Oh Honey

QRO interview Mitchy Collins & Danielle Bouchard of Brooklyn folk-pop outfit Oh Honey....
Oh Honey

Oh Honey : Q&A

QRO interview Mitchy Collins & Danielle Bouchard of Brooklyn folk-pop outfit Oh Honey. In the conversation, Collins & Bouchard talked about the good days & bad minutes of touring, living on an hour of sleep or fifty cents in the bank, quick death stare, and more…

 

 

QRO: You guys have been traveling a lot lately; do you feel that the way you play music is changing the more you travel?

Mitchy Collins: Yeah, I think that touring definitely has an effect on us as a band because you become more comfortable with the people you play with. You learn what they do and falling in and out of different pockets and you know, you get tighter as a group and things become second nature.

Danielle Bouchard: Also you are able to endure more on tour. Like in the beginning singing every night can be exhausting, and then you kind of fall into a routine and I feel like vocally you get stronger.

MC: Or you’re like me and your vocal chords are made of Teflon…

DB: [laughs] Yeah or that. But I feel like for all of us you get used to it. Playing for 30 minutes a night becomes nothing and at first it’s difficult so it’s interesting.

QRO: How has being on tour affected the dynamic of the band?

DB: I guess we’ve all gotten to know each other really well. You know you get really close with people, you are literally living in a van and I think you start to function like a family. You know you have your good days and your bad days where you want to strangle each other and amazing nights where you’re all drunk and happy, you know it’s just really like a big family.

Touring definitely has an effect on us as a band because you become more comfortable with the people you play with.

MC: It is like a family. I don’t even think it’s like your bad days and bad nights it’s literally like a family where it’s like your bad minutes and your good minutes.

DB: Yeah it changes all the time.

MC: We could be at each other’s throats one minute and then laughing the next.

DB: Yeah It’s interesting but we definitely have a lot of fun together.

QRO: When it comes to touring, what has been something about it that’s surprised you?

MC: The fact that my body can function on an hour of sleep and actually still function as a human. The endurance of literally figuring out how to find time to sleep and functioning on an hour of sleep and then crashing for a half an hour and then you know just figuring out how to endure the day.

DB: I feel like most people who aren’t musicians, you know their perception of going on tour is just like yeah you go, you play a show and then you get drunk every night and you wake up at 4 pm the next day and it’s not like that at all. It’s just the constant go-go-go of everything and it’s just so busy, but it’s awesome.

QRO: Some musicians consider themselves to be perfectionists, to the point where if a show goes bad it’ll de story their mood, does this ever happen with you or do you feel that mistakes on stage are part of the experience?

MC: I think that there’s a balance to both because there’s bad shows, there will always be bad shows, but if someone or myself or anybody biffs to the point of unprofessionalism, then that gets to me because I’m just like, ‘Yo, this is your job you should not be making these mistakes.’ Like it’s one thing if we have a rocky show – like the crowd isn’t into it so we’re kind of off or we had a rocky morning and then the shows kind of off – but there’s a balance I think.

We’re all total perfectionists so when we do mess up those kinds of things definitely get to us but we’ve learned that its going to happen.

DB: But at the same time we are all human and mistakes happen. And I think all of us: the two of us, our band – we’re all total perfectionists so when we do mess up those kinds of things definitely get to us, but we’ve learned that it’s going to happen. And the nature of live performance is that things happen and you are not going to be perfect every single night, so we’ve all kind of learned how to deal with that and how to fight through it, and just continue on with the show and have a good performance for the rest of it.

MC: And I’m very guilty of my eyes on stage. I’m a crazy, crazy perfectionist when it comes to the live set. And I hear everything – like I mean I hear everything. Like to the point where some of our guys will be like, “How did you hear that? Like I barely noticed that.” ‘Cause I’ll turn and I’ll give them this quick death stare.

DB: We’re working on that. We’re working on the eyes to soften them a little bit.

QRO: Is there a city or town that you’ve played in where you feel that the crowd took to you better than anywhere else?

DB: Montreal.

When we were putting the band together, just struggling to figure out how to make it work. I mean I was dodging eviction notices, I was figuring out how to eat.

MC: Montreal.

DB: Orlando.

MC: Orlando, yeah.

DB: Those were the two best.

MC: New York City obviously…

DB: New York, yeah.

MC: Hometown. But yeah, Orlando, Montreal.

DB: On The Fray tour those were really great. And all our shows in Canada actually on the James Blunt tour in Quebec and Toronto the audiences were really receptive.

MC: And Denver’s really good.

DB: Denver’s always great, yeah.

QRO: What was it about forming Oh Honey that felt different than the other times you were in bands?

MC: The songs didn’t suck? No, It was real music. Real music, honest music, and I think that there’s just something special about it that there’s that X factor, kind of that magic combination that happened with everything; Meeting Danielle with the songs that were written, everything went into it. I think it was just that magical music potion that kind of finally worked.

QRO: We’re there any hurdles that you guys had to overcome as a band after initially getting together?

MC: Me personally, when we were putting the band together, just struggling to figure out how to make it work. I mean I was dodging eviction notices, I was figuring out how to eat. I was so broke at one point I had like 50 cents in my bank account. I got to a point when we were trying to make this band work and striving to do it, I was so broke that I asked a stranger to buy me a bagel in the bodega because I had no money. Just stuff like that. Not being severely depressed because of that and just focusing on the good that was happening.

The band’s always growing and always learning and people get wiser and grow older. Things never stay the same.

DB: Yeah I guess along those lines for me I had just graduated from school, I had crazy student loans, I was working as a waitress four nights a week and also at the Harry Potter exhibit in Times Square. Just trying to make ends meet and pay my rent and pay my loans. Rushing from the studio to work and then trying to leave work early to go to practice and it was really hard juggling everything. We somehow made it work and it paid off.

QRO: When it comes to being the band you/the rest of the band want to be, how obvious of a goal is that to you? Meaning, do you feel that Oh Honey is what you guys initially set out to be or do you feel it’s an ongoing process?

MC: I mean I definitely think it’s getting there. The band’s always growing and always learning and people get wiser and grow older. Things never stay the same.

DB: But I feel like it kind of follows the initial vision that we had when we created the band. As we write together and as we play together, you learn how to work really well with someone. I think that’s all definitely coming together as time goes on.

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