NASHUA – “When life gives us lemons, make acid blues.” Such is the mantra for greater Boston area band Bees Deluxe.

And while last year’s quarantine may have shut down their schedules, it didn’t put a damper on their creative spirits.

Consisting of keyboardist Carol Band, guitarist Conrad Warre, bassist Allyn “Aldo” Dorr and drummer Paul Giovine, the group has been sassing and blasting audiences from Maine to Mississippi with their innovative style and interpretations of some lesser thought-of blues artists such as Miles Davis and Billie Holiday.

The four-piece band is dual-fronted by British guitarist Warre and keys player Band, the latter who was recruited from jazz bands that were playing the Boston circuit, most notably at Ryles Jazz Club in Cambridge.

“We’ve been going for nine or ten years with different line-ups,” Warre said. “It started off as a three-piece, with organs, drums and guitar. And then our organist quit to play with Gregg Allman, so he got a better gig. And then we found Carol playing at Ryles on a Monday night, for $10 in tips. And we made her give up her jazz gig for no money to come play acid blues. For even less money.”

Their process for recording their latest EP was a mix of laying tracks and self-recording independent of one another and then combining the lot into a final record.

“We had a really robust schedule coming up,” Band said. “In 2019, we toured from Maine to Florida. We planned on doing the same thing in 2020. We had festivals and we were jam-packed and were busier than ever and then – whoosh! – here comes COVID and we had nothing.”

Band said Bees “twiddled their thumbs” for a little while and then thought they should mix an album.

“Everybody was composing in their homes,” Warre said. “And then we swapped files which could be recorded on a cell phone or Garage Band or in ProTools, and then it was like a game of ‘Sticky Toffee’ – where you get a file and then you’d add to the process until eventually it became a trifle.”

“Nobody knows what you’re saying with ‘Sticky Toffee,'” Band said with a laugh.

Then Joe Egan began mixing the album. Warre called him a “musical genius.”

“He lives in a basement in Hyde Park,” Warre continued. “He’s produced our last two albums. He’s like the missing member of the band. He’s our Stu Sutcliffe. The fifth Beatle.”

Bees Deluxe hopes they can book some dates this summer, most probably for the months of June and July, and have reached out to outside booking agencies to handle that.

“We’ve already started reaching out to clubs that we were already booked at to return,” Warre said. “In fact, in some cases, set to return back to many, many times last year. We’re actually talking to some music agencies about them representing us.”

As for the new four-song EP, it’s a perfect blend of amped up chords and six-string harmonies on the track “Wherever You Hide,” by Blue Oyster Cult, and a new song penned by Band, called, “End of the World,” which was written “as a pandemic lullaby.”

“Wake me up when it’s over!” Band said.

Warre said the hope is to get vaccinated by the spring and go on the road in May, June and July. Florida will definitely be in the loop for this summer.

“Bands from this area like Roomful of Blues, don’t want to go to Florida in the summer,” Warre pointed out. “We may look like wax candles, but we’ll take it.”

The band was last there in July 2019. And as for how they describe their sound, Band said it’s blues-based, infused with soul, funk and rock and roll.

“As well as some insanity,” Band said.

Warre said the band never plays the a song the same way twice when they’re performing live.

“I don’t mean that like the Grateful Dead, who put me to sleep,” Warre said. “What we do, is we listen to each other and we’ll improvise in the course of the tune, rather than play it rigidly. We don’t play it like that, or as Frank Zappa called it, like the ‘wind-up monkey playing.'”

That, Warre said, keeps it fresh and fun for the band, who have played some 300 tunes, with 100 of them original compositions.

Certain influences infiltrate the band when they’re playing and recording.

“Each individual player has their own influences,” Warre said. “Band likes Bill Evans, for example.”

“And all those old jazz players,” she said, “like Red Garland and McCoy Tyner as well as some modern guys.”

Dorr, the bass player, was in a reggae band, Loose Caboose, and used to fly to Jamaica to play there.

“He’s played with every blues musician in Massachusetts,” Warre shared. “So, he’s got quite a rep. And we found Paul because I was looking for a Steely Dan-type drummer so he kind of likes that. And KISS is his favorite band.”

“He’s played with all sorts of cover bands and boogie-woogie bands,” Band said.

“And he had a residency at Dick’s Last Resort, where they cut your tie off when you walked in, to sober you up,” Warre said dryly. “He’s got a checkered history like the rest of us.”

Warre has played with the likes of the Joe Jackson Band and English Beat, to name two popular bands.

“When I was a music journalist, I was managing an all-girl Ska band called ‘The Body Snatchers, so we went on tour with the Specials and English Beat,” Warre said. “And then my band went on tour with the Joe Jackson Band. When I lived in New York, I had to reinvent myself because I didn’t know anybody there. I had a typewriter and a guitar.”

Warre played at the uber-famous CBGB’s rock club in the Manhattan’s East Village, where rock greats such as the Talking Heads, the Ramones, Patti Smith and Blondie once played.

“I got a gig there,” he said. “But nowadays I listen to Matt Scofield and Etta James. I don’t listen to anything on the radio. It doesn’t appeal to me. It’s all about the production now and over producing.”

Warre calls country music, “the new stadium rock.”

“I didn’t like it the first time around,” he joked.

Playing live is still exciting for Bees Deluxe, who frequently stay at different friends’ homes when they hit the road on tour.

“People invite us when we go back,” Warre said. “We can skip the hotels and stay at a friend’s house for two or three nights while we play clubs within a 1500 mile radius of that. And because we’re a grown-up band, we’ll play places where people sit down and eat and drink a half a bottle of wine.”

Club and venue proprietors quickly figured out that it was worth having bands like Bees Deluxe play there rather than have rave bands.

“Rave band fans will go and listen and drink a bottle of water and then leave the place in tatters,” Warre said. “We don’t do that.”

“I like to feel that our audience is very discerning,” he said.

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