Today we’d like to introduce you to Manic Honey

Hi Manic, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.

Manic Honey’s first songs were crafted by vocalist and lyricist Melody Wilson, who was back home in Reno, NV during the Covid lockdown. Once moving back to NYC, they reconnected with friend and drummer Peter Ferraiolo, who had been playing with bassist Keith Dolega and guitarist Matt Rosenthal and were in need of a singer. After the four of them played their first concert, they brought in Melody’s friend Moni Bell on keyboard and the five have been together ever since.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?

Not always! When you’re a band made up of five talented and opinionated people, there are going to be disagreements and differences of opinion (not to mention the struggle of getting everyone’s schedules to align for practices and gigs). Being a rock musician doesn’t take the same shape it used to–in terms of promotion, the concert circuit, and honestly just making a living. It’s a herculean balancing act for everyone to be able to devote the necessary time needed for group practices and song development and concerts.

One particularly challenging time for us was the mixing process of our debut album, “We Only Kiss in Bathrooms.” It was a big undertaking with time constraints and more than a few miscommunications. Sometimes our egos get in the way, and that’s a valuable thing to recognize. But what ties us back together every time is our love of music, and for our music specifically. We all want the Manic Honey sound to shine, and know that collaborating to make the best music comes before anything else.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?

There are so few actual rock bands in the scene right now, and we’re huge fans of the genre. We play rock, but the songs we create are a pastiche of each of our different musical backgrounds; our keyboardist’s classical, singer’s musical theater, guitarist’s metal, bassist’s classic rock, and drummer’s hard rock, hip hop, and funk. Our music is raw, charged, and full of grit, but there’s also an underlying softness there that comes from writing and playing from a place of truth; of creating songs that communicate what we can’t in “real life.” One thing that we’ve heard from some of our fans at live shows is how unassuming all of us appear to be–we don’t necessarily look like we’re going to get onstage and go crazy, it’s kind of like a sneak attack. For us, it comes down to how much passion and emotion everyone is carrying around all the time, and how necessary it is to find a channel for that to fly.

The music of Manic Honey is a mix of anger, frustration, hope, and heartbreak. We make songs for and about intense feelings and situations that are so personal that they’re relatable to our audience. Our songs are about being taken advantage of, dejection, overcoming trauma, and how to make the most of it. Something that drives us is catharsis–ensuring that all those ugly feelings come out before they fester and infect from within.

What does success mean to you?

One of our most gratifying moments came this summer at our first concert after dropping “We Only Kiss in Bathrooms.” We’d taken a few months off performing to focus on fine-tuning and recording, and we were all itching (and a bit nervous) to perform again–especially to play songs we’d never performed before. We have one song on our album called “Sittin’” that we’d never played live before that concert. As we began playing, Melody invited everyone to join them in sitting on the ground (it had been cleaned that day!). A shocking number of people sat, and even more sang our words with us. It felt so intimate and proved that people really had been listening to our album, and had felt connected to it enough to memorize the words. That’s what success feels like to us; connecting with others through music and giving everyone an experience that feels special.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/manichoneyband/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61563489713816&ref=xav_ig_profile_web
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_eo9Jw-gMEgrWwRwAAHhng
• Soundcloud: https://open.spotify.com/album/29d8Q2mbny4MGKrXJw8USV?si=zf0mmpX6Ry-lkc8V2by0ew&fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaZv7vnKgF0H-cs4po4o-ZSi-mBC-0En4FHrzdpqP64G2JWB5rN_-EeIFzQ_aem_1MHMb7iIRaHwCYKBeCROyw&nd=1&dlsi=1b7aa09952e149f4

Image Credits

Kelly McCready