“If we didn't have music inside and around us we would dehydrate and die like a houseplant that you've forgotten to water. It's easy to stay passionate about music because music is always changing. We are continually being exposed to new ideas, new sounds....new inspiration.”

Bees Deluxe: Garage Blues

Eclectic multi-genre group Bees Deluxe are set to drop their new full-length album, Garage Blues, on Wednesday, November 11 on all music platforms. Bees Deluxe's new album Garage Blues features eleven original songs and instrumental compositions co-written by principal members, British-born guitarist-vocalist Conrad Warre and American keyboardist-vocalist Carol Band, brought to life with the accomplished playing of touring musicians Paul Giovine on drums, Willie Smith (saxophone), Brandon Downs (bass), and Adam Sankowski (bass). Garage Blues' adventurous sound draws on an eclectic mix of influences, including Snooks Eaglin, Walter Becker, Mongo Santamaria, Otis Rush, and Björk. Highlights include the gut-wrenchingly sad “10 Years” and a live performance of “Letter From Jail,” recorded on the air at WUML-FM near Boston. The album also blends original blues instrumentals like “The Winding Plant” and “Gee Whiz” with songs describing the adventures of a Repo Man, and the joy of swimming with sharks in “The Deep Blue Sea." On Garage Blues, Bees Deluxe delivers blues that honors its roots while fearlessly exploring new musical territory.

(Photo: Conrad Warre and Carol Band of Bees Deluxe)

Warre and Band first met while performing at the legendary Ryles Jazz Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Together, they went on to form Bees Deluxe, a modern blues and roots-rock band that brings the blues into the 21st Century with a distinctive blend of musical styles, adventurous arrangements, and electrifying performances. Warre’s colorful musical history includes touring Europe with the Joe Jackson Band and headlining at New York’s legendary CBGBs. Band is classically trained with roots in Southern gospel music and the American songbook. Touring regularly from Maine to Miami, Bees Deluxe has played festivals and venues up and down the East Coast, sharing stages with an impressive roster of contemporary blues artists, including Matt Schofield, Ronnie Earl, Mike Zito, Joanne Shaw Taylor, Roomful of Blues, Walter Trout and Mike Welch. In January 2026, Bees Deluxe advanced to the semifinals of the International Blues Challenge in Memphis. Now, they’re heading back in January 2027 to compete there once again.

Interview by Michael Limnios                     Archive: Conrad Warre, 2023 Interview

Special Thanks: Doug Deutsch

What keeps you passionate over the years after in music? Is there a message you are trying to convey with your music/songs? 

If we didn't have music inside and around us we would dehydrate and die like a houseplant that you've forgotten to water. It's easy to stay passionate about music because music is always changing. We are continually being exposed to new ideas, new sounds....new inspiration. At this point, it's simply in our DNA. We are the music and the music is us. There's no heavy message (unless you play our last track backwards!) We are delighted to be able to create music and share it with anyone who will listen with open ears and an open mind. It's how we communicate with the world and if our music can make people who hear it feel something—if it moves them to get up and dance or to cry or to think about the possibility of an alien invasion, then it's mission accomplished.  

On Garage Blues, we see influences ranging from Otis Rush all the way to Björk. How do you and Carol Band manage to balance such vastly different musical worlds and integrate them organically into the blues?

 While we're traveling we try to stump each other with choices on the radio or Spotify or Deezer. Shifting from Yma Sumac to Snooks Eaglin' helps us stay off balance and thrills us to the core. When you listen to a wide variety of music, it rubs off on you. It becomes part of your musical lexicon. But, what unites even vastly different musical artists and genres is the ability to create something compelling. Something new that commands your attention and makes you want more because there's something in it—a beat, the lyrics or a chord progression that's exciting and that speaks to you on a primal level.

On one hand, we have the deeply emotional '10 Years,' and on the other, tracks about a Repo Man or swimming with sharks ('The Deep Blue Sea'). Where do you usually look for inspiration when crafting the stories you tell through your songs?

Carol and I complement each other creatively. I tend toward a more apocalyptic view of the world while she is sunnier and more upbeat. Being a writer, she is also much more lyric driven, while I tend to put emphasis on the groove, melody and construction. Our two opposing emotional landscapes can collide or take turns being the lead in composing a new tune or song or rearrangement of a favoured song we found in the bargain bin in a basement record store in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“That said, we like to take that traditional blues genre and dragged it into the 21st century. We mix in some jazz modes, some unexpected original lyrics, non-standard chords and progressions that go beyond the standard 12-bar, nods to 60's psychedelia and a dose of funk. Sometimes the audience is taken back.” (Photo: Conrad Warre and Carol Band of Bees Deluxe)

Do you have any interesting stories about the making of the new album Garage Blues (2026)?  

The album was actually recorded in two one-day sessions almost immediately after we returned from playing at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis last January. We promptly forgot about the tracks until we had a chance to catch our breath in late spring. We drove back to the studio and dusted off the tracks and split them up into two sessions. One was mixed in Hyde Park with our friend and genius producer Joe Egan (who produced our last album “Hallucinate”) and the other half was mixed with Joe Idzal in Natick who subsequently mastered all the album tracks. The result is an organic mess of different sounds and styles. We even included a live track that we performed at WUML studios in Lowell, Massachusetts with our friend & mentor John Guregian who's hosted a weekly blues radio show there since 1978. Additionally, this album brings in not only a mystery guitar player (Diablo Mysterioso) on the outro for the song “Repo Man”, but a cast of musicians—most of whom we play with on a regular basis but others—like Willie Smith, who we met at a gig we played at the Woodstock Colony in New York, plays guest saxophone on "Don't Feed the Bears”—that was alucky happenstance.

Conrad, you have a very rich musical history in the UK, including touring with the Joe Jackson Band. How did your British roots and your post-punk/new wave experiences shape the way you approach American blues today?

When I was much younger I had an American girlfriend in school whose father very kindly gave me a compilation album including tracks by J.B. Lenoir, B.B. King and Otis Rush - and I actually taught musself to play on an acoustic guitar, with a half an inch action above the fretboard, and wire srings that tore my fingers apart, by accompanying the music blasting from my record player. I played alongside that record until tracks were worn down to a pulp. The girlfriend and I broke up, but my love affair with the blues is still earnest. I followed Peter Green’s musical career from playing in John Mayall’s band, to his forming early Fleetwood Mac and his incredible album entitled “The End of the Game” his first solo album after leaving Fleetwood Mac in 1970, with Zoot Money (from the New Animals when they were psychedelic) on keyboards it contains inspirationally improvisational music based on blues and free jazz, which I recommend everyone listen to if they want to understand Bees Deluxe.  

You and Carol Band first met at the legendary Ryles Jazz Club in Cambridge. What is the secret behind your songwriting chemistry after all these years, and how do you split the roles when writing a new piece?

Sometimes we bounce ideas off each other. As I mentioned early, Carol is good with words. I'm (fairly) good at noise. Sometimes one of us will show up at a practice with an almost completed tune,and we'll mess around with it. We each have veto power and often the tunes evolve as we work through them together. Carol pushes for harmonica solos in every tune and I often veto that. The songs and tunes we perform continue to evolve with every performance. Nothing ever stays the same. It's music as a metaphor for life.

“As electronic rock and roll gained bigger audiences, using hair-spray, backing tracks & satin pajamas, they drowned out the acoustic blues artists and the record contracts went to the youth market—which was rock, then disco and EDM, rap and now AI. We do think that there will be a backlash to AI-generated music—in fact, We think we are already seeing it with the incredible popularity of jam bands. A blues resurgence is always coming (again!).” (Photo: Conrad Warre and Carol Band of Bees Deluxe)

Many view the blues as a 'museum' genre or something strictly traditional. Bees Deluxe, however, fearlessly brings it into the 21st century. What do you think is the biggest challenge the modern blues scene faces today in order to stay relevant?

Traditional blues is traditional. That doesn't mean it's not relevant today. The blues—and all good music—transcends the time that it was written and still speaks to where people are today. It's a relatable, universal commentary on the pain and joy of life—be it in the Mississippi Delta in 1932 or in suburban Boston in 2026. That said, we like to take that traditional blues genre and dragged it into the 21st century. We mix in some jazz modes, some unexpected original lyrics, non-standard chords and progressions that go beyond the standard 12-bar, nods to 60's psychedelia and a dose of funk. Sometimes the audience is taken back. "Hey," they say, "I thought this was a blues band."  If they are brave and stick around they have a good time and...discover that blues can be something fresh and exciting but still rooted in the relatable and familiar.

What is the worst thing that has ever happened to blues music?

In the 1970's Led Zepplin took tunes written by Howlin' Wolf and Willie Dixon and made a fortune off of them without giving due credit or payment to those artists. It was criminal.

As electronic rock and roll gained bigger audiences, using hair-spray, backing tracks & satin pajamas, they drowned out the acoustic blues artists and the record contracts went to the youth market—which was rock, then disco and EDM, rap and now AI. We do think that there will be a backlash to AI-generated music—in fact, We think we are already seeing it with the incredible popularity of jam bands. A blues resurgence is always coming (again!).

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(Photo: Conrad Warre and Carol Band of Bees Deluxe)