“Mean Pack,” by the San Francisco rock band Be Calm Honcho, might just be the perfect campaign theme song for Bernie Sanders. More of a poem set to music than a conventional verse-chorus-verse rock song, it’s a celebration of what humankind can do when we stick together, complete with an unrelenting, punchy bass line and a tightly-wound guitar that accentuates frontwoman Shannon Harney’s optimistic declarations. “Without people, we are an animal,” she howls, like Lou Reed reborn as a life coach. “But with people, we’re a mean pack.”
Listen to Harney and guitarist Alex Weston discuss “Mean Pack,” which appears on the group’s debut LP Honcho Dreams, as well as butterflies that explode out of ice cream cones, and getting by in the Bay Area circa 2015, in this episode of Listen In. And don’t miss Be Calm Honcho when they headline Brick & Mortar Music Hall this Thursday, Aug. 13, with Brother Grand and Human Ottoman.
