Today, we’d like to introduce you to Tommy McCord.
Hi Tommy, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
In 2024, I spent much of my time as the de facto principal organizer of The Wild Honey Collective, a roots/country/folk group of musicians based in Lansing and Grand Rapids. We began in 2020 as a COVID quarantine project – suddenly, there were no gigs for musicians. We did some acoustic outdoor meetups and started recording songs through filesharing to keep busy and maintain our mental health.
We put out our first album in 2021 before we had even played a show. Since we started the live performance, we’ve expanded our ranks and have multiple offshoots in different combinations of members, some more acoustic, some more electrified, with the latest spoke of the Honey Wheel spotlighting songs from the Jerry Garcia songbook. I stay busy as the primary constant member of all the iterations, performing around Michigan every week, plus New England, East Coast, and Midwest tours throughout the year.
I’ve been playing guitar since Christmas Day 1997 and have been part of many bands in varying styles, with a lot of national touring on my CV as part of the indie/punk band The Plurals. I truly feel that independent music can positively influence the wider community by providing artistic expression and inclusive gathering spaces.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Music and arts scenes are cyclical – there are periods where there are a lot of venues and supportive audiences and artists, followed by leaner times with fewer opportunities. There are lots of factors in the ebb-and-flow nature of it all, so it’s important to not get discouraged or take things personally. Mid-Michigan in 2024 is sort of in an in-between phase: there’s an increasing amount of venues, but many of them are acoustically restrictive, and it can be hard to find a balance between musician, audience, and staff comfort.
There are generational divides that can be difficult to manage as well: speaking candidly, as a musician in his late 30s, I feel like there’s no one under 30 that’s trying to build a truly collaborative and supportive music community. From my perspective, the social-media era has led to more individualistic approaches to creative arts and less collaborative ones… but that’s probably just because I’m an “old guy” now. I’d love to be proven wrong.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
In the Wild Honey Collective context, we try to bridge the gaps between the inclusive energy of our shared backgrounds in punk and old-time music with the expected conventions of country, folk, and bluegrass adjacent performances. Many wildly talented people can deliver very stale performances, so audience connection and on-stage enjoyment are a top priority for all variations of our band.
A lot of what we do is modeled after what bands like The Byrds and Flying Burrito Brothers were doing in the late 60s/early 70s – we write our songs, we do a lot of folk and country classics in our arrangements, we spotlight different acoustic instruments, and then we ramp things up into heavier, more psychedelic sounds by the end of our show. I’ve been a part of many bands,, but Wild Honey brings together different age demographics, which is more than anything I’ve ever been a part of.
Toddlers dance, middle-aged craft beer snobs smile, old people clap along, and college kids take a lot of videos that I wonder if they ever post or look at again.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
Lansing has an endearing blue-collar chip on its shoulder that I hope always remains a key facet of our identity. The racial diversity and heavy LGBTQ+ community presence are among our greatest attributes and are certainly a factor in our long history of credible artistic communities.
There’s always been a struggle to integrate the university culture of Michigan State/East Lansing with the rest of the community, but there are constantly people trying. The attempts at gentrification in the last decade are frustrating but I remain positive that Lansing will find a balance.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://gtgrecords.net
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/the_wildhoney_collective
- Facebook: http://facebook.com/thewildhoneycollective
- Youtube: http://youtube.com/@gtgrecordstv
- Other: http://linktr.ee/thewildhoneycollective
Image Credits
Michael Boyes Photography
