Interview with Escape The Hive

Escape The Hive is an exciting band exploding out of the independent scene and getting ready to take over with their new album coming out in 2026, now signed with Deko Entertainment/Warner Brothers Music. I had the opportunity to sit with band members, Michael Beck (Lead Vocals) and Paul Williams (Bass & Backing Vocals), to discuss the new record, their writing, their live shows and their influences. This is a fun interview with two great guys. It’s gotten me excited for the new album.

Mick: Thank you for taking the time to speak to me. So, you have a new album coming out next month. I took a listen to the new single “Around The Sun”, and I really quite enjoyed it. I guess my first question is, what were the lessons you took from the first record into this one?

Michael: Paul, you want to take that one?

Paul: Well, the first record and the second record are so different, just timeline-wise. The first record was just Michael and me writing the songs. There were just a bunch of riffs, lyrics and bridges that were just out in the ether, and we were kind of putting them together piece by piece. The second record is the four of us, writing on the road and then in the practice room, and just really honing the songs, and they feel a lot more organic.

Michael: I would say then the puzzle pieces that made the first record were fine. This new batch of songs is really great because we were on tour so much last year. They kind of evolved on the road, and that really brought the four of us together musically.





Mick: That’s awesome. I was listening to it, and I heard a very distinct sound. It felt like that very late 80s to early 90s version of classic rock. You know, just before the grunge takeover? My first thought was like, “oh god, this sounds like the band Thunder”. I wonder what the specific influences are when writing songs?

Michael: Well, I mean, our influences are always probably more 70s or 80s based, so, you know, you're not far off the mark. We all have a pretty varied perspective, and we all have different favourites of the same time period. I think mine were Kansas and Van Halen. They were a big influence on me. We all like a little bit of the progressive aspects of that time of music. That late 80s progressive touch. Even with bands like Journey, Foreigner and Boston. There had to be some musicality to it, and we enjoy that, for obvious reasons, for indulgent reasons even. However, the main focus has always been songwriting. The songs are what matter. The bits that go around that all serve the song, and we're all pretty faithful to that piece of it. I think that's kind of what came out of that era. You know, that AOR rock style. The big harmonies, huge guitar solos, deep breaks. Those progressive touches, as I say, so that's kind of where we always come from.

Paul: Oh yeah! I mean, Michael's pretty right there. I have a lot more 80s, I guess, you know, pre-grunge, I guess you would call it, before it got too depressing. I think we just pull together everything.

We pull everything together, and we all come from such eclectic backgrounds that it just seems to work, and what you know, if you listen to the first record, you can hear a lot of those influences; if you’re an audiophile. You can hear a lot of homages, if you will, to certain songs from the past. The 80s and stuff like that. There are some things that, when writing out, I'll take a really cool part from, say, like a Charlie Daniels record and augment it and make it my own, and it’ll just be really cool. We'll try to do that. I'll incorporate that into a bridge or something like that, just to see how it works.

Michael: Conrad (lead guitarist), even though he's younger, has as large, if not a larger, influence than any of us. I mean, his knowledge of music that he should know nothing about is just vast.


Mick: I guess that's kind of where the new generation is. It's like there are no barriers anymore, like back in the day. I suppose it's like if it's on the radio and it's the station you like, then that's it. That's the one you're tied to. Now, we have streaming and YouTube. It's impossible, I suppose, in this day and age, to be reserved to just one style or one genre.

Michael: His style is a little bit varied. He's really honed it in over the last two years that we've been doing this record. We all have it! That's really what makes this record different. It was the culmination of the four of us. Paul and I got started, then it was a lot of Conrad’s riffs. It was a lot of Paul’s riffs with Conrad's influence. It was a lot of Rich turning stuff on its head, even after we thought we knew where it was going as a drummer. Then all my lyrics are probably in that vein. Those are my lyrics before it got too depressing. Everything I write comes from me, even though it may be dark. It comes from a hopeful point of view.

Mick: Yeah, that's that that's in that that's quite interesting. When you bring that up, when you write very raw lyrics like that, what does it mean to you to be that almost bare, when you're baring your soul in those songs?

Michael: It feels great. That's why I do it.

I mean, we just signed this deal with Deko Warner Music Group, and we're so happy about that for this new record. However, even on this single and in the next one that’s coming, I don't even know what it's going to be yet. We've kind of asked them to pick, because not only can none of us decide on what the next single is going to be, but it changes day by day. I think one thing, and then the next day I think another, and I know Paul is the same way. The songs that are on this new record are, the best way I can kind of describe it, they’re little emotional time capsules. You know, and they come from a different piece of all of us in a different time, in a different space, but they're always that little time capsule. So I love being able to perform these songs, and I can't wait to go back out on the road in June.


Mick: Yeah, I guess from a production standpoint, how do songs usually come together for you? Do you figure out parts, or do you figure out the song in full? Where is it going to go, or is it like a riff that starts and you evolve it from there? What's a usual songwriting session or a production session like with you guys?

Paul: As usual, anything like Around the Sun, for example, we were rehearsing for a show, and we were in a rental space, and everybody's getting ready and setting up their stuff. Conrad came up with something. He just started playing the opening guitar riff. I went up to him and was just like, “Hey, what the hell? What the hell was that?” He said, “What, which one?” He played something else, and I'm going, “No, no, no”. He played it again, and I told him, “We need to do that right now!” He was so oblivious to what was going on. A lot of times it's that kind of thing. It’s almost like there’s ADHD in the band, perhaps, but we were working on a part of the songs, and then I think all three of us got bored with it really fast, and then we just started playing something else. Then Michael was writing lyrics for the song he thought we were playing. He's like Oh no, that's a totally different song we just came up with. Well shit. All right, now we've got two songs, I guess.

We have another song on the record. We were touring in Nebraska and staying at a friend's house on the river, and it was just inspirational. We're like, “Hey, we should write a song”. So we sort of sat down and said we need one more song for the record. It's got to be sort of a burner, and you know, that was probably the one song on this record where we said, “You know what, let's write a song right now, right like this”.

Michael: Yeah, it was called Wake Up. So we’ve been tooling around with it. There wasn’t really a riff, even, but just the idea of it. We thought we needed one more fast-paced, barn-burner to kind of finish the record out. So we were thinking about that, and again Conrad wakes up and has a riff for it!


Mick: So that is something I’m very curious about. How do you treat taking songs from a studio where everything has to be spot on, to a live setting? What are the compromises for playing these songs live, and how do they evolve from being on the record to being on stage?

Michael: Well, that's what's different about this record. Instead of evolving them in the studio and then taking them out on the road. We were already on the road a lot, so we were writing, and then we'd go on the road, and we had the opportunity to basically audition them. You know, in front of a live audience. Our setlist is a little different from most and is maybe more true to the area that we're playing. That a song might not be the same every night we play it.

There are a few subtle changes here and there. This helps evolve the song. It's kind of the foundation of where this record came from. When you’re not touring, and you're playing once or twice a month or something like that, and you take something out, and you play it. Then you do a little something different with it. Then a month or a couple of weeks go by until you play it again. That's a different thing than being on the road and playing something on a Thursday and then revisiting it on Friday. Not only for me as a singer and trying different things, but also as a band, I know Paul is doing that, I know Rich is doing that, and I know Conrad's doing that. A force that kind of comes together. This is really what makes a lot of these songs, because they come from that environment. That feeling of “hey, what'd you do last night? Do that again”, and I sang this a little differently or a lot of times I'll change a word or two in a line because it fits more the way I feel now or whatever. A lot of that changes the lyrics and the melodies, and then the crowd response was a big part of it.

Paul: That's kind of how these came about. With this record too, to be honest, like we had some tracking done on songs that we wrote and we're like, “okay, this is this is cool”, and then we'd go out on a run and come back and we all kind of look at each other like “we’ve got to fucking set the drums up again, don't we?” and “I think we've got to retract this whole thing”. It's like we can't release that song now because we just played it like that last night, and that's the way it's got to be.


Mick: So it's kind of like you focused-tested the record before you even started working on it.

Paul: That's because we were. We were holding it, and we're shopping it around. So there wasn't a push per se to get it quote-unquote done. During the shows, we thought, let's start playing these out and see what people think. It just helped. There are a lot of things on the record that we got done in the recording session, and we all had to go home and learn them again!

Mick: Yeah, That's fair. So, how would you describe a live show with you guys, because I've never seen your live show, and I just want it to be a cool idea to stick out. What, in your own words, from your view from the stage?

Michael: Well, first off, I can tell you we want to change that! We really would love to come over to the UK and have you see us live! Yeah, so I'll put that out there first.

Paul: It's an energetic show. As Mike said, it's not the same every night, because we just kind of go out there and we're not tethered to tracks or anything like that. So you get four guys up there, with a lot of experience, and we're trying to make the audience connect with what we're doing. There’s a lot of energy; we're running around, we all get along, so you can see that on stage. There aren't any broken beer bottles or anything like that being thrown at each other backstage. So yeah, it's very energetic. It's high energy. Michael likes to bring the crowd in and really engage with them. In fact, all four of us have our own sort of engagement process with the crowd, and we get a lot of good feedback.

Michael: So yeah, and again playing these songs on stage is particularly satisfying.


Mick: Yeah, very good! I'm asking everybody because this is such fun. After all, I always love seeing where different people start and point. What was the one record that you first heard, you had to go pick up a guitar or bass, and learn a part?

Michael: My answer is so standard, but it was Kiss.

Paul: I think my sister was listening to her record player with her door shut, and I think it was a Jukebox Hero (by Foreigner), honestly. Oh, you know, just to be at the beginning, I'm like, I should go get a guitar at a store. That's what I should do. I love it a lot.


Mick: I love that. I love that visual because it's like. After all, I think that was me, my big brother, my big brother was like he'd bring home stuff because he was in high school, and I was in high school when I was a kid. So he would just bring stuff home all the time.

Michael: That's interesting. I was the oldest, so I didn't have a big brother to get that influence. I mean, Kiss. It was my world for a while until I then heard Aerosmith, and I went, “Oh my god”. Then I heard Kansas, and I went, “Oh my god, oh, it's good stuff!”



Mick: I think what's really interesting, what I heard from your sound, is the way you do genre blending quite a bit over the different styles of rock. So there's a little bit of southern boogie. There's a little bit of Classic rock. There's a rock and roll sort of thing, so when bringing those sounds together, what’s the compromise?

Michael: I've played with a lot of really great players. I am super fortunate, and I never take that for granted. As far as who I'm singing in front of. This band, out of all the bands I've been in, this one is one Is just we just all get along. I mean, there just isn't a whole lot of fighting, feuding, or dark clouds. You know? There just isn't any of that. On the road, we're laughing until we hit the stage, and then we're laughing, and then we get done with the song, and we're laughing, and we get done with the show, and we're laughing. I mean, I came home from a tour, and my jaw hurts.

Those influences come together pretty quickly. I don't know what the word is because it's just a kind of lightning in a bottle. When Paul and I first started, as a singer, I brought a certain thing to a song, and it's not going to be INXS, you know? So that's kind of where you start, and you know? Paul brings a certain groove. I've been really fortunate to play with some of the guitar players in the past, and there have been some really great guitar players. So, Conrad filled those shoes pretty well. I mean, you know, he steps up and does what we want him to do every time. We want him to do it, and sometimes when we don't. Then Rich is the same way. Between Rich and Paul, there's always a left-to-right foundation that is knocking the back of my knees, you know? No matter what style we kind of go off into, whether it's a little more funky, whether it's a little more metal, or whether it's a little more hard rock.

That's kind of the one constant. So there's a foundation there that is always there to lean on, but the parts just kind of come together. I honestly am afraid to question it any more than that.

Paul: Yeah, we're all pretty agreeable. We all have weird ideas, I guess or just off the wall. I think that’s our M.O. in the studios. Are you getting an idea? Well, let me hear it and see if it works, and sometimes it'll work for a week, and then we're like, I don't like that anymore.

Michael: That's absolutely true, it's just none of us is shy about it. There's no walking on eggshells. It’s not like if I say I don't like this, it’s gonna really piss him off. There's just none of that. It's so refreshing.


Mick: So this is my last question. What is the hardest thing professionally or personally you've had to overcome, and how did you overcome it?

Paul: How much time do we have? I actually was just kind of talking about this earlier this weekend after a gig. I think the hardest thing about being a musician is trying to be the person that you're hired to be and still being who you are. It's just being true to yourself, but still filling the role that you're supposed to fill, whether you're a hired gun or whether it's your band or whatever. I find I always wanted to portray an image of somebody. The rock stars from the MTV days, and it's like that's who you were. However, once I got over it, I found I just wanted to be on stage playing my music the way I want it to be played.

I think that creates an image instead of trying to copy an image. I think that was sort of liberating. Now I'm not trying to be that bass player or that bass player. I’m just being me.

Michael: That's kind of the difference when you step out of doing covers, and once you step out of that realm and start doing original music. As Paul says, you really find yourself quickly, and sometimes you lose yourself. However, it's all about going back the other way and finding it again. It's so freeing to be able to do that.

My big one is personnel. I've been in a lot of bands with some great musicians, and I'm very fortunate to have that. However, this band is that precious. I've just never been in a band like this where all of us get along. All of us get along so well both musically and personally. That brings such a different vibe to the songs and to the stage.

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