Austin, Texas has long been known for its vibrant music scene, and one band in particular is quickly making a name for itself as a must-see act.
That would be Honey Made, which played the South by Southwest official showcase last year, released a single that earned quite a bit of radio play and was named best live band by Austin Fit Magazine’s readers poll.
“The name recognition is coming along,” says longtime member Donald McDaniel. “We’ve established ourselves as a really good live performance band and I think that’s first and foremost what fans think about. We’re still steadily working on growing our fanbase and playing both in and outside of Austin. We’ve grown our fanbase significantly.”
Honey Made isn’t like other bands, though. The group features nine musicians: McDaniel on trombone, Dustin Hunter on saxophone, Joseph Morrow on trumpet and flugelhorn, Donald Ford, Jr. on vocals, Willie Barnes II on vocals, Chris Barnes on drums and vocals, Brian Cokeley on keyboards, Lee Braverman on bass, and Mark Saldana on percussion.
“We’re diverse and we each have our own backstory to tell,” McDaniel says. “I was originally a music education major at Dallas Baptist University and later the University of North Texas and I taught middle school and high school band for nine years. Willie Barnes (one of the group’s principal songwriters) and Chris Barnes are brothers who came up in the gospel scene in church and played in bands and rum lines in college at Stephen F. Austin. Lee Braverman is our primary bass player and he has a music degree and has been pursuing music full time his whole career. Brian Cokeley came out of the Washington area, went to a music school in the Los Angeles area and was a touring musician. Mark Saldana knew the Barnes brothers and has been playing in a lot of bands. Dustin Hunter was a saxophone performance major and has a master’s degree in saxophone performance. Joseph Morrow came up in the drum and bugle corp. and decided to start gigging around town when he left college.”
It’s an eclectic group of musicians and performers with a sound as unique as the band’s roster. Honey Made considers itself an R&B band first and foremost with funk, soul, jazz and hip hop influences and an overall sound that hearkens back to legends like James Brown, Sly and the Family Stone and Earth, Wind and Fire, but with a modern take.
Already, Honey made has shared the stage with George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelic, Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars, The Motet, Lee Fields, Roxy Roca and Flow Tribe.
The band’s origins date back a decade to when founding members David McKnight (saxophone) and Kelsey Garcia (lead vocals) formed a group called Mama K and the Shades. The group added horns in 2014. After a gig in San Marcos in 2015, the band members decided to go for a late-night swim and McKnight passed away from drowning.
Garcia departed the group in 2017, and the remaining members were trying to decide what to call themselves when someone suggested “Honey Made.” McKnight had always said when the music’s really good, “Oh, that’s just honey made.”
Honey Made recorded its debut album with Grammy-winning Steve Berlin of Los Lobos serving as producer. That project was released in 2020 as the 10-track album Brand New.
The band played a single release show in 2019 at legendary Austin venue Stubb’s, which McDaniel considers the first official Honey Made performance.
Honey Made also released the Couple Few EP in 2020, which featured the song “Ashy Pockets” that the band remixed and re-released on its newest project, Charge It to the Band Fund released this year.
“If you go back in time, while we have multiple genres on Brand New, there are still some core parts of the sound that are very traditional,” McDaniel says. “We have some traditional soul tracks on that record, we have some traditional funk tracks on that record and it’s more traditional R&B, funk and soul oriented. The change with Charge It to the Band Fund is we bring in some more hip hop elements. ‘Ashy Pockets’ was originally more like a west coast hip hop sound and on the remix we’ve changed it to more of a rock-oriented song, maybe G-funk, and it’s even got a little bit of a metal sound to it which is really different for us.
“We keep exploring with different genres and how we can combine those into interesting and fun songs that fans like to listen to,” he says. “We keep experimenting with pushing the boundaries of what a genre is and how you can combine those even in a single song.”
The original version of “Ashy Pockets” was filled with over-the-top marijuana references, but even the lyrics are different on the remixed version. The band worked on radio promotion with a producer last year who liked the hook and chorus but wanted something that would be more palatable to radio audiences.
Drummer Chris Barnes came up with new lyrics that capture the sentiment of somebody working a job they don’t like and trying to figure out what to do next. “But they can’t really quit because as the song says, they still gotta eat,” McDaniel says.
Honey Made is preparing to release a new track called “Pass Me By” in the first half of 2024 and also has an eye on playing more festivals in the new year, as well as gigs in cities like Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and New Orleans.
Make sure to stay connected to Honey Made on all platforms for new music, videos and social posts.
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