We first heard of Annie and the Beekeepers from the list of local favorites given to us by Rhode Island-based experimental folk upstarts The Low Anthem during an interview and after their subsequent awe-inspiring Brattle Theater performance, we absolutely trusted their opinion when it came to quality musicianship. So, when Annie Lynch, Ken Woodward and Alexandra Spalding came through Boston in support of their latest EP, The Squid Hell Sessions, recorded locally in Jamaica Plain, we jumped at the chance to check them out.

We chatted with Annie and Ken in the tiny band room in the basement of a local acoustic hotspot that shall remain nameless (for legal reasons we don’t quite understand) about the trio’s genesis at Berklee, recording their latest release and their impending move to Brooklyn.

–Jessie Rogers

Annie and the Beekeepers, tells us about yourselves.

K: My name is Ken Woodward. I play bass. And sing. Sometimes stomp on the floor. I’m from Charlottesville, Virginia.

A: I’m Annie Lynch and I’m from Cape Cod. I sing play guitar and banjo and write songs. Alex is from northern California and she plays cello and viola.

So what’s the back-story on Annie and the Beekeepers?

A: Ken and I met first and I was kind of trying to learn how to play bluegrass music and just wanted to play with people. Ken was like, “I’ll play with you…but this is not bluegrass.” [laughs] One of the first times were played together was in Harvard Square. We were busking and we were really unsuccessful.

Busking?

A: Playing on the street for money…but we were sort of just, like, playing on the street for whoever would listen.

K: For experience.

A: And then we randomly played together for a bit and when I wanted to make and EP I asked Ken if he would play and he introduced me to Alex.

K: Because you were always talking about loving cello. Like, “I looooooove cello.”

A: It was great—wanting a cello and Ken knowing somebody. So then Alex came on and we did the EP and it went well. We didn’t end up releasing anything but we decided at that point to plan recording a full album at a studio in Rhode Island called Lakewest Studio. We just kept playing in preparation for that, started getting gigs and it just felt like there was constant momentum, which gave us enough motivation to keep plugging away. And the music felt really good.

K: We didn’t really plan to do the record, we just started getting gigs and one thing lead to another. It was really natural. It just kind of happened.

Where were this gigs that you were doing?

K: They were all over Boston.

A: We played at All Asia to start with and Revolution Rock Club—which was really funny because it was all these people in their business suits in the Financial District getting out of work and wanting to get dooown.

K: Some guy asked Alex if we covered any Red Hot Chili Peppers tunes. She was sitting with her cello. She didn’t even know what to say. She was like “Ah….no?”

So…have you covered any Red Hot Chili Peppers since?

[Laughs]

A: We’ve covered Aretha Franklin.

K: We’ve covered the Beatles. Gillian Welch.

A: Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, they’re big inspirations to us. We covered a Tom Waits song, which is always risky business because he’s, you know, Tom Waits.

You’ve covered a lot of people…but can you take us through your own songwriting process?

A: I think what the final product ends up being is a total collaborative effort, but what happens is, typically, I’ll write the skeleton of the song—the lyrics and chord progression—and then I’ll bring it to Ken and Alex and they’ll help me smooth out the rough edges and then we gradually just put the meat on the bones with arrangements. As a group we just sit and play through the song. We just did this one song… we just sat in my apartment for five hours and played this one song and that was the ideal situation for us to be able to arrange a song. To sit there with an unlimited amount of time as a group and really create the emotion of the song. So that ends up being what the audience hears in the live show or the recording—just each person putting their heart and soul into the song. We make it satisfying for each individual as well as to the band as a whole.

What do you like about recording together? How was the experience recording your last album?

K: It’s so many different things because we recorded it at Squid Hell in Jamaica Plain and it was sort of a last minute thing that was kind of, you know, a friend who was kind of doing a project for school and at the same time we wanted to do a new EP and we just went out there with no expectations and just busted it out. It was such a great experience. There is a certain magic that happens when you’re recording and you really nail a song, you really find the spirit of the song…it’s just so hard to duplicated. It’s sometimes the best time for that song, ever.

A: It’s like, “Like A Dog” on that EP.  We seriously went into the studio and, like Ken said, we had no expectations. We just thought, “Oh maybe we can use some of this stuff and put out an EP.” But really like whatever happens, happens. We did one sing that we didn’t even end up putting on the EP and then we sat down to do “Like A Dog” which is the first track on the EP and one of our favorite songs. The tape we ended up using for the recording was the first take, totally live. Everything single thing that you hear is live. And then there’s other songs that we worked on for an entire day and couldn’t even use anything. There’s so many factors to what makes the recording amazing and it’s just kind of really magical that we were all in the perfect space to be putting ourselves into that moment.

K: Recording is really kind of dangerous when you think about it. It’s risky, and that’s what’s exciting about it.

A: Yeah. There’s something permanent about it.

K: That’s what gives it it’s juice. It’s like… this podcast we were doing today. I had this adrenaline rushing because there we were being videotaped and recorded and we were just…doing it.

A: Very vulnerable.

K: It’s different when you play live. You have…people feel you and that goes a long way. They see you and that goes a long way. And it’s not recorded and you can’t rewind, and that goes a long way too.  It’s just a lot more intense when you’re recording.

A: I think it can be kind of the same as a live show. If you’re there in the moment– It’s all about being there in the moment. Which is the beauty of what we’re doing. I think artists in general tend to be sensitive people, but I think we in particular are really sensitive people and when we sit down to play together, anything that’s going on in our lives, any minute fragment of energy that’s going on between Ken and I or Alex and I or Alex and Ken, it’s so feeds into that moment. So whether it’s recording or in a live setting it matters. That’s what makes the difference. I think that we’re more likely to take risks in a live show because it’s not permanent. It’s something in the moment and you’re feeding off of people in the audience which a whole other ballpark. It’s not just about the musicians and then engineers it’s about everybody in the audience and when you have a group of your friends in the audience singing your songs, you’re more likely to just rock out.

When you sit down and write a song, do you think about the live performance or the recording or how those things will be different?

A: I think that when I’m sitting down and writing a song I’m not thinking about anything except what I want to express and it’s really hard even to sit down and say, “I’m going to write this kind of song.” Which is hard because everyone is like “You need more up-tempo songs!” And I sit down and I think, “I don’t really feel up-tempo…” I think that the process of arranging the song as a group is where we determine how we want it to impact the people who are listening to it. This goes back to saying that it’s truly a collaborative effort. We all decide what we want the emotional path to be for the audience and for us.

How is Squid Hell Sessions a departure from previous stuff you guys have done?

K: It feels more mature to me.

A: Totally.

K: It feels like your voice has come much more into its own. It feels… I think we did less over-dubs on the EP.

A: Way less. It feels more live. More eclectic and what a live show feels like. In terms of the songs as a whole, the album has a lot of ebb and flow and variety…

K: It’s dynamic.

A: …Whereas the EP, I feel like the variety and ebb and flow is concentrated in each song. Each song is very intense and sort of like a high concentration of what we do as opposed to a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Like, “These are ourselves. We are emotional.” [Laughs]

Do you guys have any songs that you are particularly connected to?

A: I’d say off of the old album, “Sad Boy” is a song that we’ve constantly been evolving and we always like to play live… well, I always like to play live…

K: Yeah speak for yourself…

A: … And my favorite song of ours, and I think has a lot to do with the recording experience, is “Like A Dog.”

K: Definitely.

A: I don’t think I’d be able to say that we have that experience with anything. Also, we’re doing these songs where I’m playing banjo and Alex is playing viola and Ken is starting to sing more and those newer ones are starting to feel like the baby, you know?

K: The newest ones, the favorite ones.  And I really like “Again And Again.” Something about that one always kind of hits me. “The Wine Song” is always fun, always a crowd-pleaser.

So you’re going to be promoting this album for a bit…what’s next for you guys after that?

A: For the next two months we’re going to be touring, until the end of September. And then Ken’s going to be moving to New York from Boston and we’re going to spend some time re-rooting ourselves. We all started playing in Boston and now Alex and I live in New York and Ken’s moving to New York, we just want to find a sense of community there and further develop what we have going on in the northeast and create and write more as a trio because this is really the first time in our lives that we can really put a lot of energy into this as a band because we’ve all been students and lived in different cities for a year. We’re all really looking forward to just having that creative time. We also just had a transition because we played with another bandmate for two and a half years and he was a really important part of our band and our sound and we valued him so much and so now is sort of a time when we’re starting to find ourselves again. It’s a transitional time, but there is so much positivity surrounding that transition.

How does it feel differently playing in Boston than playing in New York?

K: Well it’s venue-specific. We have our favorite venues and the atmosphere makes a tremendous difference in terms of how I feel onstage which has an impact on how we sound. I feel more relaxed in Boston, this is where the band was formed. But at the same time we have a lot of friend who have moved to New York and they come out to all our shows. Honestly, though, it’s just more comfortable playing at home.

A: We want to start to dig into New York and find a similar comfort there but nothing compares to your own backyard. Boston’s been very good to us. We just started discovering the whole Cambridge scene, like the Lizard Lounge and Passim. I just discovered it a year ago right before I moved to New York so we’ve been really loving it here and the whole community surrounding this neighborhood. I think that we will feel something similar in New York but nothing will ever really compare to where you have your roots.

So you’ll be back?

A+K: Oh yeah.

What is it about the Boston crowd that makes it special?

A: There’s something a little rough around the edges about Boston. People are more apt to just roll out to your show in Boston in whatever they’ve been wearing all day and sit down to have a beer with their buddies and just hang out. There’s a little bit more of that homey sort of vibe. There is that sort of vibe in a lot of places in New York but it’s definitely… it’s NEW YORRRRRK [jazz hands]. You just get a little bit more of that…

K: Snazz Fest.

A: There’s a little bit more snazz in New York. You feel a little bit more like…”Alright, I’m in New York.” That’s the best way I can explain it.

What are some of your other favorite venues?

A: We really like doing sort of barn shows, house shows. We’ve been seeking out more places like that to play. We you really feel…it’s not just being in a bar, you’re being brought into a part of a community.

K: The places we like to play are the places where you can hear the silence in the music. That’s where it’s the most powerful.

A: When you’re playing in a house or barn, people who come out are often people around our parents’ age, younger people who have that appreciation for going out and just sitting and listening to a live show. That’s the best.When you play in a place that’s all different ages…people are giving you baked goods [laughs]…it gives you that sense of really being in a community as opposed to being…

K: At your job?

A: Yeah. I think that our goal as a band is to sort of penetrate into each community we come across.

So New York is the next frontier of that?

A: I think that’s begun but there’s still a lot of work to do. Mainly because it’s a huge diverse city and people are doing everything there… you can’t conquer New York City.

K: New York City conquers you, or you just sort of make do with it.

A: So we’ll see what ends up happening.