Sleeze Beez Reviews
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To read an interview with Andrew Elt, by Antoinette Avalon, in November 2000, click here.
Sleeze Beez Rocks Hard, Often - The Denver Post, February 16, 1993 If you like your rock hard, harder and hardest, Sleeze Beez' Atlantic Records album POWERTOOL will be your cup of tea. There's virtually no let up here. From "Raise a Little Hell" straight through to "Pray for a Miracle", POWERTOOL puts a stranglehold on the listener that's hard to break. The only respite on the album, the ballad "I Don't Want To Live Without You", almost seems out of place here, though it is one of the better songs of its genre. Sleeze Beez must have got their name writing such secular songs as "What's that Smell" and Like A Dog". Though harmless enough lyrically, they're exactly the kind of target the PMRC might have gone after a few years back before rap came along and became music's designated bad guy. One thing's for certain, if Sleeze Beez stick around, they're bound to become a force in the nineties. Their aggressive style is ideally suited to a mass audience." - G. Brown
Meet the Sleeze Beez - Circus, September 1990 "I'm not saying we aren't sleazy," declares Andrew Elt, king Sleeze Bee. "We are on stage and we do portray that a bit in our lyrics, but when you listen to the album "Screwed Blued and Tattoed", the Beez' debut, there are also songs fit to be played on daytime radio, so the name - the package - doesn't give away the contents of the can of beans." Elt surveys his empty environs, a lofty Indian eatery called the Bombay Palace. Competing with the clatter of noontime Manhattan traffic, the singer is at no loss to explain the many ways his band's been misconstrued. Take the first Sleeze Beez video, for instance. "We couldn't have made a raunchy video out of a song call "Stranger than Paradise", the mangy blond drowns. "So a lot of people come to our shows and expect to see a pose band, an MTV band, and geet the total opposite. They get a band that sweats, spits and throws beer at you, but plays great rock and roll." Those expecting Hollywood's latest export are equally ambushed. Though the names might give it away (Elt, Chriz van Jaarsveld, Don van Spall, Ed Jongsma and Jan Koster), you'd never guess from their music that these Beez nest in Holland - Elt has no trace of an accent and no affiinity for things Dutch. "There's nothing to write about in Holland," he explains, casting off his John Lennon sunglasses for emphasis. "We could sing about windmills and stuff, but it wouldn't appeal to a mass audience." Fleeing Holland was inevitable. Elt maintains there's "absolutely no future for a band there. Everybody in a band has a day job or is on social security. You don't play the club circuit for years; you play it for two months a year every weekend and that's your bit. The scene is very small and limited to taking risks because most of the bands starting out don't get played on Dutch radio." Enter Scott McGhee, the Beez ticket to America. Skid Row's manager was so pleased with the Beez he had them open two weeks on the Skid's U.S. club tour this spring. "We had a week to rehearse," Elt recalls his virgin gigs on American soil. "Nobody ever heard of us. We were doing those opening slots with no album out, no press, so it was sink-or-swim. We had no time to consider who Skid Row were or how big they were over here. We just did our thing and the crowd went crazy every show." McGhee inked them to a management contract after the first gig. Currently the Beez are buzzing across America with fellow upstarts Savatage, pollinating clubs with, in Jan Koster's words, their "no rules, no fools, just power tools" rock & roll. At press time the group was set to release "Heroes Die Young" as their second single/video. The track focuses on John F. Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe and Jesse James, three icons cut down in their prime.
"A band with an incomparable name releases the strongest hard rock album in months. It's big, raw-boned, and sleazily cheerful, with hardly one weak track. A-" - Greg Sandow, Entertainment Weekly, Issue #9, 04/13/90 (referring to "Screwed, Blued and Tattooed")
Sleeze Beez - Screwed, Blued and Tattooed I was chatting to Derek Oliver the other day about new bands when he suddenly started getting very excited about the new (second ) album from Dutch five-piece Sleeze Beez. After throwing a bucket of water over the poor chap, I left him in the middle of Wardour Street still mumbling to himself like a bag lady and took it upon myself to track down a copy of this seemingly unbelievable album just to see if he was right. I was skeptical. A After all the band's debut album released nearly two years ago, didn't exactly have me d ancing around, but as soon as "Rock in the Western World", the opening track, hit my speakers, I could see that Mr. Oliver did have a point. Sleeze Beez deliver uptempo raunchy slightly anthemic rock n' roll with a flea in its ear. Scratch that itch! Screwed...veers between Def Leppard melody and Vengeance-style party rock and with the odd bit of AC/DC flavouring, as on "House is on Fire" and "Don't Talk About Roses", its every bit a winner. Vocalist Andrew Elt is rather typical of throaty European frontmen, but thankfully avoids the distinctive foreign accent - mainly due to the fact that he's actually English! What they deliver is by no means intellectual, it's just good solid hard rock of the sort that would have my old party rock colleague and fellow Vengeance fan Xavier Russell twangin' his Steffi Graf issue tennis racquet for all he's worth, especially on the title track itself which reminds me of Hun rockers Steller or Victory. A more melodic direction comes across on "Stranger Than Paradise" and "Heroes Die Young" that could actually have come off Pyromania where Elt sings like a cross between Jon Bon Jovi and Jooooeeeee, but the more AOR "This Time" goes too far off the rails with a fairly awful chorus. A quite excellent record then, a release that's an AOR guitarist's wet dream to be frank. Derek was on the spot with this one. Somebody sign him up as an A&R Man!! - Dave Reynolds
Record of the Week - Sleeze Beez 'Stranger than Paradise' - Atlantic Hopefully by now you are absolutely familiar with the digit crunching, nerve wracking, intricate, mathematical formula that is used to deirve the prestigious Record of the Week. You are? How about calling us and filling us in?! Actually, there's no real set-in-cement, engraved in granite method for picking the R.O.T.W. We look for monster new releases that we know are going to set radio on its collective ear in the coming week, or a new release we feel ought to set radio on its collective ear the week before, The Sleeze Beez get the perch for the latter. The number one top add getter this issue, Da Beez, pick up forty one Hard reporting supporters including major market monsters like KEZO, KGON, KISS, KLOL, KMJX, KWHL, WCCC, WCMF, WDVE, WLAV, WLLZ, WLVQ, WLZR and WYNF. Enough radioland rock fans dug these swinging Scandinavians and their melodic metal debut to shot "Stranger Than Paradise" directly into the top two-thirds of the Hard Hundred, at 64. We've done our best to keep bee references out this analysis, but then along comes Tony Tilford from WKQQ and "The Sleeze Beez strike you with a sting you'll never forget". It's alright, Tony, at least we haven't seen any pictures of you in a bee costume.
Sleeze Beez Swarms U.S. -Enquirer News Services While everyone was watching the southern skies of the United Staes for approaching swarms of killer bees, another strain slipped over the border from across the Atlantic - Sleeze Beez. Sleeze Beez is a hardrocking band from Holland that's creating its buzz by climbing Billboard's Top Pop album chart, and its sights are set on these shores. According to singer Andrew Elt, the Dutch band recorded its debut album "Screwed, Blued and Tattooed" with America in mind. "We knew it wouldn't go anywhere in Holland because people there are too narrow-minded to get into this kind of music," he said. "We made this album for an American audience." The album's marketing is also aimed at America. "The U.S. is the top priority right now," Elt said. "England and Europe will still be there - they've been there for a couple of thousand years. Our video was on MTV first time off the bat. "Stranger than Paradise" was on over 140 radio stations." The Beez are also covering a good portion of America's map. "So far we've been in 40 different states - coast to coast, top to bottom, left to right, corner to corner. We've done 50 shows."
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