Just the name of Los Angeles based project Bee Appleseed & The Cosmic Family is enough to conjure a fantasy psychedelic jamboree at which special guests might include Allen Ginsberg and Burroughs, Ken Kesey, Karen Dalton, Perhacs and Davendra Banhart. A read through their bio of itinerant adventures pulls that vision still closer while their music blends nicely in among the Freak Folk pioneers of the early noughties.
This Cosmic Family have enjoyed an itinerant lifestyle that has helped to shape their forthcoming debut album Backpacker Blues from which This Must Be Life is lifted. Due for release on July 20th, Backpacker Blues was written during a three year period of wandering Europe and South America, playing in nearly fifty countries. It’s a catalogued journey of personal freedom that embraces a timeless Americana sound with a modern approach.
“This Must Be Life” opens the album as a folk-pop invitation to a share a journey from the personal to the universal. The perfect travel melodies cast a spell for an elevated sense of personal freedom to the backdrop of tropical guitars and driving percussion. Great with a good indica, it’s an enticing road for the curious soul and a worthy adventure for those who travel it.
You can help support the release of Backpacker Blues via Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1444451975/bees-dreams
This Must Be Life can be purchased via Bandcamp https://beeappleseed.bandcamp.com/track/this-must-be-life
About Bee Appleseed & The Cosmic Family
Folk-rocker Bee Appleseed is more than a singer, writer, poet, musician and actor. He’s also a seasoned vagabond. He spent his youth in Oregon before trading normality for a life on the road. His journey led to a three-year international tour where he played more than 300 concerts in close to 50 countries, and penned hundreds of songs. His debut album, Backpacker Blues (out July 20), is a sonic culmination of his travels, hitting on themes of wandering and wondering, life, longing, and discovery. He has shared stages with The Dandy Warhols, Calvin Johnson of K Records, and popular Chilean artists like Fernando Milagro and Astro.
“The songs on this record were written during a desperate time of youth,” says Appleseed. He didn’t travel Europe like an aristocrat. He worked from one gig to the next, meticulously balancing meager finances, where to sleep, complicated visas, and organizing tours where they might be most profitable. “Every song came to me through divine channels,” Appleseed says, “I was just the guy with the pen.”
“I have played on the streets, farms, boats, national television and radio, in bars, pubs, clubs, cafes, restaurants, hotels, hostels, record shops, living rooms, banquet halls, squats, theaters, concert halls, cultural centers, wine cellars, bike shops, festivals, parks, a castle, a fortress, a lingerie store, a French rehearsal space, a German art space, a Portuguese tattoo parlor, a Belgian painting class, a Czech Roman-style courtyard, an Italian central square, a Chilean amphitheater, an Albanian former train station, a Bosnian mediation center, a Montenegran elementary school, a German punk rock trailer, and for every type of person imaginable – all to varying degrees of appreciation,” says Appleseed.
Childhood friend Daniel McIntire, after leaving his band in Portland, flew to France and began touring with Appleseed somewhere in the middle of the journey. For seven months they played shows throughout Europe and South America. Hitchhiking and taking trains and buses while carrying their bags, a guitar, merch, and full drum kit.
“Daniel and I traveled all over together,” says Appleseed. “We visited Machu Picchu. We saw blue-footed boobies at Isla de la Plata…the poor man’s Galapagos; played small medieval villages in Asturian Spain where there were more animals than people. We played a retirement home for donkeys where I was picking apples that were out of reach and feeding them to the donkeys. There was a time in Germany that we had four people on one moped, and we were driving to see a Jackie-O Motherfucker concert. We got pulled over by the cops and they were about to take Daniel to jail because he wasn’t wasn’t wearing a helmet, which is a felony there. Then they all of a sudden ‘got a call’ over the radio about a brawl across town and they let us go. I think they just didn’t want to deal with us. Every day was some kind of new adventure.”
Appleseed made bedroom recordings during his travels where he would collect musicians along the way. He recorded his own parts between Sweden, Germany, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Oregon, and Washington. He met Guillaume Ohz at a hostel in Montenegro, who eventually hitchhiked from his home in Bordeaux, France to Lindesberg, Sweden to record piano parts. They lived and recorded in the Swedish cultural center’s recording studio for a full month. McIntire laid down some drum parts before leaving back to Oregon. Couchsurfing friend Sascha Neubert from Germany popped in to record electric guitar. Later, during a cold winter, Andreas Andersen from Denmark, recorded saxophone in a stark white Berlin bedroom.
When Appleseed returned to Oregon, he connected with his long-time friend, producer River Nason in Olympia, WA. Together, they crafted the album that became Backpacker Blues, with River overdubbing bass, percussion, keys, and backing vocals. Appleseed added more vocals, harmonica, and banjo. They also brought in Dave Crager (trumpet), Erika Gabonay (backing vocals). and Luke Van Denend (piano) to fill out the sound.
“I came in with some rough gems and River made them sparkle,” Appleseed recalls.
Appleseed has since relocated to Los Angeles and is already working on his next two albums. He’s making records, music videos, and making friends…creating the stories for the next leg of his wayward journey.
Backpacker Blues is out July 20th on all streaming platforms
help support the release of Backpacker Blues via Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1444451975/bees-dreams