Photo Credit: JR Rost

Conrad Warre spent a great deal of time neck-deep in the London music scene before packing up and heading overseas to the US. It was that moment in time that I wanted to start with to see just how the British meets American band, Bees Deluxe, was eventually rounded out with Carol Band, Jim Gildea, and Paul Giovine. Also, just how they found their footing and turned genres upside down on their latest, ‘Hallucinate.’ That’s just where this exchange started, but you’ll have to keep on keeping on to see just how we went from acid blues to screamo, and back again. 

Kendra: Conrad, how did you initially take to the local music scene in the US once you settled in after spending a good chunk of your life immersed in the scene over in London? 

Bees Deluxe: I landed in New York and the first thing I learned, on Canal Street, next to Chinatown, was that there were free refills of coffee at Dave’s Diner on the corner of Broadway. I borrowed a Les Paul Junior from an old friend I’d met in Paris, ran an ad in the Village Voice, and put together a power trio. We played for Hilly Krystal at CBGB’s on a Monday night, we passed the audition and gradually worked our way up to playing two sets a night on Saturdays. 

I lived around the corner from the Mudd Club, in a loft owned by the manager of Blue Oyster Cult, and we would hang out at the Mudd Club when we weren’t playing or practicing  – I didn’t realize you were meant to pay to get in, I think my London accent got us past the doorman every night. 

The music scene then was as varied and chaotic as you could imagine, punk, reggae, house, industrial, trance, metal, cowboy, and speed metal were almost all live every night in Manhattan – especially on the Lower East Side. Almost every band was doing 12-inch remixes of their tunes, and the musicians on the circuit ranged from classically skilled to hammer-wielding arsonists with bullhorns.  

Kendra: Bees Deluxe is nothing new, with albums like ‘Space Age Bachelor Pad Blues’ dating back over a decade to 2012. How would you say the four of you have grown together from then to now? 

Bees Deluxe: Like traditional Chicago Blues bands – Bees Deluxe has adopted and cultivated musicians and then released them into the wild when they needed to fly – one of our keyboard players left us to go on tour with Greg Allman as his organ player, but the existing line-up is now like an Olympic medallist team, we’ve been together for several years and have a high tolerance for each other’s vision. We’re friends as well as bandmates, which I think is very important. 

Kendra: What I love and find the most interesting is that none of you have a similar tale in your history other than being musicians. Some were involved with jazz, others punk. How do you think that variety benefitted the latest release, ‘Hallucinate?’ 

Bees Deluxe: Well, for instance, I find “screamo” exciting and interesting, but I can’t imagine playing with any of those musicians as it’s unerringly two-dimensional. Music for me and for everyone in the band is very much like painting or sculpture – in that we need lots of different tones, colors, textures, and finishes to create something new – to say nothing of different primers, canvas, walls, paper, stone, wood, metals. Paul’s favorite band is KISS, and Carol’s favorite musician is Bill Evans – so you can see there’s a huge vista of possible music in the spaces between them, and when you triangulate that with what I’m trying to play on the guitar – we can really carve our own landscape.  

Kendra: One song that stuck out to me, because it’s something I ask more often than not, “What’s Wrong with Me?” I know why I ask, but now I’m asking you – what sort of headspace were you in when that song came to be? 

Bees Deluxe: Like many other people, I suppose, I sometimes get a mantra, or a series of words or numbers stuck in my head – repeating audibly like a tape loop, that particular phrase became a song lyric, and the song title, because it was a loop that wouldn’t let go of me for some time. 

Kendra: That’s one of a dozen songs found on ‘Hallucinate,’ but something tells me you’re the type of person who’s always working on something new. Am I right, are there already song ideas you’ve jotted down that we’ll hear in the near future? 

Bees Deluxe: Yes – you are right. Either titles, tunes, or words are getting stacked up somewhere all the time. Because I’m lazy in that I don’t actually “practice”  – what happens is that when I pick up an instrument, I start looking for some new melody, chord structure, or rhythm set of changes that I haven’t heard or played before and try to build some new music from what’s happening in the moment. We have got a grandiose plan to finish composing something durable, lengthy, and symphonic – all while we are still writing tunes and songs that could gravitate to the studio or be performed live on stage. I’m steadily trying to encourage everybody to write. 

Kendra: Bees Deluxe isn’t about sitting around, you four like to tour up and down the East Coast, and I know you’re booked and blessed throughout this summer but will the band ever pack up and head west? Perhaps in the fall? 

Bees Deluxe: As luck would have it – we’ve just been picked up by a new music booking agency who plan to throw us further afield than we’ve managed to reach until now. We would love to play on the West Coast and in Canada, and at festivals in Europe, and it’s a special goal of ours to get to play in New Orleans, Chicago, and Kansas City. 

Kendra: Time for a side note – With it being May, there are a lot of graduations happening across the country right now, and I’d love for you to share a song with the collective class of 2024. So what song would you dedicate to them? Can be one of yours, or another artist’s. 

Bees Deluxe: “Someday We’ll All Be Free” by Donny Hathaway. 

Kendra: Lastly, with ‘Hallucinate’ out now, what else can the people expect as we start to roll into summer? 

Bees Deluxe: Right now – we are booking clubs and theaters though December 2024 – with an eye and an ear on next year’s Festivals. We are working on new arrangements of our own songs and tunes, and steadily tormenting some classic B sides from the 50s and 60s that we admire and think should be brought to the live stage in a fresh environment. Playing up and down the East Coast, all while composing and getting new material for the future. Please check out our show listings on our website and get in touch with us to play near you via our Facebook page.