Adrian Grenier Aims to Defy Expectations With Honey Brothers

Posted on Jun 17th 2009 2:00PM by Dan Reilly
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For starters, yes, New York-based quintet the Honey Brothers do include 'Entourage' star Adrian Grenier on drums and while they won't deny it, they don't want to advertise it either. "I think it's something we try to not to pretend away," Grenier tells Spinner. "It's just the reality of our situation."

This summer, the band hopes a four-song EP, titled 'Demonstration,' and a string of festival gigs will take the focus off their celebrity member. "People often come to see 'that guy from 'Entrouage''' but are quickly won over by the rest of the band," Grenier says. "We don't find it to be a difficult challenge to get people to focus on what's important." His bandmate, ukulele player Ari Gold -- yes, the same name as Jeremy Piven's character -- agrees. "The festival shows will be nice because we'll be in lineups where there's a lot more going on besides that," he says. "Like the first gig we played in Australia, people were just there. It was great to have a crowd of people who have no idea who we are and then want to know who we are and what we're doing that based on what they're hearing."

And what they're hearing is the band's self-described "new wave folk" and "glam ukulele rock" with a heavy Talking Heads influence. "When you have banjo, keyboards and ukulele playing in something with danceable grooves as well as harmonies, it's hard to be in a known genre," Gold says.

The band originally formed as an acoustic folk trio with Gold, and college friends Andrew Vladeck and D.S. Posner. "Adrian and I met in 1999 when he was making a documentary [2002's 'Shot in the Dark'] and I was one of the camera operators for it," Gold says. "We ran into each other again when I was on my way to one of our first shows. He came to see us and was just about the only person in the audience, but he liked our songs and thought if we rocked out a little bit instead of doing it as a folk thing, we might actually have rock music on our hands."

Grenier joined once the band electrified, they added Ari's brother Ethan on bass and then each member adopted a Honey-based pseudonym. "We came together because we were all looking for family, in some way, so we saw these names as a reminder that we are family, not just a band," says Gold, aka "Hoyt" Huckleberry Honey, who took his alias from potato-farming fiddler Hoyt Ming. According to Gold, the other names include Grenier's Honey DuContra ("for his contrarian, inquisitive nature"), Posner's Dr. J Carl Honey ("for Carl Perkins, partially"), Ethan's Raw Honey ("for raw grooves and soul") and Vladeck's Dorian (" I don't remember -- Oscar Wilde reference?").

As they prep for gigs at All Points West, Bumbershoot, Wanderlust and Osheaga, the Brothers are excited to be among rock bands like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Black Lips and Of Montreal. For the future, they'll record a full-length this fall hopefully tour after. "For now, the digital release of our EP is our next worldwide tour," Gold says. And lest you worry that this is another band like Keanu Reeves' Dogstar, Grenier welcomes any doubters. "We look at skepticism as an opportunity to win you over," he says. "We're not shied away."

Listen to 'Demonstration'

Download: 'Demonstration' (MP3)

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