The Bees Trees blends a wide range of styles

By John Benson

entertainment@vindy.com

Precocious and perhaps naive are the two bests words used to describe musician Liam Jones, a 17-year-old Boardman High School junior who over the past year put together his own band, Liam Jones & The Overtones, before scrapping the project in favor of new act The Bees Trees.

“The new group is similar to The Overtones, but this band covers all styles,” Jones said. “It’s closer to a jam band, whereas in The Overtones, most of our songs sounded similar. I’m finding out it’s very hard to put a band together, but once you find the right guys, it’s easy. That’s kind of where I’m at right now.”

Though the above fits the naive tag, Jones is a talented, young musician who is in some ways still testing the waters in his early career. More so, The Bees Trees — Jones, Rob Chase (bass), Mitch Lawrence (sax, flute, keys) and Mike Landgraff (drums) — is bent on exploring sounds ranging from reggae and ska to rock and jazz.

“We’re a jam band, and we use saxophone,” Jones said. “So people have compared us to a Dave Matthews Band-type of thing. But I don’t know if we want that to be said about us, just because it’s so much different than that. I’d say we sound more like the Grateful Dead.”

Ultimately, the artist feels as though The Bees Trees stylistically fall somewhere between Phish and Animal Liberation Orchestra (ALO). In addition to covering The Dead’s classic “Fire on the Mountain,” Jones said his band’s live show features fan favorites such as the jazzy rock “Disco Kitchen” and the Wailers-esque “Om.”

Even though The Bees Trees has been around for only a few months, the act already has taken a different path than Liam Jones & The Overtones by booking gigs around the region instead of becoming pigeonholed as a Youngstown band. Jones said he sees a difference in the group’s reception.

“We’ve gained fans that way,” Jones said. “There’s room for jam bands in areas other than Youngstown. People want us there, so we come back. We’re marketing ourselves better and just playing in a lot of different cities. Our first two shows were in Slippery Rock, Pa. And we got shows in West Virginia coming up. This kind of sets myself up for the future. I’m with three guys who want to jam and play for a living, and getting it started now puts me in a good position.”

In some ways, that good position begins with The Bees Trees’ upcoming EP-release show at Happy Hour Bar & Grill. Perhaps this is the right time to bring up the group’s oddball name.

“It’s our own creative twist,” Jones said. “It’s more like a jam, psychedelic, organic type of idea rather than just the Bees Knees. There’s nothing wrong with the Bees Knees, but, it’s just not as original.”

Metaphorically speaking, what kind of trees would The Bees Trees be?

“Hmm, it’s almost like we’d be a mix of a willow tree and an oak tree,” Jones said. “We have so many styles and feels, it’s almost like we’re a forest of trees.”

So if The Bees Trees falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

“Oh yes, definitely,” Jones said, laughing.