There was a second at The Wild Honey Pie’s Pizza Get together with Lucius final Thursday night time (Sept. 17) at The Eden in Santa Monica when the excellence between a live performance and a pizza get together appeared to evaporate.
About 150 folks gathered to eat pizza, make new associates, sit round a hearth pit and, finally, flip their consideration towards a tiny stage. Everybody watched the beloved indie-pop band play a stripped-down 30-minute set accompanied by a string trio. For some hardcore followers, the prospect to see Lucius performing up shut on a stage solely 18 inches off the bottom was particular sufficient to elicit tears of pleasure.
The setting was a pointy distinction to what awaited Lucius the next night time: a efficiency on the Hollywood Bowl in entrance of 1000’s.
That distinction is basically the purpose.
The Wild Honey Pie, the NY-based artistic studio, has spent greater than a decade experimenting with methods to make the gap between artists and audiences really feel smaller. Its Pizza Get together sequence is likely one of the clearest expressions of that concept. Combining meals, music, artwork and neighborhood, the gatherings are designed to place artists and followers in the identical room in a manner {that a} conventional live performance typically can’t.
“We’re making an attempt to create an setting the place everybody in that room goes to be listening to Lucius for the remainder of their lives,” says Eric Weiner, founding father of The Wild Honey Pie.
A whole bunch of individuals entered the lottery and RSVP course of hoping to attend. A line finally stretched across the block.
As soon as inside, company encountered the sort of particulars which have grow to be a Wild Honey Pie signature: handmade mugs with telephone-cord handles created with Verizon, marinara pizza pennants from Oxford Pennant, limited-edition stickers and Shure friendship bracelets. A tomato-and-ginger vegan cookie was impressed by the substances in Mimikai’s bug spray. Open Water stored everybody hydrated, whereas a one-of-a-kind, hand-painted pink rotary cellphone allowed company to depart private messages for Lucius.
As is the case with all of The Wild Honey Pie’s occasions, the branding was there. However as Weiner factors out, these partnerships assist make these occasions doable.
“It’s meant to be a VIP expertise with out the VIP price ticket or snootiness or pretentiousness,” Weiner says. “What we attempt to do is simply create an setting the place it’s not too crowded — the place folks have some area to unfold their legs and sort of calm down.”
That intimacy is intentional. The Wild Honey Pie’s dinner events sometimes convey collectively 50 to 80 folks, whereas its Pizza Events usually accommodate between 100 and 150. Even a few of its bigger gatherings have traditionally topped out at just a few hundred company. For Weiner, calling a 5,000-person live performance “intimate” stretches the definition.
Thursday’s Lucius efficiency supplied a special scale solely. With the band primarily at eye degree, there was little separating the musicians from the folks watching them. For longtime Lucius followers, it was an unusually shut encounter with a band they’ve adopted for years. For newcomers, the brief set supplied an accessible introduction earlier than they may spend the remainder of the night time speaking with different company.
“You get a while to speak,” Weiner says. “And then you definately’re shutting the fuck up for the efficiency and dialing into what’s occurring on stage.”
The connection between Lucius and The Wild Honey Pie made the night time significantly significant. The 2 have been working collectively since 2011, when Lucius hosted The Wild Honey Pie’s Honey I’m House periods. The band later carried out at a few of the firm’s first Beehive occasions.
A decade and a half later, the connection has come full circle. The night time after Lucius’ efficiency for 150 at The Eden, they performed alongside Orville Peck in entrance of 17,000+ at The Hollywood Bowl.
The Pizza Get together additionally demonstrated how The Wild Honey Pie sees its function extending past merely placing artists onstage. The performances are sometimes filmed as stay periods, with the opportunity of finally releasing the recordings as stay albums. The corporate additionally bought lots of of {dollars}’ price of Lucius data, had them signed and gave them away to company, together with signed posters.
The thought is to depart folks with one thing tangible.
“Within the age of AI, we’re the folks doing every little thing from scratch,” Weiner says. “It’s all handmade.”
That method runs by means of the corporate’s bigger operation. The Wild Honey Pie’s posters are created by actual artists. Its stage banners are hand-stitched. Its occasions incorporate bodily objects, meals and experiences which can be purposefully analog.
Weiner says his firm’s “secret weapon” is just “being considerate.”
“How will we be sure that folks within the room understand how particular they’re and are feeling that love?” he says.
That method additionally extends to the corporate’s charitable work. The Wild Honey Pie says its occasions at the moment are structured as fundraisers, with ticket proceeds donated to nonprofit organizations. Since launching that program final yr, the corporate says it has donated greater than $65,000 to charities.
Thursday’s occasion benefited Meals & Water Watch, which fights for protected meals, clear water and a livable local weather. As a result of admission was supplied by means of a lottery and RSVP course of fairly than conventional ticket gross sales, the occasion additionally included a charity public sale and a prompt $100 donation. The ultimate quantity raised was nonetheless being calculated after the occasion.
The Wild Honey Pie can be more and more concerned with what occurs when its occasions finish. Weiner says the corporate is creating a brand new web site designed to convey collectively its recordings, articles, podcasts and artist-focused options. It should additionally present expertise meant to provide musicians extra methods to inform the tales behind their data. Weiner envisions album pages that might embody track-by-track commentary, behind-the-scenes pictures, works-in-progress and different materials that provides followers a deeper understanding of the individuals who made the music.
That mission — serving to folks fall in love with artists and albums fairly than merely songs — has grow to be central to the corporate’s identification.
Increasingly more, the music economic system is being formed by algorithms, whereas it has grow to be more and more tough to tell apart human creativity from machine-generated content material. The Wild Honey Pie is betting on one thing extra tangible: placing folks in the identical room.
Its method isn’t restricted to concert events. The corporate has staged dinner events, summer season camps and ski weekends, together with a 2024 journey that includes Native Natives, Gus Dapperton and Rubblebucket. Weiner says he’s planning the return of a few of these bigger experiences — assume 500 or so folks — sooner or later, whereas persevering with to develop its smaller gatherings.
With good meals, a favourite band, a room sufficiently small to see the musicians’ faces and the prospect to truly discuss to the folks round you, Thursday’s Pizza Get together with Lucius supplied a fairly good argument for the ability of bringing folks collectively.
For the 150 folks at The Eden, there was nowhere else to be. And for The Wild Honey Pie, that’s precisely the thought.
