Onion Honey

Esther Wheaton (banjo, vocals, washboard) and Dave Pike (banjo, mandolin, guitar, vocals) met in 2011 when their former bands (Banjo & the Bellows and A Yellow Field) shared a billing at The Boathouse - a Kitchener, Ontario institution. Dave insinuated himself into Esther’s band, and when The Bellows dissolved the two started their own old-time project. They recorded and released their first full-length album, Don’t Bother Me None in 2013.

In 2014 Onion Honey acquired two new band members - Michelle Horel (a long-time friend of the band) on banjolele and vocals, and Stuart Cybulskie (an amazing Kijiji find) on double bass. As a quartet they performed at Toronto’s Winterfolk Festival, Cambridge’s Mill Race Folk Festival, Kitchener’s Summer Lights Festival, and many other events as well as establishing their regular gigs at the Grand Trunk Saloon (first Wednesday of every month) and Seven Shores Cafe (second Sunday of every month). This lineup appears on their 2014 EPs Pocket Pair and Home Before the Snow, and 2017 album Raisin’ Heck.

2017 also saw a lineup change as Michelle and Stuart left the band, replaced by Keenan Reimer-Watts on fiddle (kidnapped from a new music ensemble), Leanne Swantko on guitar (another amazing Kijiji find), and Kayleigh LeBlanc on double bass (Esther’s old university roommate). As a quintet they recorded holiday EP Layers, were featured in the Sunparlour Sessions and performed all over Southwestern Ontario from Owen Sound to Niagara Falls, appearing at Jarvis Ontario’s Welcome Home Festival, the Balls Falls Thanksgiving Festival, Waterloo’s Belmont Village Bestival, the Goderich Downtown Shuffle, KW’s Hold the Line Festival, the Open Ears Festival of Music and Sound, and much more.

In early 2019 Keenan left the band for his own artistic pursuits and Onion Honey was joined by a rotating cast of fiddle players and other friends, most frequently Alison Corbett. The band’s third full-length album, Earthly Trials was recorded and released by this lineup in 2019. 

Between 2020 and 2022, band members were frequently separated by COVID-19 lockdowns. Esther and Dave started a weekly gospel and singalong livecast (affectionately titled ‘Banjo Church’ by viewers) in spring of 2020, and were gradually joined by Kayleigh and Leanne as restrictions and personal lives allowed. The series continued for 3 years straight, and is revived each October for a (significantly shorter) run during the off-season. 

In Fall 2020, Esther, Dave, and Kayleigh recorded Homegrown live-off-the-floor in the living room - a children's album originally for Esther's niece, but made publicly available as a free download as a thank you to all the folks tuning in weekly. In 2021, still restricted to outdoor shows, the band played the inaugural Creeksong Festival; in 2022 they played Uxbridge's Springtide Festival, the Belmont Village Bestival (again), and recorded and released A Merry Little While - a full-length holiday album featuring many original songs, which was written up on Roots Music Canada and played on a number of Canadian radio stations. This was also the year Onion Honey settled into its current ‘everyone-fits-in-one-vehicle’ quartet lineup - Dave on mandolin and guitar, Esther on banjo, Leanne on guitar and mandolin, and Kayleigh on double bass. 

In early 2023 the quartet spent a week recording with Andy Magoffin at his House of Miracles in Cambridge, Ontario, and released their first-ever studio album, Foul Weather Friends, that same May.  Roots Music Canada praised the album's “out-of-this-world harmonies and sweet, tart, string-band sound” and “catchy-as-hell little ditties that could easily pass for traditional.” The band toured the album around Ontario that summer, playing the River Valley Bluegrass Festival, the Scarborough Folk Festival, and the Evergood Bluegrass Shindig, and were Showcase Artists at the 2023 Folk Music Ontario conference in London.

Onion Honey played the Mariposa Folk Festival, Elmira Maple Syrup Fest, Evergood Bluegrass Shindig, River Valley Bluegrass Festival, the Paris Fair, and much more in 2024 - their busiest summer to date. They also released a single in April called Hell or High Water, telling the story of the RMS Carpathia, the ship that sailed through the night to rescue survivors of the Titanic. 

Onion Honey has been heard on radio stations across Canada and both Raisin’ Heck and Earthly Trials charted on national campus radio. They perform regularly around Southwestern Ontario at festivals and fairs, parties and weddings, saloons and cafes, galleries and libraries, and pretty much everywhere else.