Tag Archives: Dead Honey Collective

Dead Honey Collective – Rose Colored Glasses, OUT NOW

Out now – 3 original songs by Dead Honey Collective, recorded in spring of 2025. 2 original songs by Jack Schueler, plus the summer 2025 Joel Kuiper-penned single “Through Munising” (featuring the whole Wild Honey Collective). YouTube / Spotify / Apple

Tommy says: The lines between these projects is intentionally blurry, reflecting the improvisational spirit at its core. Wild Honey Collective has always been a dynamic musical project, and along the way we organically started including country and folk songs with Grateful Dead/Jerry Garcia project associations (“I Know You Rider,” “Shady Grove,” “Dreadful Wind and Rain,” “Sing Me Back Home,” “Mama Tried” etc). At a very early Wild Honey performance we were lucky to have Jack Schueler in the audience, who immediately identified the formative influences of the band, beginning a friendship and gradual series of collaborations and sit-ins. When we (Adam, Joel, and myself) started exploring the improv-heavy Wilderhoney spinoff, it was a natural entry point for Jack to play more, and since Nicholas Merz had sang on our latest EP he was tapped to play bass. We did approximately one-and-a-half shows as “Wilderhoney” before it became obvious that we should focus on exploring the rootsy-angle of the Dead since it was such a big part of our musical venn diagram. Thus, at the beginning of 2024 we started performing as Dead Honey Collective, with no plan besides playing music from all of our catalogs and leaning on the country/folk edges of the Dead (including New Riders of the Purple Sage, Old & In The Way, Jerry Garcia Band, et al), and from the first set it was obvious that we should keep doing this. Now we have original songs, a huge catalog of Dead-family material, plenty of other things we play just for fun, and the whole “collective” continues to create together. Now we’ve gotta get some live recordings together…

“Through Munising” Single Out Now

Summer 2025 – the hazy vision of the “collective” has reached a new peak with the release of the song “Through Munising.” An original composition by Joel Kuiper, Tommy McCord’s lead vocal and musical arrangement was worked up amidst our Grateful Dead-focused Dead Honey Collective shows and elevated by Jack Schueler’s brilliant guitar playing and harmony vocal singing. The propulsive rhythm section of Joel and Nicholas Merz provided the perfect foundation for Adam Aymor’s celestial pedal steel workouts and the ensuing harmony interplay between Adam, Jack, and Tommy. The basic track was cut live in Tommy’s basement in March, at which point the rest of the principal Wild Honey Collective players – Danielle Gyger, Timmy Rodriguez, and Dan O’Brien – sweetened the arrangement with additional singing, fiddle, and harmonica. Adam mixed the recording, resulting in one of the purest pieces of collaboration in the Honey & GTG musical universe. An ode to a beautiful drive through the Upper Peninsula, with hints of a melancholy reality creeping in on the edges, “Through Munising” is a wonderful piece of collective creativity that we’re proud to deliver into the weird world of 2025.

Joel Kuiper – drums, composition
Tommy McCord – lead vocals, guitar, recording
Jack Schueler – harmony vocals, guitar
Adam Aymor – pedal steel, mixing
Nicholas Merz – bass, harmony vocals
Danielle Gyger – harmony vocals, fiddle
Timmy Rodriguez – harmony vocals
Dan O’Brien – harmonica

Mastered by John Duffy