Honey Claws tour dates for 2009

The story of Honey Claws starts in late ‘90’s Austin, TX with Traey Hatch and Thomas Sahs. Both were students at University of Texas and both had a penchant for DJing and producing top-flight underground deep house music parties. After school Traey moved northeast to further his education at Berklee School of Music. Thomas pursued his dream career of acclaimed globetrotting DJ. In his travels Thomas encountered Ben Wah another regular on the International house circuit in Auckland, New Zealand. Very shortly thereafter they formed the label Public Access and feverishly began releasing tracks. By this time Thomas had made his home in San Diego, CA, and Ben had become a regular visitor. Meanwhile Traey returned to his bustling hometown of Houston, TX to begin pursuing his own career arranging, engineering, and producing music professionally at his very own Tierra Studios. When Thomas returned from San Diego to Austin he soon became a fixture in the studio with Traey; even recording a full-length album under the moniker Dr Zero. Shortly thereafter Ben Wah also made an appearance to work on a new album.

Even with the best intentions their work couldn’t progress without a vocalist, having unsuccessfully auditioned several but not finding the correct fit their creativity was at a crossroads. Enter Jon von Letscher; undergrad at UT of Austin and member of a popular local hip hop group "Vehicular", was introduced to Thomas through friends. A dynamic MC, with true lyrical dexterity, the name Honey Claws originated from his DIY Sharpie drawn t-shirt. As Traey tells it, he left for a weekend and on his return found that Thomas, Ben, and Jon had already banged out a couple tracks that were exciting and worked. Work began in Jon’s un-airconditioned Austin apartment then onto Austin techno legend Claude 9’s studio. By the time work moved to Houston (where everyone has a/c by law) the band was eschewing the cool and purposefully keeping the studio nice and hot. This “hot house” intensity can be felt throughout the entire album. From the beginning the group decided to abandon the practice of sampling and go for a more personal sound, a real coup considering the sample friendly background of its producers!

Just when everything seemed to have clicked, Ben Wah’s visa expired and he was forced to exit for Costa Rica. But Lady Destiny intervened on his behalf, and he was barely allowed re-entry into the United States because his grandfather had fought for the U.S. military in WWII! With fate providing the final push, the Honey Claws collective worked efficiently creating 22 tracks in 3 months. Honey Claws successfully leverages Jon Von Letscher’s verbal ninja-ry in portraying his adventures in Austin,TX, underlying his words with Thomas and Ben’s cutting edge beats, tied together by Traey’s skillful polish.