Help Fuel A Dream Project: Honeycrush's New EP, Dogwoods

My Name Is Alex & I'm A Singer-Songwriter.

Those are words I never thought I'd write.

My solo project, Honeycrush, started in 2022 when I was at my wits' end worrying that I missed my chance to live a musical life. I've charted my journey picking up guitar, singing publicly for the first time in a decade, going to my first open mic, writing and DIY-ing my first songs and eventually getting the Honeycrush band together.

Every day that I wake up and play guitar, write a song, or sing freely, I feel immeasurable gratitude because I know there's a parallel universe where I never took this chance.

I'm hoping to raise $12,000 to recoup the cost of recording my first professional 6-song record, an EP called Dogwoods.

That amount goes toward covering the cost of the studio, the mixing and mastering process, paying my band, marketing the EP and pressing my first ever vinyl release — a real physical product that will tell the story of Dogwoods in a way I've only ever imagined. What's left over will go toward touring so we can play these incredible songs in places we couldn't otherwise afford to go.

I was 34 when I got my first guitar in 2021. It was the height of Covid. Life was strange and insular, and doubt and fear were seeping into everyone's daily thoughts. I'd just moved (back) to New York after a year and a half away and the newness gave me the energy to say, "Fuck it, I'm gonna try." Because for most of my life, when it came to even imagining pursuing a music career it was, "Fuck it, I'm gonna cry."

How I Got Here: A Brief History Of Desperation

As a kid, I was singing constantly. My home was a musical one, my family are the types to make up songs, sing to the radio, and use their voices as a primary means of expression. Lots of talking, laughing, shouting.

My parents indulged all forms of our creativity and played records for us often. Phoebe Snow, The Beatles, Little Feat, Nilsson, Bowie, Bizet, Tchaikovsky, Joan Armatrading, Greek folk music — I have the most vivid memories of dancing around the house to all of it. And singing was as natural to me as talking.

But somewhere along the road, I lost my confidence to make noise. I became afraid of going into the real world without a concrete plan for success. I let insecure partners make me feel like I should be smaller and quieter and I stopped singing full stop.

I didn't play an instrument, and I felt completely illegitimate as a singer alone, so I went on about my life, worked decent jobs that gave me no fulfillment, became smaller and more timid and I talked myself out of ever trying to write music. I became afraid to try for fear of failure. I thought no one would take me seriously if, at 23, I started trying to play guitar, and I said, "coulda woulda shoulda" to myself whenever I met a musician.

I became a person who was searching for their purpose. No amount of faking that will ever do you good. But if I found out you played guitar, I'd angle for us to get drunk enough that I'd get that confidence back and sing along to you. In this way, I lost myself in people, in parties, in drinking, in New York, and in writing. Writing was a balm for me, but it wasn't doing enough.

Finally, mid-pandemic, alone in a new city, I started turning inwards. I began to admit to myself how much I wanted to be a musician. I couldn't even say the words without crying because it sounded so foolish to my ears. But I started saying it again and again and again.

When I got my guitar, I walked into Guitar Center and pointed at the cheapest Squire and said, "That one." The Guitar Center asked if I needed an amp and I said, "Sure." He said, "Do you want to try it?"

And I said, "I wouldn't know how."

So he demoed the amp for me and I did not know what I was supposed to feel or think. I felt nothing but the gaze of a nearby male patron slicing through me like lasers. So I gave them both a hardy thumbs-up.

Me, mask on, thumbs-upping two guys with a dyed-black ponytails over a 25 watt modeling amp thinking, "Hell yeah brothers."

I brought my Squire home with me on the train. Beaming. Smiling like an idiot under my mask. Beaming.

If you're still reading, how incredible, and thank you for being so invested in this story. I thought I wouldn't have enough to say here, but I have 37 years of fears and fantasies that have clearly been waiting for their turn to speak.

About Dogwoods, The EP

When I was 5, I lived in Southeast Ohio for 6 months as my parents considered moving us from Florida back to my mom's hometown, a village called Gallipolis.

Too small to even be a town and just across the Ohio River from Huntington, West Virginia, Gallipolis is where we spent a few weeks every summer until I was out of high school.

I met my first friends there. Neighborhood kids that quite literally came into my backyard out of nowhere and offered me candy. I remember thinking, "I'm not supposed to take candy from strangers," but did so anyway. It's a town that feels like it's from another time and Dogwoods the EP takes its name from a big, beautiful, blooming dogwood tree that was in our front yard.

Dogwoods the EP is about uncovering suppressed memories. Every song sprung from something complicated that I couldn't solve at the time. Some of it's about those childhood times in Ohio, some of it is about un-examined revelations. It's a walk through the past from a sober point of view. From a more objective point of view. It's about finally having power over your experiences and your memories; more power than they have over you.

All of these songs were written within a few weeks of each other and I was adamant that they be on the same physical media, in the same release.

Ok But What Does It Sound Like??

Please trust me when I say the vibes are unparalleled.

Sonically, Dogwoods is nestled in the center of a 4-way Venn diagram that weaves together aspects of Big Thief's Capacity, PJ Harvey & John Parish's Dance Hall At Louse Point, Fiona Apple's When The Pawn..., and Jeff Buckley's Grace.

The band and I spent a week making this record at Thump Recording Studios in Greenpoint, Brooklyn; a real recording studio with a wonderful owner, dream gear, and production processes I'd never seen in person before.

With our producer and engineer Teddy O'Mara and assistant engineer Julian Conte at the helm, we knocked out 6 songs in 6 days. My songwriting was fully exposed, my guitar abilities tested, my voice pushed beyond its comfort zone.

Since as long as I can remember, I've wondered what it would sound and feel like to sing into a mic in an iso booth, or sit around snacking on pretzels while we all stew silently in the collective contemplation of the magic of our temporary home. It's been a lesson in humility, in learning to extend grace to myself and people I care about, and in learning how to be creatively vulnerable and flexible.

As I've said, I'm beyond grateful. This has been the experience of a lifetime and I am so SO ready to get Dogwoods out into the world.