INTERVIEW // Eric Weiner of The Wild Honey Pie

At this moment I am listening to The Mountain Goats’ The Sunset Tree. It is the first album I ever listened to late at night, crying teenaged tears and believing that the music could hear me that way I heard it – know me in the way I knew it. Years later it was this album that I turned to during a deep bout of depression when every other experience in my life stubbornly refused to give me joy. It was this album that served as my induction into the club – the one that separated me from people who love music and made me into someone who needs music.

One of my favorite essays about music and depression puts it this way: “You pare down the elements of your life to a handful of essential things, and when you start feeling better you memorialize those things as a kind of survival kit. You tell yourself… from now on it will be OK, no matter how bad you feel, because you still have those things, and you can pare your life down to them again if you need to.”

Recently, I sat down with Eric Weiner, founder of The Wild Honey Pie to discuss the power of art as a guiding light through darkness.“I think that it’s super important to be able to talk about what you’ve been through,” he reflects, “because if someone else hears that story and it resonates with them it can literally save their life.”

In 2015, Eric was the head of a rising music blog, working ceaselessly and self medicating when very suddenly it all came to a head. “Late one night and I had a hallucination,” he remembers. “I saw the city burning in my mind.”

This night marked the beginning of a harrowing journey that would take Eric in and out of psychiatric facilities and into battle with his own mind, unable to resume work at the thing that gave him purpose and normalcy. “I couldn’t handle the day to day of The Wild Honey Pie, obviously, so I stepped away from the business for that time… It was just a dark, dark place for me. I convinced myself that there were hidden messages in music and secret messages in the TV that I watched. I didn’t listen to music, I didn’t watch TV. I could barely read a book. I could barely leave my room.”

Eventually, Eric was diagnosed with bipolar and found his way out of that darkness through a rehabilitation program that focused on working with the land and animals. Along with this program, he credits his recovery to the connections he was able to hang on to throughout his illness. When he returned to work at The Wild Honey Pie, he put community and relationships at the center of their mission.

EW: Part of my recovery had to do with reconnecting with music. Not just me and the music, but me and the music community. Going to shows and feeling like I was a part of something bigger than myself. And I think that message is a really important one. Choosing community and being part of something bigger than yourself.

HB: Absolutely. And did that influence your vision for The Wild Honey Pie?

EW: I was a person struggling with depression, really a little lost at times. I think that for me it was really about finding an outlet for myself, a valve almost, for my anxiety. And with The Wild Honey Pie it felt like I had something to reach the world. It’s not just, how much money am I making or how much traffic do we get on the website, but do we actually help an artist? How can we get them something that’s going to help their career, or brighten up their day? Or how can we help a listener find something that’s going to be a song that they cherish, or an album that they share with their loved ones?

HB: That rings really true. I had a really similar experience in college and that was a lot of the reason why I started Hullabaloo. What would you like to see more of in the music community moving forward in terms of fostering greater connection and community?

EW: I think it would be really nice to see more support of folks early on in their careers, more mentorship would be great – and that’s something that we try to do with our internship program. I would like to see more people coming together within the music industry, coming out to these experiential events and seeing what’s being done to pave the way for the future of the music industry. And I would like to see music industry folks supporting each other – maybe once in a while paying for a show. Might not hurt to pay for a show if you like the band or if you like the producer or the promoter that’s putting it on.

HB: Well and I also think that’s one of the really cool things about The Wild Honey Pie is that you guys have done some really innovative things around music experiences, like the Welcome Campers festival – can you talk more about those initiatives that really focus on that intimacy and connectivity, and why you think that’s so important?

EW: I think that especially with the rise of the streaming services so many people have favorite songs, songs that they add to their playlists, that come on and they’re excited and they know the words, but they don’t even know who sings the song. And what we do at The Wild Honey Pie is we add context to music and develop a relationship between artists and fans. I think that that is extremely needed in the current landscape. So what’s great about Welcome Campers is you’re stuck in a summer camp for a weekend with these artists, and it’s just 450 people. You’re playing horse on the basketball court, you’re chucking balls at each other during the dodgeball, playing kick ball, you’re making friendship bracelets, tie dye, playing music around a campfire. It’s really about relationships. Not only between the artist and the fan but also between fans – to be able to create an environment for people to make new friendships that will hopefully last a lifetime.

HB: And that for me is where it comes back to the discussion of mental health. At least in my experience with depression, music was such a huge part of what kept me tethered to reality or to joy in life. The experience of listening to music but also just getting out, going to a show, meeting people, having a positive interaction.

EW: I definitely agree. The feeling of finding a new song that has a hook that makes you cry, or a song that makes you fall in love with your partner – it’s a stabilizing factor. That’s why it’s so important that we support the artists and support the industry.

HB: Yeah. When I fell into a pretty serious depression hole a couple years ago, I kind of got to a point where the only thing that could bring me peace or a sense of normalcy was just a very few albums and few artists. Do you have music that’s done that for you?

EW: Absolutely. Well, first, who were yours?

HB: So, mine – I had never gotten into The National before I got really depressed and –

EW: That’s depressing music! I admit it, I like listening to music that’s sad when I’m sad.

MS: Well it lets you feel seen, right?

EW: Yeah.

MS: And so I finally listened to Trouble Will Find Me and I was just like, “Oh wow. This is what this music is for.” I also listened to a lot of The Mountain Goats. Ever since junior high I’ve gone to The Mountain Goats whenever I got really down.

EW: For me I listened to a lot of The National, Sufjan Stevens, Death Cab For Cutie – who else? Kishi Bashi was a big one. I find his music almost manic and it uplifts me when I’m feeling down. Phoenix, HAIM, Lucius – love Lucius so much. Local Natives. Just to name a few. And then there’s something about going back and listening to older music. Listening to The Beatles and The Beach Boys and Motown and some of my dad’s music that brings me back to my love of music even when I was 5, 6 years old and reconnecting with my inner youth in that way, that sense of nostalgia. That definitely is something that brings me joy and can help me when I’m struggling with depression or the depressive episode my bipolar.

The Wild Honey Pie will put on their seventh Welcome Campers festival this May over Memorial Day Weekend (May 25th – 27th at Camp Lennox, Massachusetts). Get tickets here. The Wild Honey Pie also hosts a monthly dinner series in New York and LA (and coming soon to Austin). Ticket price includes dinner, drinks, and music – all shared with new friends.