A boy/girl duo from New York, She Keeps Bees make all their music in a quiet apartment block surrounded by pigeons, so just where does their raunchy blues racket come from?
“We record in our apartment so we have to keep it down a bit,” explains drummer Andy LaPlant, before guitarist/singer Jessica Larrabee jumps in, “But the songs have definitely become louder since we wrote them!”
As well as their musical partnership, She Keeps Bees are a couple, which explains why they continue to finish each other’s sentences throughout our chat. It also goes some way to explain the sultry intimacy of their music, which they began making in 2006, when Jessica persuaded Andy to get behind a drum kit and start the band.
“I was doing stuff by myself and Andy used to come to every show and I was like, ‘You should start playing drums!’ So, I taught him how to hold the sticks and it grew that way,” Jessica says. The introduction of her boyfriend brought out a more aggressive side to Jessica’s music; she had previously played “finger-picking ‘I had a sandwich, tell the story of my day’ folk music.”
Her description of her previous output could not be further removed from the sexy stomp of the band’s first release, ‘Nests’, an album with various influences, including both blues and disco, not to mention those pigeons. “My dad was always pushing blues on me, but my mum was into outrageous disco music,” laughs the singer.
And what about the pigeons? “We’ve got about three hundred living on our roof,” says Jessica. “Yeah, it’s a Brooklyn thing,” confirms Andy. So, whilst Andy was at work Jessica would spend days at home writing, “Sometimes a song just comes out of the ground and sometimes it’s an emotion I’m trying to bleed out,” she says. “Then I’d come home and we’d record within a day or two,” Andy adds.
Pigeons or no pigeons the band’s bedroom recording methods certainly complement the raw loudness of their live show, something they are keen to embrace. “We’re more garage rock than blues, that’s the energy I like and Andy and I vibe off each other better that way,” Jessica explains.
This raucous, yet beautifully intimate live performance has won the band huge support during a summer long UK tour, and Jessica is keen to build on this success. “It’s wonderful to do this as a job and I don’t care what happens, I’m gonna keep doing it!” At this rate, she’ll have absolutely nothing to worry about.
Words by Ben Homewood
