The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

Honey Don’t has released their third full-length album, titled “Threadbare.”

Honey Don’t was created by husband-and-wife duo Bill and Shelly Powers in 2006 while they lived in the small town of Paonia, Colorado. Powers and his wife were in a band in Colorado from 2001 until 2010 called Sweet Sunny South, before branching out on their own to form Honey Don’t, to do more of the types of tunes they desired.

Powers sings and plays guitar, and Shelly plays bass.

“The vibe of what we wanted to do was a bit more rockabilly style, so we came up with the name Honey Don’t. “Honey Don’t” is also the name of a song by Carl Perkins that was then covered by The Beatles and Elvis and fit that rockabilly vibe. It was also kind of a play on the fact that we are a couple,” said Powers.

In 2014, Powers and his wife decided it was time for a move. “We lived in a really small town and had boys that were getting older, and there weren’t a ton of choices. We decided to take a visit to Oregon. My wife had always loved the idea of exploring Oregon, and we stopped in Bend as the last spot before going back to Colorado and felt like it was the right place,” said Powers.

They decided to make the move to Bend and started to figure out ways they could make it work here.

“We started putting feelers out on the music scene to see what kinds of bands are here and had pretty good luck with the response because we wanted to continue with the band when we were here,” said Powers.

At the start they focused on finding jobs and getting a foothold on the music scene. Powers was also teaching mandolin and guitar to make some extra money at the time. He still teaches lessons out of his home. During that time, his wife’s work began to pick up and he began playing gigs solo. At a jam session in Sisters, he met Benji Nagel.

“He started playing with us on dobro and shortly after we met Don Hawkins, who plays the snare with us. We started playing gigs as Honey Don’t Band and have ever since,” he said.

CJ Neary, a young fiddle prodigy, also sat in with them occasionally, and then started playing with them more frequently.

“The guys we play with now definitely lean more toward bluegrass, and so we decided for this record that would be the sound,” said Powers.

Powers produced their record “Heart Like a Wheel,” which was released shortly after their move to the Central Oregon area, from his home, but this time decided to get into a studio to record it. They worked with Keith Banning at Grange Records in Sisters to record “Threadbare.”

However, due to the pandemic, the band hadn’t been playing much together at all and therefore they also couldn’t record together easily.

“We weren’t dialed in to record together at once. COVID provided the time to record the album, but there were still restrictions. We ended up all recording separately and then cutting it together,” said Powers.

Powers and his wife laid down the basic tracks and then the rest of the band would come in and play their parts over it. The album consists of 13 tracks with two covers.

“Threadbare” dropped on January 14 exclusively on Bandcamp for digital purchase. They also printed some CDs to sell at shows.

“People don’t do a lot of CDs anymore; digital streaming is where things are now, but we don’t make any money if we are on every streaming platform like Spotify,” said Powers. “I have a hard time putting so much heart and effort and time into a record and then having it basically be free.”

They decided to go with Bandcamp because it is a form of social media exclusively for music listeners and musicians.

For additional information, visit honeydont1.bandcamp.com.