Can you introduce yourselves and give us your role in the band?
Ari is from Napa, CA. and is the lead vocalist for the band. Grady is from Munich, Germany and plays keyboard and sings backing vocals. Reese is the guitarist and is from Boston, MA. Matt plays drums and is from San Carlos, CA.
Can you give us some of your musical background?
All of us have a solid musical background in jazz music. Both Reese and Matt were in jazz band throughout middle and high school, and Grady and Ari are both inspired by jazz artists such as Frank Sanatra and Snarky Puppy. Ari also takes vocal influence from pop artists like Panic at the Disco and Imagine Dragons. Reese is hugely inspired by indie music such as Tame Impala and The 1975. Grady is a massive Jacob Collier fan and loves to throw in complex jazz harmonies into our arrangements. Matt loves Hip-hop with his favorite artists being Gunna and Young Thug.
How did the band form?
It all began when Reese joined a freshman orientation Facebook group just as he was starting at California Polytechnic State University, hoping to meet a few like-minded newcomers. “I felt like all anyone in that group wanted to do was talk about partying,” he laments, and that’s when he met Matt Sato (Current Drummer). The connection was instant, and Reese soon recruited lead vocalist Ari Eisenberg, and piano player Grady Gallagher.
Was there anything in particular that made you want to start a band?
The reason we started a band was our love for live performing. Before going to college, every member used music as a creative outlet to freely express their ideas and visions. Coming into Cal Poly, we all were looking to start something that would allow us to collectively make music together, and thankfully we met each other!
Talk to us about your upcoming single “Davinci”
“Davinci” paints an intimate scene as it opens up with soft-spoken vocals and a sparse guitar melody. Evoking the image of a ballad performed in an empty garage, you can almost feel the anticipation of the rest of the band before crashing into an anthemic, rousing chorus that harkens back to the simple pop hooks of the 50s. Upon a first listen, the single may feel warmly familiar. However, at the same time unlike any of the influences that comes to mind. By infusing the old-school charm of surf rock, driving rhythm of punk, and their signature brand of jazz, Honeyboys draw on classic influences to create something fresh.
What do you want your listeners to take away from the single?
We hope that “Davinci” will allow our fans to escape the experience of being inside during quarantine and instead bring them the raw energy of a live concert. Furthermore, we hope that our listeners can relate to the romantic lyrics and emotion of this song.
What is the inspiration or story behind Davinci?
Reese wrote a basic melody and hook in his dorm room which would later become the chorus of the song. From there, he and Ari collaborated on lyrics and later brought the song to the entire band to be played live, where it became a staple of their local live performances.
Is there anything that you want your listeners to feel or think when they listen to your music?
We want our listeners to not only feel happy and relaxed when listening to our music, but to think about the little details we leave in our songs that’s only audible on repeat listens.
Something that stands out to me is how well you blend different genres. Do you intentionally explore with different sounds while you’re recording? Like is that something you have in mind beforehand or is it something you feel out as you’re creating?
Everyone in this band has their separate musical tastes and preferences, which is the primary reason for our diverse sound and range of influences. It’s never intentional but rather something that comes naturally from our willingness to experiment and different musical influences.
I noticed that all of your music on Spotify was released in 2020. What has the experience of starting/being a band during a pandemic been like?
The hardest part about being a band during covid is not being able to play live shows together. It was strange releasing music during quarantine because no one in the band was actually in the same location so we couldn’t celebrate together. Recording everything over the internet has also been hard to coordinate, but we make it work. That being said, we feel lucky to be a “quarantine band” as a lot of our music is very uplifting and reminds people of times when they could go out and watch live music.
Is the band pretty collaborative when it comes to creating music?
Yes. During quarantine we would all send stems from our respective locations which lead to the collaborative nature of a lot of the songs we released during 2020.
What is the most important thing to you when it comes to creating music?
The most important thing to us is making sure that everything we release is something we’re all completely satisfied with and would listen to. We also hope to spread positive vibes to our listening through our fun music.
Who do you consider your musical influences?
Our biggest influences are Jacob Collier, Tame Impala, the 1975 and Still Woozy.
Do you feel like your influences change depending on what project you’re working on, or is it pretty consistent?
We feel that our influences don’t necessarily change depending on the project, we just have a whole bank of influences we pull from and mix together depending on how we want the music to sound.
Ideally where do you see the band in 5 years?
Ideally, we would just want to be happy making and performing music together and not having to worry about anything else.
We’re all happy with where we are now. The biggest thing that’s on our mind in the future is improving ourselves musically.
Is there anything that you want our readers to know?
We just dropped our new song “Davinci” last Friday, check it out if you can!
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