The Bees Knees
Eclectic band going strong
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HANCOCK -- Inside of the unassuming street-level basement of the Chicken Tramper Ultralight Gear building on Franklin Street in Hancock, local band Bees! Bees! Bees! Bees! Bees! Bees! set up their gear for a Tuesday rehearsal. What started as a tongue-and-cheek reference to Houghton's 2023 beekeeping drama, has since grown into a six-piece who never left its roots.
Bees! pulls nectar from anti-folk, rock, indie, punk, and blues to create one sweet honey of reverberation. The ensemble blends traditional rock instruments (guitar, drums, and bass) with banjo, mandolin, mixed vocals, winds, horns and keys to construct a full-bodied sound.
The band is composed of Evan Lanese (guitar/vocals), Richard Petarius (bass), Lucas Sheppard (keyboard/vocals), Eli Haber (mandolin/clarinet/vocals), Queen Bee (banjo/vocals) and Aidan Reilly (drums).
"Our name comes from the fact that Houghton was trying to ban bees, beekeeping specifically, and we kind of formed as a protest-band around that," Lanese said.
Bees! first show was at the first Flare Festival at Michigan Tech. It was at a time were students were organizing around a right-wing speaker on campus. The band said they enjoyed being a part of the community and wanted to continue to do so.
"I moved here shortly before [the band formed] and didn't know anyone," Reilly said. "Evan was kind enough to rope me in and say, 'hey, we're starting a band. We need a drummer.'"
The Keweenaw's alternative music scene has grown in the last few years, with bands popping up locally and within Michigan Tech. Since 2023, Bees! expanded from four to six members, recruiting Haber and Petarius.
"As we've grown in numbers, I feel like we've made in-roads with other musicians and bands throughout the area and that's been really fun -- getting to build on this already existing music scene that is maybe a little under the surface," Reilly continued. "You gotta dig for it sometimes."
Queen Bee said their shows tell stories, with each show being different from the last. "We're very expressionist, I would say," they said. "We change every time we play our music, because we like to give a different story every time we play our music."
Besides bonding over music, some members of the band also said Bees! had given them more confidence in other areas of their lives.
"I was terrified of playing music in front of anyone," Lanese said. "It was really helpful just to play alongside people, to get over that fear. Since then I've performed at open mics by myself and I don't have that fear anymore."
As for the band's favorite songs to play during sets, they said "Pink Beret," "Hill Song," "Contradiction" and "God, Red, White and Blue." According to the band, most songs were written by individual members, some even before the band existed as a collective.
You can check out a sampler of tracks on the Bees! Bandcamp website, at beesx6.bandcamp.com.
Bees! will play a few upcoming shows including Rock the Vote in Hancock on Quincy Green today, and Oct. 24 at Potato Fest at the Carnegie Museum in Houghton.