Freak Slug's 'Honest Man' is a spiritual sucker punch
Freak Slug saved someone's life on Christmas Day and I still don't think that's the best thing she's done in the last year.
I love when a song feels at odds with itself, channelling two discordant sensations at once and yet coming together cohesively. It’s a musical magic trick, a sleight of hand that sets you up for one feeling, only to bludgeon you with another. ‘Honest Man’ by Manchester-based Freak Slug, the project of Xenya Genovese, is one of those tracks.
‘Honest Man’ comes into focus fast. It starts mired in sludge, with the rumble of voices from the next room, sharpening as Genovese’s vocals enter the frame. It’s mood manipulation as a science — you yearn for it to clarify, only to be pierced with its directness when it does. It’s aching and intimate, but it’s also a tight and precise snapshot of a very particular feeling. Written six months after a break-up, ‘Honest Man’ lingers in the emotional afterglow of the split, propelling itself forward with the repeated refrain “Every bruise and every cut.”
Whenever I hear a song like this, I want so badly for the artist to tell me more about how they put it together. And so, for the first edition of BAD SCENE, I asked Freak Slug.
“More and more, I’m writing from a place beyond the body. I don’t think too much when I write now,” she says, joining the Zoom call as she’s making a coffee.
“My process has changed: I’ll sit in my living room with candles and my acoustic guitar, and songs just come subconsciously. It feels spiritual. In the past, I wrote more from the mind, but now I try to go beyond thinking — just doing, just feeling. It’s almost like automatic writing, but with your mouth.
“Sometimes when you’re in a deep conversation, or when you’re helping someone, words just channel through you. I think songwriting can be the same. It’s not just me, Xenya — it’s something bigger, a message that comes through me.”
The turn towards more free-flowing, instinctual songwriting has yielded what might be Freak Slug’s most lavishly detailed song yet. ‘Honest Man’ captures such striking detail, like the churn of hovering over an old photo in the camera roll and dwelling on the moment in time.
“I try to sing and write with as much energy and feeling because once that song's made, that will be forever contained just that way I've delivered. I really wanted the verses to be super upfront and raw,” she says.
“I didn’t want any effects. In a world of over-processing and Auto-Tune — which I don’t have a problem with, I think it’s cool in its own way — but I think this song deserved a really raw upfront vocal and it does its job.”
Freak Slug’s music hasn’t always been raw. Music was at first an outlet for Genovese to blow off steam while studying visual arts in Barcelona, and her early songs are mostly warm lo-fi guitar-driven pop. But once music became her main medium for expression, Freak Slug took off: her impeccably titled 2023 EP Viva La Vulva melds jangly rock indebted to her Manchester heroes The Smiths with spacey, breathy vocals and a sense of whimsy.
That EP was the first building block in what would become Freak Slug’s debut album, I Blow Out Big Candles, released last October. It’s a record that wears its influences proudly. Different listens evoke different inspirations. She sounds a little like Molly Rankin on ‘Be Your Girl’, or Nilufer Yanya on ‘Sexy Lemon’, or Stella Donnelly on ‘Piece Of Cake’. ‘Shiver’ feels like a softer take on The 1975’s thumping pop-rock, without the bombast or obnoxiousness of Matty Healy.
“I’m one of those people who returns to my classics. It takes a lot for me to embrace a new artist as a classic. I usually stay in the ’90s and 2000s, unless something really grabs me,” she says of her influences.
“I love the slacker vibe. I love messy, grungy textures with a bit of satire on top — that’s so me. When I was 20, I listened to Pavement constantly, and even now I love [Pavement frontman Stephen] Malkmus’ solo stuff. They’ve been important bricks in building my taste.”
Just as vital is her home city of Manchester. The city has a proud legacy of legendary rock bands, including many whose DNA lives on through Freak Slug’s music: Joy Division, The Smiths, Oasis, The Durutti Column.
“I’m glad you hear a bit of that in my music. Going forward, I’m really leaning into it, giving an ode to what I love so people don’t forget Manchester’s history,” she says.
“A lot of people move there now who aren’t from there, and sometimes I feel like the city’s cultural significance gets forgotten. Manchester has given so much to the world — I don’t want to forget that.”
As Freak Slug explains, her connection to the culture comes in part from her spiritual side.
“I’m very spiritual. I believe we’ve had many lives on earth. Maybe I’ve lived in the Celtic lands in another life, so I can appreciate Irish and Scottish culture. Looking through that lens, you realise we’re more similar than we think.
“It makes you want to preserve cultures everywhere. I love seeing Irish musicians revive traditional music—it’s like defying the history of it being stripped away. When people hold onto traditions and what makes them who they are, that’s fucking cool.”
It makes me wonder what Freak Slug will make of Australia. She’s set to grace our shores in October, playing three shows ahead of the release of her EP Loose Tooth and a Short Skirt, arriving in November.
“I’m a bit scared of the animals — kangaroos are a wild concept to me. I’m not one to plan too much; we’ll go with the flow,” she says.
“I’ve actually always wanted to come. I once had a dream where I was flying around over the streets of Melbourne, so clearly I want to be there.”
Freak Slug’s dreams come up again not long after. I ask her — out of curiosity more than anything else — about an Instagram post from last Christmas in which she mentions performing the Heimlich manoeuvre on a stranger.
“Lord, thanks for reminding me. Weirdly, I dreamt last night that I was de-choking someone,” she says.
“Christmas Day, I was having a meal with my family. Another family was at the table next to us — mother and daughter. The mum started choking. I asked the daughter if she knew how to help and she said no. People weren’t really taking action, which scared me — there was a life at risk. I asked the mum if I could help, she nodded, and I did back blows and abdominal thrusts. She coughed up this slimy ball of food and started breathing again. Afterwards I told them to please learn how to do the Heimlich manoeuvre because they could’ve lost their mum.”
She finishes her story with a grin and a deadpan: “Gave them a full serious chat — on Christmas Day.”
I suppose if one of the UK’s fastest rising stars can find time to learn the Heimlich in between touring Australia and recording a song as potent as ‘Honest Man’, then there’s really no excuse for the rest of us.
Lead photo credit: @squish.agency