The California Honeydrops Let Loose on New EP

Co-founded by singer-multi-instrumentalist Lech Wierzynski and drummer Ben Malament, the California Honeydrops, a band that draws from Bay Area R&B, funk, Southern soul, Delta blues and New Orleans second-line, got their start busking on the streets of Oakland, CA. A decade of nonstop American, European and Australian touring and recording followed.

 Now, the band has just released its new EP, Just One More, And Then Some. At 7pm PT on June 26, the band will broadcast a concert from Sweetwater Music Hall in Mill Valley, CA. The concert will feature two full sets.

Just One More, And Then Some follows the recent release of the single “In the Air.”

In lieu of their cancelled spring and summer tour dates, the Honeydrops have offered weekly concert livestreams on Friday evenings at 6pm PT throughout the coronavirus pandemic. The shows have reached audiences of more than 25,000 per stream, and the band is donating 25 percent of each week’s revenue to a different charity.

“We wanted the EP to be super raw and to reflect how we play live, so there’s little to no dubbing on the tracks — what you hear is what you get,” says singer-multi-instrumentalist Lech Wierzynski in a press release about the album. “They’re fun, upbeat songs. Kind of let your hair down, celebrate joy and making music together. That’s why people come to our shows, so we tried to capture that feeling during a time when we can’t gather, a time when people may be looking for a little love and connection. As always, more than anything that’s what we’re trying to put out there.”

“These songs are an open invitation for anyone listening to follow that sound you might hear from the street, coming from the little house tucked away in the back,” adds Malament. “We want to conjure a place where anyone and everyone is welcome to pick up an instrument or a microphone, a piece of floor to tear up, and just be appreciated for digging in and being a part of it.”

Just One More, And Then Some follows last year’s live record Honeydrops Live 2019 and 2018’s double album Call It Home: Vol. 1 & 2, which Billboard praised as “a new level of ambition.”

 “The whole point is to erase the boundaries between the crowd and us,” Wierzynski says, “to make people become a part of the whole thing by dancing along, singing, picking the songs and generally coming out of their shells.”

Photo credit: Jerome Brunet; Cover art