Biography
The Bees, operating under the name A Band of Bees in America because of a naming-rights dispute, originated as the duo Paul Butler and Aaron Fletcher, both natives of the Isle of Wight. Their first album, Sunshine Hit Me, took shape inside a home studio housed in a shed located in Butler’s parents’ garden. Multi-instrumentalists and vocalists alike, Butler and Fletcher maintained extensive record collections while devoting even greater attention to listening, tracing lines from the beginnings of British rock through American soul and across numerous additional styles. Issued exclusively in the U.K. on We Love You and credited simply to the Bees, Sunshine Hit Me fused ’60s freakbeat and psychedelic approaches with ’70s power pop, earning a Mercury Music Prize nomination in 2002. Further visibility arrived when the duo’s version of Os Mutantes’ “A Minha Menina,” drawn from that album, was placed in a British car commercial.
The nomination and accompanying critical acclaim prompted the formation of a complete band, followed by two years of regular touring. Once that period ended, the Bees had stabilized as a sextet in which every member contributed songs and rotated instruments, with Fletcher supplying the lyrics. Intended for the same garden shed, the second album instead took shape at EMI after Butler produced another act there; the six musicians—Kris Birkin, Michael Clevitt, Tim Parkin, Warren Hampshire, Butler, and Fletcher (all multi-instrumentalists except lead guitarist Birkin)—required three weeks to finish Free the Bees. Released in summer 2004 on Virgin, the record received enthusiastic notices in Britain and reached select American outlets, where reviewers who might otherwise have overlooked the group responded positively. Critics drew parallels to the Small Faces (and the Faces), the Beatles, the Byrds, Donovan, the Kinks, the Temptations, and early Pink Floyd, among other reference points. Butler himself cited Lee Perry, King Tubby, and Fela Kuti as personal touchstones. Additional chart traction followed when “Chicken Payback” and “Wash in the Rain,” both from Free the Bees, appeared in television advertisements.
In 2005 the band supplied several tracks to the soundtrack of the Brian Jones biographical film Stoned, delivering inventive covers of Rolling Stones material that included a version of “The Last Time” which retained the original’s drive and guitar details while adding sitar. These performances stood out amid a movie most reviewers dismissed as misguided and dull, making the accompanying soundtrack album worth seeking out. Reduced to a quintet after Clevitt’s exit, the group issued Octopus in 2007, a wide-ranging pop-rock work whose inventive turns and unexpected influences surfaced throughout its melodies and arrangements. Rooted in its release year yet shaped by the Kinks of Village Green Preservation Society and the Small Faces of “The Universal,” the album combined urgency with pleasure in a manner that invited repeated listening. They continued with the equally varied Every Step’s a Yes in 2010. Despite evident ’60s affinities, the collective maintains a distinctly modern profile, drawing on admired artists and idioms only when those choices serve the music at hand.
The nomination and accompanying critical acclaim prompted the formation of a complete band, followed by two years of regular touring. Once that period ended, the Bees had stabilized as a sextet in which every member contributed songs and rotated instruments, with Fletcher supplying the lyrics. Intended for the same garden shed, the second album instead took shape at EMI after Butler produced another act there; the six musicians—Kris Birkin, Michael Clevitt, Tim Parkin, Warren Hampshire, Butler, and Fletcher (all multi-instrumentalists except lead guitarist Birkin)—required three weeks to finish Free the Bees. Released in summer 2004 on Virgin, the record received enthusiastic notices in Britain and reached select American outlets, where reviewers who might otherwise have overlooked the group responded positively. Critics drew parallels to the Small Faces (and the Faces), the Beatles, the Byrds, Donovan, the Kinks, the Temptations, and early Pink Floyd, among other reference points. Butler himself cited Lee Perry, King Tubby, and Fela Kuti as personal touchstones. Additional chart traction followed when “Chicken Payback” and “Wash in the Rain,” both from Free the Bees, appeared in television advertisements.
In 2005 the band supplied several tracks to the soundtrack of the Brian Jones biographical film Stoned, delivering inventive covers of Rolling Stones material that included a version of “The Last Time” which retained the original’s drive and guitar details while adding sitar. These performances stood out amid a movie most reviewers dismissed as misguided and dull, making the accompanying soundtrack album worth seeking out. Reduced to a quintet after Clevitt’s exit, the group issued Octopus in 2007, a wide-ranging pop-rock work whose inventive turns and unexpected influences surfaced throughout its melodies and arrangements. Rooted in its release year yet shaped by the Kinks of Village Green Preservation Society and the Small Faces of “The Universal,” the album combined urgency with pleasure in a manner that invited repeated listening. They continued with the equally varied Every Step’s a Yes in 2010. Despite evident ’60s affinities, the collective maintains a distinctly modern profile, drawing on admired artists and idioms only when those choices serve the music at hand.