These local rockers took their name from ‘The Office’

Much has changed for Beesly since its first public performance, a 3 a.m. set at Relay for Life in Sharonville in June 2014. Kyle Cloud (bass, vocals), Ben Grogg (guitar, vocals), Austin Labig (drums, vocals), Daniel Wilcher (guitar, keys, vocals) recently discussed the local band’s evolution and impressive new album, “Beesly,” which was released on Jan. 11.

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Origin story: "We all knew each other from high school and had played previously as a band my senior year, 2013, but we decided to take it more seriously in 2014," Wilcher said. "We started out as the States, which was always a placeholder name for us, and changed our name to Beesly in early 2015. The name comes from 'The Office.' Since then we've had several member changes — Ben joined in 2015 and Austin joined in 2016."

Creative process: "The songwriting process is never very consistent for us," Wilcher said. "Sometimes one person will come in with a song they wrote and then everyone else learns it and adds their own little flavor to it. Other times it is fully collaborative. The one thing we're doing more is writing while recording. Now that we have access to Pro Tools, and I also have GarageBand on my phone, we can make a beat we really like, then write melodies and lyrics as we add layers to the beat. I think it gets us more excited about a song as opposed to writing on a piano or guitar and wondering what it's going to sound like with layers."

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Home recording: "We recorded it all at Austin's apartment using Pro Tools on his computer," Wilcher said. "It was mixed and mastered by Aaron Rochotte, who is an audio engineer in Nashville. He's a childhood friend of Ben's, which is how we started working with him. The sessions started in May of 2017 and we didn't finish recording until November of 2018. Since we were recording ourselves, we knew we could take as much time as we wanted, do as many takes as we wanted, and get as creative as we wanted because we were recording everything on our own time. Our producing and recording got much better throughout the process as well."

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“This is also how we record my other band, Knavery,” Labig added, “and we’re starting to record other artists as well.”

Looking ahead: "We're already working on new music," Wilcher said. "I'd expect to release more in 2019."

“This year the plan is to expand our digital catalogue and online presence,” Cloud added.

Artist info: www.faceook.com/beeslyband.

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