs for several years; there was a view to record them earlier but COVID got in the way.
These new recording sessions with legendary producer Wayne Connolly are a way of getting the word out about those songs which up until now could only be heard at gigs.
"We've been thinking about putting some of our old music out but there was a feeling within the band that that's okay as an idea as long as we do something new first," Lane said.
"Because I think everyone basically prefers the songs that we're playing now than, say, the songs that we were playing 20 years ago.
"The music that we're writing now just sort of suits how we feel now a bit more."
Dropping Honey launch their new single at La La La's in Wollongong on Friday with support from The Escarpment and Tropical Strength.