The Bees

The Bees, operating under the moniker A Band of Bees in the United States because of a naming dispute, originated as the duo of Paul Butler and Aaron Fletcher, both natives of the Isle of Wight. Their first album, Sunshine Hit Me, took shape inside a makeshift home studio housed in a shed located in the garden of Butler’s parents. As multi-instrumentalists and vocalists, Butler and Fletcher maintained extensive record collections while devoting even greater energy to listening, drawing from the foundations of British rock, American soul, and countless additional sources. Issued solely in the United Kingdom by We Love You under the Bees name, Sunshine Hit Me fused 1960s freakbeat and psychedelic elements with 1970s power pop and received a nomination for the Mercury Music Prize in 2002. Momentum increased after the duo’s cover of Os Mutantes’ “A Minha Menina,” taken from that same album, was placed in a British car commercial.

The Mercury nomination together with strong critical reception prompted the formation of a full band and two years of consistent live work. Once that period concluded, the Bees had become a six-piece ensemble in which every member contributed songs, rotated instruments, and relied on Fletcher for lyrics. Although the group had planned to track their follow-up in the original garden shed, Butler’s production work for another artist at EMI instead secured three weeks of studio time at the label. The resulting Free the Bees, credited to Kris Birkin, Michael Clevitt, Tim Parkin, Warren Hampshire, Butler, and Fletcher (all except lead guitarist Birkin functioning as multi-instrumentalists), appeared in summer 2004 on the Virgin imprint. The record earned enthusiastic notices across England and gained traction in the United States through wider retail placement and favorable commentary from reviewers previously unfamiliar with the band. Critics drew parallels to the Small Faces (and the Faces), the Beatles, the Byrds, Donovan, the Kinks, the Temptations, and early Pink Floyd, while Butler separately cited Lee Perry, King Tubby, and Fela Kuti among his own touchstones. Additional commercial exposure arrived when “Chicken Payback” and “Wash in the Rain,” both drawn from Free the Bees, were selected for television advertisements.

Following the success of the second album, the Bees appeared prominently on the soundtrack to the 2005 Brian Jones biographical film Stoned. Their inventive covers of Rolling Stones material, notably a version of “The Last Time” that preserved the original’s drive and guitar detail while adding sitar, supplied rare highlights in a picture widely dismissed by critics as misguided and dull; the same tracks made the accompanying soundtrack album especially worthwhile. By 2007 the lineup had contracted to a quintet after Clevitt’s exit, and the remaining members issued Octopus, an expansive pop/rock statement whose inventive turns and unexpected influences surfaced throughout its arrangements. Anchored in the present yet clearly shaped by the Kinks’ The Village Green Preservation Society and the Small Faces’ “The Universal,” the album commanded engagement as readily as it delivered pleasure. A comparable eclecticism marked 2010’s Every Step’s a Yes. Despite evident 1960s reference points, the Bees maintain a distinctly modern profile, freely incorporating admired artists and styles whenever they serve the music at hand.