Johnny 'Bee' Badanjek is a Detroit Music icon. He had a Number #1 Hit at the age of 15, playing drums with Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. Bee is also a founder and songwriter for the amazing Rockets!
Bee's latest project, Johnny Bee and the Murder Hornets. "The new Johnny Bee And The Murder Hornets, "Arc Of The Sweeping Sky" Produced by Tino Gross the new LP is out now on FUNKY "D" RECORDS. Check it out. People are lovin' it!"
The recording started after a couple of the guys and along with myself recorded the two Alice Cooper Albums in 2019. Breadcrumbs and Detroit Stories, Produced by Bob Ezrin. This was at the end of October going into November in 2019. And there were rumors about a virus starting to enter the country. Tino said, to me, Why don't you do your own solo album. Huh!
I like being in a band, even though this started out as Bee's solo record. I didn't want a record to be called Johnny Bee Badanjek. So, I came up with a more group name and called it, Johnny Bee And The Murder Hornets. It started getting raves on Facebook.
I called Stanley Mouse and talked to him about doing the album cover. Stanley has done thousands of albums for many bands. He sent some sketches and they were fantastic, I asked him to please continue. Detroit Rock Artist Mark Arminski helped out with the cover graphics.
I had written many new songs, and so we started rehearsing in Detroit at Mary Cobra's (of The Detroit Cobras) house. Then going over to Tino Gross's Funky D basement studio.
The main Murder Hornets band included Garret Bielaniec, Lead guitar. Mike Marshall, Bass. Jimmie Bones, Keyboards, Johnny Bee Badanjek, Drums, and vocals, and Paul Randolph, played Bass on the song Hoo-La-La.
This was the core band. And the background singers were Chrissy Morgan, Liz Fornal, Kristin Von B., and Carley Silverstein.
We had recorded eleven songs and then Covid hit and we had to shut down. It then took months until we could get back together again, waiting on the Vaccine.
Once everyone had been vaccinated, Tino let people back into his house. Then we recorded several more songs. I wanted to still keep recording more songs, but Tino said, we had enough and we had to stop and put out the record.
The new album Johnny Bee And The Murder Hornets. "Arc Of The Sweeping Sky" came out on November 15 2021. The album is on over 250 download sites around the world and getting some rave reviews. CDs and T-shirts are available for purchase at funkydrecords.com. The Band will start playing shows in the new year! BEE