Words by Rhian Daly
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Backstage at Seoul Jazz Festival, Janelle Monáe throws her arms around two members of Sailor Honeymoon, clutching a copy of their zine and a t-shirt in her left hand. “Everybody, this is one of my favourite all-girl Korean punk bands,” the acclaimed musician and actor beams. “Get into it!”
Monáe’s music sounds like a world away from the Seoul-based trio’s playful punk that connects the dots between raw riot grrrl and wiry art-rock. But there are shared sensibilities between the two acts, who connected after Monáe DMed the band out of the blue to compliment their 2025 single ‘Armchair’. “She does what she wants to do, says what she wants to say,” drummer/singer Abi Raymaker explains. “There’s a temptation to see different audiences and be like, ‘What would they want to see?’ and try to change what you do. But when I saw their show [in Seoul and previously at Coachella 2019], they were being themself. She’s expressing everything she wants to express and not checking for how it’s being received.”
Freedom of expression is everything to Sailor Honeymoon: their early output saw them deliver a pogoing pest control how-to (‘Cockroach’), tackle cutting ties with problematic friends (‘Bad Apple’) and turn the aches and pains of the menstrual cycle into a tongue-in-cheek, siren-laced anthem (‘PMS Police’). Doing and saying exactly what they want has been the backbone of the band since Raymaker and guitarist/singer Zaeeun Shin started jamming together in 2022 (then joined by solo artists Meaningful Stone and Hunjiya) and has remained the case since bassist Yelim Kim joined in 2024.
In those early sessions, the future bandmates had no grand goals, which is exactly what made it work. “We had absolutely no plans to release music or record; there was absolutely no pressure, and that felt so good,” recalls Raymaker. At the time, Shin was DJing around Seoul and playing with her other band Gyojung, while Raymaker was in a dream-pop outfit – a project she found fun but “stressful, because it felt like if I sang the wrong note, it would be a problem, or if the songs weren’t ‘evocative’, they wouldn’t be good”.
Those early sessions that spawned Sailor Honeymoon couldn’t have been more different: “We were literally just saying absolute bullshit into the microphone. It was so free, I just remember laughing so much the whole time.” To her left, Shin nods: “[We wanted to keep going] because it was so fun.”
That energy was already palpable at their first gig in 2022 – a set in the basement of Seoul’s Phillies Pub as part of Block Party festival, where they got the crowd moshing with early song drafts and covers – and has grown to be an important part of their live show. Now, more confident and experienced, they turn gigs into communal gatherings, breaking down barriers by inviting female audience members on stage at the end to claim space and let loose together.
Maintaining a sense of loose, low-stakes fun as the band evolve far beyond their expectations hasn’t always been easy. What began as a bit of fun has, via their 2024 self-titled debut EP and a stack of riotous gigs, led to recognition from Monáe and other musical heroes like Kathleen Hanna and Cat Power, a spot on the NME 100 of 2025, bookings at some of Korea’s most prominent festivals, and international tours. When NME catches up with the band in late July, they’re huddled together on a sofa in their rehearsal space, where they’ve just finished practising for another trip to Europe that includes a sold-out headline show at London’s Brixton Windmill and festival slots at Øya, Way Out West, Green Man and more.
Touring is difficult for any DIY band, especially for one like Sailor Honeymoon who’s trying to make it halfway across the world, traversing unfamiliar tour routing on hard-earned funds and visas. “We’re really lucky that we’re able to play abroad, and meeting other people from other places through music is one of the coolest things that happens to us, but it was so overwhelming the first few times we tried to play abroad,” Raymaker says, her bandmates nodding. “There are so many things you don’t understand the first time, like needing to ship your gear to the place you’re playing. But with every challenge, we’ve been able to learn how to do that thing and then move on to the next thing.
“There’s still a lot we don’t know, but it’s part of the ethos of our band to just try to do it and see what happens. There will be mistakes, but making mistakes is OK.”
“People have two choices: reject us or expand their idea of what’s possible” – Abi Raymaker
Sailor Honeymoon don’t claim the concept of perfection. Instead, they’ve built a world that serves as an escape from the expectations of flawlessness that exist online – just think of the way we all curate our social feeds to only show the best parts of our lives – and as a core part of life in Korea. “If you look at K-pop, everyone has to be beautiful,” Shin reasons. “Even in terms of personality [in Korean society], you should be really polite to your family. We’re the opposite of that. We’re saying it’s OK to not be perfect and there are other ways you can be.”
That idea of perfection means different things to each band member. Kim and Shin were both raised in Korea, while Raymaker grew up in the US, moving to Seoul as an adult in 2019. That relocation prompted a lot of internal questions for the drummer as she navigated the distinctions between native Koreans and diasporic Korean-Americans. “I’m really different from the average Korean person who grew up in Korea, and seeing the ideal images that are presented, I didn’t necessarily connect with those,” she shares. “At the end of the day, no one can define you by a couple of words, but I kept trying to figure out how I could fit into those definitions – how do I be a Korean-American, a Korean, a woman, an Asian woman?”
Eventually, Raymaker realised that rather than force herself into boxes created by others, it was better to “make your own box completely”. Forming Sailor Honeymoon was part of that process, helping her keep the identity she previously held in the States as a “music kid”. “[It’s allowed me] to be the most me version of myself that I can be, without compromising at all,” she smiles.
Much like they didn’t set out to be a proper band, Sailor Honeymoon also didn’t make it their mission to contribute to expanding representation for Asian women in music. They acknowledge, though, that by refusing to change who they are or conform to others’ preconceived notions, they are naturally, if unintentionally, doing so.
“They have two choices: reject us or expand their idea of what’s possible,” Raymaker shrugs. “There’s people who haven’t seen [Asian bands] before, and they’re naturally gonna be like, ‘Oh, this is now part of my definition of what’s possible.’ Even if they’re not trying to be close-minded, I still think it’s cool to expose people to that variety. It helps everyone expand their ideas of all the different things we can do as people and that we don’t need to be certain kinds of people to do those things.”
The band’s upcoming debut album, ‘The Worst Of Sailor Honeymoon’, will only help bolster that idea. Recorded in spurts over the last two years, it’s both a document of the trio’s growth and a cathartic celebration of not always being at your absolute best. Across its 13 tracks, Sailor Honeymoon manoeuvre through grievances and mundanities, from shitty partners (‘I Wanna Leave You’) to fleeting finances (‘Money’) and mind-numbing day jobs (‘Paperwork’), but don’t let anything bring them down. “How we feel about society is [woven into] the lyrics, so you can find out how we feel about a lot of things,” Kim teases.
Irreverent humour has long been a big part of Sailor Honeymoon’s songwriting and ethos. The album sharpens their wit – at times, self-deprecating (“I am a mediocre drummer, I should be making trashy beats / Not going to work”, Raymaker gripes on ‘Paperwork’), and at others, whimsically upbeat. “Honestly, if our songs were mad serious, I question whether it would be as fun,” ponders Raymaker. “We’ve made our own world where things don’t bother us in a serious way; they just roll off our backs. The fact that we can brush things off and fix problems by laughing them away maybe isn’t real, but that’s the world we want to live in.”
“I hope that younger women will see us now and also get interested in starting a band” – Yelim Kim
The supremely fuzzy ‘My Band’ pays tribute to the different path that they’ve chosen in life, eschewing the typical milestones of secure jobs and houses. “Yeah, that $20,000 wedding dress will definitely be passed down through generations,” Raymaker deadpans. “I have 14 leftover band t-shirts”. Rather than cast themselves as superior to those on a more expected route, it’s an acknowledgement of their own choices. “It’s something I was thinking about a lot because I turned 30 this year, so I spent my whole twenties, more or less, in underground clubs,” the drummer explains. “It’s an ode to that and [giving that time] to this music scene. We chose to have music and the things that our band gives us. It’s a privilege to be able to choose at all, but everyone has different paths, and then there are different results.”
As Sailor Honeymoon continue to choose band life, they hope that they can serve as inspiration. When they were first starting out, an all-female band felt like more of a rarity in Korea’s underground scene, which made their line-up “more of a big deal”. In the years since, though, bands composed entirely of women, or a mix of genders, have become increasingly common: Peach Truck Hijackers, Social Club Hyangwu and Jisokury Club are just a few of the names Sailor Honeymoon cite. It’s a world away from the landscape that existed in decades past, captured in photos of all-male bands from the ’60s and ’70s that adorn the walls of Hongdae venue Cosmos Music Bar, the location for the trio’s photoshoot for The Cover.
That appetite for and acceptance of more female musicians within the scene is illustrated by the journey of their own bassist, who was learning guitar from a member of indie duo Hyangni when they recommended her to Raymaker and Shin. “At the time, I was feeling like there were more women on the rise, and I was starting to look for and listen to more female musicians in rock and punk in general,” Kim explains. Now, she wants to encourage others like her. “I hope that younger women will see us now and also get interested in starting a band and think that women playing rock and punk is cool,” she smiles. Perhaps in decades to come, it will be Sailor Honeymoon staring down from local venue walls, their place in Korea’s musical lineage assured.
Sailor Honeymoon’s ‘The Worst Of Sailor Honeymoon’ is out on August 14 via Good Good Records.
Listen to Sailor Honeymoon’s exclusive playlist to accompany The Cover below on Spotify or on Apple Music here.
Words: Rhian Daly
Photography: Annie Chung
Styling: San San Gear
Location: Cosmos Music Bar
Label: Good Good 굿굿 Records