Honeysuckle stopped by 88.9 WERS to play some songs for Wicked Local Wednesday, which kicks off at 9pm Wednesday nights on 88.9. Before their performance, Holly McGarry, Benjamin Burns, and Chris Bloniarz sat down with WERS’ Owen to talk about when they met, where they find inspiration for their music, and about their new music coming out later this year.
Owen Murray: Can you tell me bout how you guys got started as a band? It seems like you have been playing together for a while?
Holly McGarry: Yeah! We met at Berkelee College of Music in 2012
OM: So you were all Berkelee students?
HM: Yeah, Ben (Burns) and I were in an orientation class so I met him there and then Chris (Bloniarz) and Ben were in another band called Grey Season at the time, so I met them through that class and through the other band.
OM: Where’d you play your first show together?
HM: Umm, Radio Bean technically?
Benjamin Burns: Yeah, it was sort of inadvertently at Radio Bean in Burlington, Vermont because [Chris] had come with us on the trip and just hopped on stage with us since he already knew all the songs.
Chris Bloniarz: Ben and Holly had been playing as a duo (just as Holly McGarry and Benjamin Burns) for about a year or two, and I started dating Holly, so I came to the gig and sort of crashed the gig. We didn’t have a name yet, that was a couple months before we actually got out act together and became a trio.
OM: Oh, so that’s cool, you had a really organic start as a band.
HM: Yeah, I would say that.
OM: For people who have never heard of the band, how would you describe it in three words?
CB: Harmonies... is that even interesting enough?
BB: Cool harmony stuff!
HM: Harmony, folk...
CB: Good music wow!
OM: [laughs] So, what are some of your favorite songs by other artists to jam to?
CB: We all love Andrew Bird, maybe me the most.
HM: How about... “Everything is Free” by Gillian Welch, that’s a good one.
CB: We play “Helplessly Hoping,” The Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song. That’s fun for us to play.
OM: What was the first song you wrote together as a band?
HM: Well, “Josephine” was the first song we arranged together.
CB: That was the first song off [Arrows], the first EP we did in 2015.
OM: How was the process of writing that?
HM: Well, we haven’t written a song altogether as the three of us. I wrote “Josephine” and the we worked it out with and for when I was supposed to have a feature in a singer-songwriter night and they and some other friends were like our band, and the actual band kind of grew out of that.
OM: Do you write most of the music?
HM: It depends. We all write. We just don’t always write together at the same time. Ben and I will write together or Chris and I will write together and then they will to a lot of the arranging.
CB: Yeah, we all contribute but Holly definitely has the majority of the songs.
OM: Where do you find inspiration for your music?
HM: Family a lot. And processing feelings, but that’s probably everyone.
BB: Yeah, just stuff that happens.
HM: [laughs]
BB: Relationships that evolve or devolve, or don’t evolve.
HM: Revenge in song form [laughs]
OM: Were any songs today about revenge? [laughs]
HM: Yeah, “Miss You.” It doesn’t end up being a super mean song or anything, but it’s about someone I knew growing up in a small town in Idaho, and when I was moving to Boston to go to schoo,l everyone was supportive except for one friend who said I would never survive, and that Boston would eat me alive. And that was mean so I wrote that song as like a “you’re gonna miss me when I’m gone!”
OM: Do you have any local influences or local bands that you like?
HM: Yeah! We love tons of local bands. Gentle Temper, Twisted Pine...
BB: Western Den, Damn Tall Buildings.
CB: Sam Moss, great songwriter and a good friend of mine to.
HM: Yeah, Tall Heights, Darlingside, there’s a lot of great music in this area.
OM: What has been the most memorable show you’ve played so far?
CB: For good reasons or bad reasons?
OM: [laughs] Either one!
CB: Well, I was just thinking of the big stuff. Like, we did Newport Folk Festival in 2015, that was a dream come true. That festival was just so much fun, I think that was our favorite festival.
HM: We met a lot of our heroes there like I got to talk to Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings...
BB: Shakey Graves
OM: What would you be doing if you weren’t in a band?
HM: I work at a venue so I do sound and stuff.
OM: So you think you would be involved in music no matter what?
HM: I think so!
CB: Yeah, I think so to.
HM: I don’t have any other skills! [laughs]
CB: I would try recording people, or teaching, I would do something for sure. Writing for games or commercials or anything like that.
OM: And where can people listen to your music?
HM: Honeysuckleband.com is our website but we’re also on Spotify and iTunes and all that kind of stuff.
CB: Anything you can stream on, we’re there!
OM: And were are you going to play next?
HM: Um, we’re playing out of town most recently we've got a few Northeast dates coming up.
OM: You’re starting a tour soon, right?
HM: Yeah! So Philly and New York are our next two dates at the end of the month, then we have Connecticut, Vermont, etc.
CB: February 27th we’ll be at Will Cafe in Philadelphia, and then the 28th we’ll be in Brooklyn at Union Hall.
OM: Cool! Is there anything else you would want to say about the band?
HM: We just finished recording a new record that will be out in June so that’s our next bigger thing.
OM: Can you tell me a bit about that record?
HM: Sure! We recorded it in Jamaica Plain at Dimension Sound Studio with Dan Cardinal. It’s a 10-track record and I think we’ll start releasing singles in April. The record as a whole is about the people who have influenced us like family friends, acquaintances.
