THE SURVIVAL of a beehive depends upon each bee knowing its role and working together with the rest of the colony. Without that mentality, the whole system collapses and no sweet, sweet honey is produced.

San Jose's Worker Bee relies on the same functionality; it's a collaboration between all of its members. Since the group first got together three years ago, they've worked hard, endured touring horror stories, and despite it all, forged on. And why? For the greater good, of course.

"First we're doing this for the money. Second, the fame," says lead singer and guitarist Evan Jewett said.

"And, of course, the ladies," adds drummer Damien Wendel. "So many of them."

Once again emulating the hive mentality, Worker Bee's sound is an amalgamation of all four personalities in the band. Jewett comes up with a song idea that is somewhat structured and Wendel, bassist Andy Barnes and guitarist/keyboarist Gordon De Los Santos write their own parts accordingly. De Los Santos says he's also in charge of the aesthetics of the band. "I take care of coming up with the look and buying our outfits," he jokes.

Before they worked on their latest album, Tangler, Worker Bee was going through a stale period. They had put out four-song EP that had taken a year to complete. They weren't playing many shows, either. They would write one song, and then at least six months would pass before they wrote another.

"We weren't too ambitious," Barnes says.

Then, inspiration struck.

"I got into this mode where writing was coming to me really easily," Jewett says. "All the songs were written pretty close together, which hadn't happened before. For this album I was really trying to open up. We all got into a groove, and because of that, the songs all have a similar feel. It's cool because I never really had that before."

As Barnes describes it, it's more of an "us" album, showing off their natural camaraderie.

The band is currently on a two-week tour in support of the new album. They're familiar with the perils of the road. The last night of their first tour, with a total of eight people in their touring van, they were heading back to San Jose from Seattle when the brake pedal got somewhat stuck and the van wouldn't stop.

"We went through a couple red lights, honking the horn," Wendel says. "Luckily, it was late and there weren't many people around. I had to down shift to stop. We took it to Midas and paid a bunch of money to fix it. We got on the freeway and suddenly started to hear the lug nuts coming off the tire. I started to brake and the pedal was hard again, but I was still able to stop. We got home OK. It's fixed now—hopefully."

On that tour, Worker Bee shared the stage with a Heart cover band and what they described as a "world music band, with a lot of interpretive dancers." It definitely helped them to define what the band is not.

"There were older ladies and gentlemen playing flutes and the like," Jewett says. "We're not a very friendly band in a party atmosphere because we're not danceable and it's not 'fun' music, necessarily. We had an argument with the Heart cover band because we wanted them to play last because they were the fun, party band, and they refused to play last. Somehow I allowed that to happen. I should have done something, with my huge muscles."

Wherever they play, it's hard to imagine there's anything else these four friends would rather be doing. It's what they live for.

"I want to be doing music for the rest of my life, till death do us part," Jewett says. "With this record we really want to try to make things happen, like actually have people know who we are even though we've never met or played in front of them. That's the goal for now."

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