Handsomely Dishonest is a pop-influenced indie rock project conceived by musicians Kevin Lange and Drew Ryan. Handsomely Dishonest merges mellow and acoustic with powerful and epic. Each song becomes a story narrated by heartfelt lyrics and illustrated by an even mix of heavy rhythm and delicate leads, varying based on what each scene's backdrop is in need of. Sprinkle in some piano and back it up with some synth string sections, and you've got the makings of an incredible musical endeavor.
The beginnings of the group can be traced to Ryan's basement apartment in 2007. Lange and Ryan began playing their acoustic guitars and coming up with chord structures, vocal melodies, and song ideas with a cassette recorder archiving everything. After struggling to find a decent band name, Ryan came up with Handsomely Dishonest. "I was at work and thinking about the saying "handsomely rich." "Oh, that man is handsomely rich. Every girl wants to marry a handsomely rich man," and I began imagining that most who were considered handsomely rich, did it by climbing on the backs of others through underhanded and dishonest practices. In my mind those people were handsomely dishonest. I brought the idea up to Kevin, he liked it, I liked it, and the name stuck." says Ryan.
Spare time became a limited commodity for the duo and soon the tapes began collecting dust on a shelf in Lange's studio. In the fall of 2008, Lange pulled the tapes down and began listening again, pulling pieces here and there and putting them together in a definite structure. "It was like putting together the pieces of a puzzle. I knew there was great music there, it just needed to be put together." adds Lange. "Even though we've gotten an EP finished and recorded, there are probably ideas for 25 different songs on those tapes. It's a well of ideas that we can turn to any time we hit a writer's block."
The Handsomely Dishonest EP was released on the Aux Sable Records Showcase Vol 1 CD on August 4, 2009. Old friends Ben Young and Bob Lynch have teamed up with Ryan and Lange for live shows to bring the project on the road. With this line up, the group began touring the Midwest in the fall of 2009.
In November 2009, the band entered pre-production on the creation of a full length album. After about a year of writing and refining the idea and structure behind an entire record, the band entered the studio in late October 2010. As of January 2011, the band has stated that the album is "about 70% recorded." They go on to say, "We're really glad that we spent the extra time to not rush through the writing and recording process. The album has gone through a great deal of transformation since we started work on it almost a year ago. Some songs have been dropped, and others have been created. We're very excited to get this out there and resume playing shows to promote our work!" Their debut full length (yet to be officially titled) is scheduled to be released in the spring of 2011.
