Honeybucket

Hi guys, welcome to VENTS! How have you been?

We’re great, except for the freezing weather here in Cleveland. Thanks for having us!



Can you please introduce yourself and tell us more about Honeybucket?

We’re a Newgrass (progressive bluegrass) trio based in Cleveland, Ohio, and we write upbeat pop, rock, and folk songs but play them with traditional bluegrass-style acoustic instruments. We are: Adam Reifsnyder on acoustic guitar and vocals, Abie Klein-Stefanchik on acoustic bass and vocals, and Brendan O’Malley on mandolin and vocals. All three of us write and sing for Honeybucket and we friggin’ love tight vocal harmonies, which is probably why we get along so well. That and whiskey.



What´s the story behind the band´s name?

Adam: I’m convinced that deciding on a band name is one of the most difficult things a band will ever have to do. When we first formed we actually booked a gig without having a name, so we had a definite deadline to come up with something. So for a couple weeks we sent around a frustratingly long email chain suggesting a million band names, but it was my wife who suggested Honeybucket as a combination of two different previously suggested options. By the time our gig rolled around, Abie and I (Adam) were excited about the name but Brendan was strongly against it. We sort of tricked him by agreeing to keeping the name Honeybucket temporarily for the gig and seeing how people reacted and after that it just stuck. We think it fits our sound – boot stompin’ tunes with a dash of sweetness. And no worries – Brendan loves the name now.



What are your music influences?

Adam: We draw influences from all over. We all grew up listening to bands like the Beatles, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Jimi Hendrix. Abie has played in punk and heavy metal bands, I played in a synth-pop band and performed as a solo artist, and Brendan has played jazz, rock and irish music, among other things. Surprisingly enough, when we started Honeybucket a couple years back none of us really knew much of anything about bluegrass. But we loved the sound so much that we decided to mash it together with whatever songs we were writing and our sound evolved from there.

We have really grown to love bluegrass, but we’re influenced by all kinds of genres, which allows us to draw upon an eclectic mix of music to incorporate into our own newgrass style.



Loving your cover for Voodoo Child. How did you guys come up with the idea to cover this track and how was the reinvention process?

We love taking songs that aren’t in our genre of music and making them our own. Back when we first started playing together, Abie had the idea to do a bluegrass cover of Guns n’ Roses’ “Paradise City.” He took it at a really fast clip and just rocked it. Once we started playing it at shows audiences really took notice. When Brendan brought us the idea of doing Voodoo Child I think we were all a little skeptical -we weren’t sure if we could pull it off. But we started arranging it we added our own verse about picking crops, and the song ended up really strange and exciting. It’s become something of a fan favorite, and we love playing it.



So how was the recording and writing process behind your Self-titled EP?

The writing process is a lot of fun. Each of us is a songwriter and we all have different musical influences and style that we bring to the table. But when one of us brings the shell of a song in to the other two, we’ll take it apart and throw out new ideas for the arrangement and we always end up with something that’s collaborative and that everyone in the band can get excited about. It’s fun seeing what each member of the band comes up with and then what we can do as a group to make it even better. Also, Abie has never written a song for us with anything but major chords, so that makes things interesting. Listen to “Honey for My Baby” on our EP and try to find a minor chord, we dare you!

Beyond that, the recording process was really fun. We recorded with Dave Douglas in a studio in Cleveland called Danger House. We actually recorded all of the instruments together in a dining room, facing each other. Then we did all the vocals at the same time in the attic as well, standing in a circle. Recording all together as apposed to one instrument or one vocal performance at a time really helped us capture the live energy of our shows, but still with a crisp clear sound. After that we added a few percussion tracks like a glockenspiel and beer bottles clinking, but what you hear on the album is more or less what we sound like if you were a fly on the wall at one of our rehearsals. Dave is a really excellent engineer and producer and he really captured the essence of our music and live performance perfectly in the recordings.



Where did you find the inspiration for the songs and lyrics in the album?

Since all three of us write the music, we each get our inspiration from different places. We all like to tell stories with our songs, especially Brendan. His lyrics are generally a little bit funny, a little bit tongue-in-cheek. For example, “Mayor’s Daughter” is a story about a young guy who steals a kiss and then has to run from the law. I doubt that actually happened, but it’s about being young and stupid and having something you know you shouldn’t do and doing it anyway.

Another tune of ours, Summer Shandy, is an instrumental that we came up with at rehearsal one Summer night drinking Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy beer. It just felt like it captured the feeling of that exact evening, and it was finished in about an hour.

We also write a lot of songs about two of our favorite things: Ohio and whiskey.



Will you be hitting the road this year?

Ya know, we’re currently only playing in Cleveland with no plans to tour. We love our home here, and we all have so many other things going on in our lives that we’re content just playing for the great people of our hometown. We’re certainly happy when people elsewhere (like you!) take note and like our music, and you never know what the future might hold, but we have no real plans to tour anytime soon.



What´s happening next in Honeybucket´s world?

We’re planning on taking the month of March to work on a lot of new material. We’ve got about five or six new original songs and a couple of cover songs in the works right now and our goal is to get them in good shape to start adding them to our sets in the Spring and Summer.



Where can we find more about your music?

The best place to find out about our music is by liking our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/honeybucketmusic. We post upcoming shows, links to videos and new songs on our Facebook page all the time. You can also find our new EP on iTunes at https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/honeybucket-ep/id739278546.
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