An Interview With Country Trio HONEY COUNTY’S Danni Rosner!

Meet Honey County! This trio made up of Danni Rosner, Leeann Skoda and Deanna Passarella make undeniably catchy pop country tunes. With gorgeous harmonies, melodic hooks and songs that speak the truth, they are attracting new fans everywhere. Last summer, their first single “Blood From A Stone” gained popularity with a feature on HBO’s TRUE BLOOD. Following the success of the single, the group went on to record their self titled debut EP in Los Angeles, CA with producer Ryan Williams (Kelly Clarkson, Train, P!nk) at Pulse Recording. The band plans to release the EP in the summer of 2015.

Honey County is currently in the running to open for country star, Brett Eldredge! Read all the info below and how to vote for them in the contest in the following All Access interview with Honey County’s front-woman, Danni Rosner.

First of all, congrats on making it to the Top 5 Finalists to open for Brett Eldredge! That’s very exciting! What does that feel like? What would it mean to Honey County to actually win this contest?

Thank you! It would mean the w-o-r-l-d to us to win this contest. We’re so excited to be a top 5 finalist and have been totally floored by the outpouring of support from everyone and their non-stop voting! With an opportunity like this we have a chance to really break into the Country Music scene and share songs from our new EP with some folks that we hope would appreciate it!

What got you to enter it in the first place? 

I heard about the contest on Sirius XM The Highway a few weeks ago – and then saw an article about the contest on CMT the last day that submissions were due!  We were almost finished with the edits for our music video, “99 Bottles”, and I called the director and editor, Tyler Glodt, and DP, George Feucht, and begged them to have the video done of us by midnight…and they got it done!  Then the girls and I submitted the video and prayed…the next thing we knew we got an email saying ‘congrats!  you’ve made the top 5!’  – we were jumping up and down!!!!

I just watched your “99 Bottles” video and I love it! Can you talk about the making of it? It looks like it was a lot of fun to shoot! What do you think it is about it that people are really responding to? 

We had SO much fun making “99 Bottles”! Our favorite scenes were playing beer pong on the pool table and just being silly with the bartender and when the salty biker (played by Gary Calamar) came out of wardrobe/makeup looking like a character on Sons of Anarchy, we knew it was gonna be awesome.  Also, the LA Wranglers choreographed and adapted their own dance to “99 Bottles” so that was so cool.  I think people like having a good time and this song is a party and beer anthem and who doesn’t like beer?  Haha!  I do have a confession to make though… We weren’t actually drinking in the video, it was all sparkling apple juice!!

What’s a typical day like for Honey County lately? Why do you think this lifestyle fits you now? 

We are three totally different women and each have our own lives – but we have so much chemistry on stage and a lot of fun when we’re together.  We also really respect each other’s talent and that’s what makes us strong.  Deanna is an incredible guitar player and plays with her heart and Leeann has the voice of an angel.  When I’m on stage with the girls, I’m so happy and I feel invincible. Group texts and when we’re in the car together on our way to and from a gig, conversation get hilarious! (Laughter) (Deanna/Leeann…ya’ll know what I’m talking about haha!).

Looking back, can you remember first starting Honey County? How did you three meet each other? How did you select your group name? What other names were you considering? 

I swear the first names we came up with sounded like clothing brands at Dress Barn which is not a bad thing but we didn’t want to sound like a clothing brand! (Laughter) We tried pairing middle names with first names and hometowns and local hangouts… Eventually, I just put a bunch of our favorite words into a scrabble shaker and looked to see the words that it made.  Honey was one of them and County was another and that sounded awesome! None of us minded being Honey County.  Plus, it’s a “sweet” name and if auto-correct screws it up we’re “Honey Country”.

Tell us about being the singing voice for PROMO’s for the lead character Evie on Disney’s Descendants. How did you get that role? What’s that experience been like? Have you always wanted to do something like this? 

I think at some point every little girl’s dream is to be a singing princess! It’s so funny to me that after years of singing music, that dream found its way back into my life!  I had gotten the call through an amazing producer-composer-writer, Eve Nelson. She asked me to come over and sing for some promo material for Disney and it didn’t really sink in until I heard the finished product – I landed my first Disney princess role!

What musicians have consistently been inspiring you and Honey County’s sound? Who would you love to work with in the future?

Garth Brooks, Little Big Town,  Keith Urban, Blake Shelton, Brett Eldredge, Darius Rucker, Lady Antebellum, Miranda Lambert, Carrie Underwood, Sam Hunt – in no order.  We would love to work with any one of them – it’d be a dream come true.

What do you hope listeners take away from your band’s music? Is there an overall message?

We want people to have fun and enjoy the music! It’s summertime so the songs have a very feel-good vibe.  If there is one song on the EP that has really grown on me it’s “Who You Think I Am”.  Sometimes it’s really scary to be who you want to be and say what you want to say, I hope this song inspires people to be brave and not give a damn 🙂

Where can people see you perform next?

We HOPE opening for Brett Eldredge on July 24th in IDAHO!  Ya’ll better be voting… But you can for SURE catch us at Knotts Berry Farm on July 25th with Go Country 105 for the Country Showdown!

Where do you see Honey County in the next 10 or even 20 years? 

It’s hard to see 10 or 20 minutes down the road much less years! But we dream big!

Anything else you would like to share with our readers about Honey County?

You can grab our new EP on iTunes here:  https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/honey-county-ep/id1010804650

And please follow us on Apple Connect!  We’ve been working with some great people there (Thank you Brian!) to set up our profile on Apple’s new service, so that’s been pretty cool to do as an un-signed band!

And… vote for us!  www.thehourlygig.com until July 15th to open for Brett Eldredge!

Connect with Honey County:

www.youtube.com/honeycounty

www.twitter.com/honeycounty

www.facebook.com/honeycounty

www.instagram.com/honeycounty

www.honeycounty.com