The Bees are no stranger to Brighton, in fact one of them lives here now. Matthew Hodson caught up with them to talk music industry, facts and whats next for the band.
So….new album, which I know you have self-produced as per usual. Did you record this like the last one?
TB: Yeah it was just us again doing it ourselves in our studio in the Isle of Wright.
Would you ever think of putting someone else in charge of producing one of your albums and give ourself a break from recording? If so who?
TB: We certainly would. Geoff Barrow, we love Geoff Barrow. Aphex Twin, Brian Eno and Flying Lotus all come to mind and would all be contenders for sure – if any of them are into it – then great! We like to mix it up and change things and therefore every album is different. Paul produces and therefore he could play more instead of being behind the board, so for practical reasons it would work too.
Paul: It would also speed the whole process up, I’m forever tweaking and as much as I like production I’m quite slow.
When you record, is everything live? Is that important?
Paul: No click tracks and no loops is the general rule other than that we are fine with pretty much anything. We are just careful not to take out natural rhythm.
Aaron: We love mistakes – happy accidents!
Would you recommend to bands going down the route of producing their own stuff?
TB: Yeah sure, you can record an album on your phone now! I like the way the way technology opens up possiilites but I think you should get into playing your instrument wether its a computer, a harp, or whatever you play and play it well, push the boundaries. Things do get lost with computers. Some genuises come thorugh like the Aphex Twins, but with real instruments you cant go wrong if your an amazing player. You’ll get noticed.
But what about vintage equipment, I know you’re a sucker for this?
Paul : Well the tape machine has gone as we lost a lot of time with it in terms of repairing it etc and therefore we have gone to working more to recording straight to hard disk. The new album is done in Logic and we mixed it ourselves but we sent the album to be mastered by a complete obsessive who brought it to a conclusion for us, which is what you need. Closure in the right hands.
In terms of the music industry, how are things generally and how are you perceiving shifts? Do you worry?
Paul: Well you have to keep an eye on it and you cant help but notice that everything is down on what it used to be. It’s a completely morphing industry and no ones knows where its heading so were in a kind of limbo, I think we all are. Its completely up in the air.
Five facts about the Bees please!
TB: We are never going back to Nottingham! Tim wears Calvin Klein boxers… Bees love Bees…Aaron is a now a Brightonite! Apparently honey never goes bad.
So… what is next for the Bees?
TB: America! Aaron is doing his own solo project and a magic hip hop project called ‘Blank beats’! (You heard it here first). We intend to move on with the studio and Paul is doing some producing of other artists too.
It would seem that the these guys are some busy bees indeed!
WORDS AND PICTURES BY MATTHEW HODSON
