I know
we said this would be up in the "next couple of days," but since then
we've been to Texas and back, fallen extremely ill, and have otherwise been
occupied. But at long last we have it for you: the long awaited interview with
Fox and Bear Band.
The
jazzy math-rock duo Fox and Bear Band is definitely in the business of blurring
boundaries. These Long Beach, California natives effect an energetic, electric
sound. Their sui generis style is made even more impressive by
the absence of any guitars. Who needs six strings when four will do the trick?
Far from sounding thin, Adam Barnes manages to fill out their sound with some
tasteful distortion and prime musical choices. Dan Birker’s stellar technique
is refreshing and makes for some solid drumming. Both these boys are
impressively talented at their instruments; perhaps even wizards. Today we take
a look at who these fellows are and how they do what they do:
JK:
So who’s the Fox and who’s the Bear?
Dan is Fox and Adam is Bear. The name is actually inspired by See You
Next Tuesday.
JK: How’d you guys meet/How’d you form?
We met at Cal State Long Beach smoking cigarettes. Both of us were
music majors. Adam had started jamming with a band called The
Wilderness and they were looking for a second drummer/percussionist.
Without hearing Dan play, he suggested Dan join. A while later Dan's
twin brother Chris also joined to play sax. After a little over a year
The Wilderness fell apart, but by this time, Adam had started writing
solo bass tunes without a real plan for them. During one Wilderness
practice, we started jamming on one of these tunes and realized what
to do. We jammed as Fox & Bear for the first time on December 31, 2009
and wrote our first album.
JK: You guys are obviously quite skilled at your instruments. Any formal
or classical training?
We've both been musicians for over 10 years, taking private lessons
and attending college as music majors.
JK: What’s your favorite time signature?
We like changing time signatures. It's cool what you can do while
switching between 7/8 and 4/4 then back to 7/8 and then 3/4.
JK: What led you to make a two piece sans guitar?
In our previous band, The Wilderness, there were five members. We had
to take three cars to every gig and had a ridiculous amount of gear.
Once that ended, we both wanted to see what we could do with just two
people and minimal gear.
We've had guitar players ask to join and jam with us, but it seems
unnecessary now. We do still like jamming with Chris on sax, though.
JK: Is there some aspect of you music that you think people are missing?
That depends on what they're getting out of it in the first place.
It's all there and pretty blatant (at least we think so).
JK: Why do you think you find yourselves playing in a more “punk” scene, even
though your music is not, sonically speaking?
We're punk rockers at heart. And we've gone the DIY route all the way,
recording our own albums, hand making our tapes and CDs, so on. Adam
also used to be in a grindcore band called Oh Canada!
JK: Dream tour to play on?
Probably something along the lines of F&B, Lightning Bolt and Yes.
That would be epic.
JK: Have you received any hate? What kind?
We'll have the occasional drunk guy come up to us after our set and
ask, "But why don't you guys play something that grooves, man?
Something with a fat back beat? That's what gets the girl's pussies
wet."
JK: How do you approach writing music for such a novel sort of sound?
Adam writes the basics of a song, then while jamming we tend to change
things, take out a beat here, add a beat there, throw in an open noise
jam in the middle, ect. Even our first batch of songs we wrote are
still changing and evolving.
JK: Influential bands?
Lightning Bolt and Yes (duh). We also love Hella, King Crimson, Rush, and so on.
JK: You guys working on new tracks? Can we expect another full length soon?
We have a few in the works. Hopefully this summer we'll be releasing another EP.
JK: Nuttiest thing on tour, live, etc? Tell us a story.
We played a house show in Long Beach a few years ago for this girl's
birthday party. Our DJ buddy got us the gig, we set up in the back
yard, started playing, and after 2 songs there was a police helicopter
overhead shining spotlights on us and 3 squad cars had pulled up.
Gotta love wasting tax-payers money.
JK: Fans of the cranberries?
Fucking love the Cranberries...
JK: Any last words for this interview? Any last words in case you die
immediately after this?
We play in a few other bands too. If y'all want to check em out, Dan
started playing drums for Sounds of Noise and Adam plays upright bass
in The Manx. Both are much more accessible that F&B.
Ummm... as far as death... someone pick up where we left off...
Bandcamp
No comments:
Post a Comment