Entertainment and Music Lifestyle

Music Feature: Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters

The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea

Throughout 2021, Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters released two singles each month as part of a “deconstructed album” release. “That term came from Ty Gilpin at our record label,” says Platt. “We were talking about releasing singles since that format seems to make more and more sense as streaming becomes the preferred way to consume music.” The double album was an idea she has had for a while, she adds, as a way to present her two songwriting sides. “I write a lot of sad, sleepy songs, but have always been self-conscious about putting too many on any given album,” she says. “So The Deep Blue Sea side of the double album is comprised of those more introspective songs while The Devil is more upbeat, full-band-oriented.”

Platt moved from upstate New York to Asheville in 2007, starting a band called the Bees Knees that became The Honeycutters. Bandmembers are Matt Smith on pedal steel and electric guitar, Kevin Williams on keys, Rick Cooper on bass, Evan Martin on drums and Platt on vocals and acoustic guitar.

She describes their sound as Americana. “I’m sure it is influenced by Western North Carolina because it’s been my home for 15 years now, though I grew up in the suburbs of New York City so that’s got to be in there too,” she says. The people she meets and the music she heard growing up—classic country, blues, bluegrass, grunge, punk and classic rock—are influences also.

COVID, the great game-changer, also had a role to play by forcing the band to stop touring and to work remotely, which, Platt says, made everyone feel free to try new things and to spend more time on their individual parts. “And,” she adds, “I think that because there was so much isolation and uncertainty in those early days it made me really want to create something more intimate and broken-down, which a lot of the tracks on The Deep Blue Sea side are.”

To learn more about upcoming shows or to order the album, visit Honeycutters.com. See Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters in concert at The Reeves Theater & Café in Elkin on Saturday, March 5, and at 185 King Street in Brevard on Saturday, April 2.

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