Alec McKee and Tori Lund first met at the Hootenanny, a legendary Jackson Hole open mic where the best songwriters and pickers come to show off their talents and share stories through music. The duo took on the name Fly in Honey and have since expanded their lineup into a five-piece band called Float Trip. From Motown to Big Thief, the pair discussed their influences and approach to performing in Jackson’s vibrant music scene.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. – Ed.
Evan Ballew: Can you two describe how you first met?
Alec McKee: I feel like I’ve met most of my musical community at the Hootenanny here in Jackson. Tori and I met there and I’ve met a couple other bandmates over there and I was blown away when I first saw Tori sing at the Hootenanny and I thought I have to have to play some music with that person. So we have a couple different groups. Our duo is Fly In Honey, and then we have a five-piece band that’s newer and we’re calling Float Trip.
EB: How did you two get to Jackson?
AM: I moved out here in 2021 and at the time I was living back home in Minnesota, and this was mid-pandemic, and I figured maybe I’d try coming out here. My family has ties to the area. My dad grew up in Lander, Wyoming and so we’d been visiting Jackson since I was a young kid. So I figured if I was gonna move anywhere, it might as well be here. I’ve been here ever since. I tried to move away at one point and kind of got pulled back. It’s a hard place to leave.
Tori Lund: I just moved like a year ago from Georgia and I have a brother here. My family used to come here, kind of similar to what you were talking about in the winters, we’d come stay for like a week. When I was younger I’d come work in the summers. I had a life that ended in the South and then needed to make a new start in the mountains.
EB: Who were some of y’all’s biggest influences on your sound and your songwriting?
TL: I really love Emmylou Harris, just the sound. Linda Ronstadt, I really loved how she interprets songs. I’ve listened to them a good bit. Man, there’s all kinds of writers. I grew up listening to a lot of Motown, which has nothing to do with the kind of music that I play and write, but somehow that inspires me. I love finding people who are maybe a little bit lesser-known and then becoming obsessed with how they write.
AM: One of my favorite songwriters in the whole world is Adrienne Lenker of Big Thief. My goal of what I’m trying to do is sort of what she does.
EB: I understand that you’ve opened up for a few bigger country acts. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?
TL: I was in a band for like the better part of a decade, up until about a year ago, called Few Miles South, and started that with a former partner. It was like a country, Bluegrass, Americana, whatever that means, [we] toured around for a good bit. Some of the bands that we got to play alongside with or open for were Junior Brown, Shenandoah, kind of bigger, maybe in the 80s, 90s. We opened for Daniel Donato once at a festival in Mississippi.
EB: What was your most memorable experience from those shows?
TL: Our first gig ever, when we were just starting out, we went to, I think it was Tucson, Arizona, and got asked to play at a venue and sell tickets. That’s a big deal. And we get there and come to realize the venue was owned by a cult. So like no one came to the show except the cult members. Then afterward there was like this recruitment effort to try to get us to go back to the farm with them. We slept over in the apartment they provided and, I don’t know if anyone slept that night because I was convinced someone’s gonna come through the wall and kidnap us.
EB: What do y’all think the Jackson scene does well?
AM: I feel like it’s small and tight knit, and I think there’s a lot of opportunities to play and get involved. I’m from Minnesota originally, and out there it’s definitely a lot harder to get paid gigs. There are some good open mics, but not a ton. This area is just so rich in opportunities to play. There’s so many open mics, there’s the Hootenanny, there’s a couple other ones around town. So I just feel like there’s a lot of opportunities to play. There’s a lot of demand for paid gigs and I’ve loved being a musician here. I found it a lot easier compared to a bigger city where I feel like you’re fighting.
TL: I’ve noticed people playing in multiple bands and then going out and supporting their friends. And I’m surprised by that, especially for a small town, you’d think it’d be a little more cutthroat, like ‘No, I don’t wanna give you this opportunity,’ but that’s not the case here.
EB: Could you describe the experience of collaborating with each other musically?
TL: That always feels like the most soul filling part for writing, at least for me, when you get to do it with someone else and you’re in agreement, not everything has to be decided in the moment. And it’s cool to where you offer something and then someone else pitches back something you didn’t consider like, ‘Oh yeah, that made it way better,’ or added something that I didn’t think of before. Alec is a quicker writer than I am. I have to kind of simmer or sometimes months on an idea, and I feel like he will get back to me within like 20 minutes.
AM: I really hadn’t written much with anyone before writing with Tori. The styles are a little different in terms of workflow. I feel like now I get to write songs with Torie in mind. Like, there’s one song that we might do here where I wrote this part for Tori and just heard her voice in my head. And it’s fun to kind of be able to express myself through her as well and vice versa.
