“An ordinary day,” Wierzynski muses. “Wake up horrendously hungover, you don’t know where you are. You’re always in a different bed, you look over at the person next to you, don’t know who the hell they are either. Your buddy is still snoring somewhere, which is the only reason you woke up in the first place. You look at your phone, and you realise that your tour manager has called you five times and that you were supposed to be up and out of the hotel an hour ago. You get yourself together as fast as you can, you leave some of your favourite socks behind because you’re in a hurry. You jump in a van, and you’re on your way to the next gig. Then you get to do it all over again.”
Wierzynski sounds thrilled at the prospect of the next gig, and it becomes swiftly apparent this is a man who was born to perform. He talks about being on stage with such relish that you feel slightly bad for taking up his time with questions. The California Honeydrops built their name playing soulful New Orleanian R&B. Though, in all honesty, that description doesn’t quite capture the flavour of the band, which is rather the point – there is no tightly-boxed genre they subscribe to.
“The tradition of music from which we come from, which is the New Orleans rhythm and blues tradition, has always incorporated lots of other kinds of music into it,” Wierzynski says. “Of course we’re based heavily in blues – that and gospel music is kind of the essential base of what we do. But that’s really the fundamental building block of all American rhythm and blues. We use those Caribbean influences, those reggae influences, but you can already hear that in New Orleans music anyhow. The people in New Orleans just picked up whatever music was lying around and they brought it in.
“People only really have genres anyway to sell things. People want to call it something just so they can sell it, or know what sort of clothes go along with it, but that ain’t really the reality of who we are as people. You take Ray Charles, man, there were no borders on that guy. He’s considered the godfather of soul in a lot of ways, but there were tonnes of country music in him, there’s bebop, there’s jazz, there’s church. That’s just how music is.”
There are a number of opportunities to catch The California Honeydropsover the coming week, with gigs locked in at the Northcote Social Club and the Caravan Music Club before they slide across to the Queenscliff Music Festival. Wierzynski is rather philosophical about where he plays. As long as there is an audience willing to be entertained, the five-piece are itching to take the stage.
“Festivals are fun because most of the time people are going to them to let loose, right? You go to these camping festivals and completely forget about the real world. But it’s also great to play small club shows. There’s nothing like a small room where everyone is dancing. Having a sit-down, listening audience can be a great relief from the louder, crazier shows where people don’t listen as much and just want to party. The variety is the spice of life, you know, so I think it’s all good.”
BY ADAM NORRIS
