Interview: Boy & Bear - New Zealand Album Release Shows

Australian songwriting superstars Boy & Bear are returning to our shores after a period of seven years, celebrating the release of their forthcoming self-titled album with a two date Aotearoa mini-tour. The multiple ARIA award winning,  chart-topping Sydney group will perform their new material at The Powerstation in Auckland and Wellington’s San Fran this coming June. Boy & Bear's Killian Gavin and Dave Hosking discussed their fifth studio record (out on 26th May, preorder your copy HERE) with UTR's Charlotte Lovrin — don't miss them at the following dates...

UPDATE: Boy & Bear have announced a second Wellington headline date due to hot demand...

UnderTheRadar proudly presents...

Boy & Bear with special guest Luke Thompson

Thursday 22nd June - San Fran, Wellington [new show]
Friday 23rd June — San Fran, Wellington [sold out]
Saturday 24th June - The Powerstation, Auckland*

Wellington tickets on sale HERE via UTR
*Auckland tickets via aaaticketing.co.nz

Charlotte Lovrin: It's been a while since you've been in New Zealand, with everything going on with the pandemic and all. How does it feel to finally return, but this time with more material?

Dave Hosking: It feels exciting. It's been a long time for us since we've been in New Zealand and it's always been a lot of fun when we've gone over there. Particularly coming from Sydney, it's a pretty short flight. It makes a lot of sense for us to head back and to keep coming back to New Zealand. Lots of new material and obviously by the time we get over there, we'll have the new record out. It's a balancing act between new songs and old songs and trying to get that balance right, so the set doesn't ignore old stuff. But also for us, it's almost more interesting playing new stuff, so we'll work in a set which hopefully finds that equilibrium.

Were there any lyrical themes or ideas that directed the new album? Was it made with a specific theme or themes in mind?

Dave Hosking: (The) last record (Suck On Light) was very much around some health issues. They still are a part of my life now, but it's almost like I've kind of got so much better over such a long time. Every year I improve but it kind of feels like I've got one foot in the real world and another foot still persevering to get better. I had some mental health challenges which popped up in the middle of that, so I think a lot of the record is about perseverance and courage and also the impact of that on my relationships... it's a kind of conglomerate of all that I think, which has driven a lot of what the record is about.

From the sound of the past three singles from this particular record, it sounds like the upcoming album is going in a different direction sound wise from the last projects you've done. I wanted to know what you could tell me about this change? Were you consciously wanting to change your sound, or did it just happen quite organically?

Killian Gavin: With every album we do, we like to think we're trying to find something new that inspires us to help give us a new birth of creativity to work with. This is not a pandemic record, but the pandemic definitely changed how we started writing music. Because we were all seperate, you'd work on an idea by yourself at home and then you'd maybe want to throw on some loops or some drums on top of the chords, just to sell what the vibe or the energy of a song is. So we ended up doing that, and a lot of people were doing that. It meant that we were starting to use more electronic drum kits and drum machines and synthesisers and just different ways of capturing an idea by yourself, to sell it to the rest of the guys in the band. And then a lot of those ideas became foundational parts of the song, that whenever we muted them, we always missed it. Even though we put on the band's performance on top of them, there was something, maybe the syncopation of a loop or a drum machine, that felt like the song lacked whenever we got rid of it.

We spent of lot of time actively deconstructing those elements, re-recording them, finding the core pieces of those rhythms and bringing them back in. There is a lot more electronic stuff and drum machine stuff, but it's playing a very big supportive role, probably a bigger supportive role than we've ever had to play before. It's big fun for us. It's been new equipment and new toys to figure out and play and get lost in. It's naturally changed what we did on Suck On Light and Limit Of Love, which a lot of the songs were written with the band. Maybe the initial idea was raw, but the band jammed the idea with their instruments. Whereas this was — you would layer a part, you would send it to someone, they might layer a part, send it to someone, layer a part. Eventually you'd have all these layers in this world, where you had to then go in and figure out, alright, how do we arrange this and make it into a song? It's probably more staggered and longer, but it felt like it was sort of just a way for us to work, given the circumstances of the world at that point in time.

When you were making the music in that way, were you concerned about how that would translate live?

Dave Hosking: I think we've always problem solved on that front relatively well. There's probably some songs on the record which we'll have to work out how to play them live, but they get a new life from a live perspective so sometimes not all those elements will be in there. As long as the feel and the atmosphere of the songs is the same or very similar, you can get away with stripping things back or adding more stuff on real drums versus the loop. Tim's got a little, what's it called again?

Killian Gavin: Drum machine, drum pattern machine.

Dave Hosking: Yeah, he's got a little drum pattern machine, 'cause of lot of what we're doing is layered with drum machine and real drums. We can trigger a loop where Tim (Hart) can actually play over the top of it, as opposed to Tim trying to play both parts. But I'm sure we'll stumble onto some more challenging songs than others.

Killian Gavin: We've also found some of the songs we've had in the rehearsal studio, where we used the loops from the studio that were on the record as part of the rehearsal, we felt like it was holding the song back from the energy it could have had live. We've also at times just gone, let's lose that electronic part. Tim's picking up the core elements of what his role was in the groove and it means that we're able to perform live, not being restrained by any sort of tempo or click or anything like that. The song can still live and move and have energy and speed up and slow down the way we like to usually have most of our songs work live. If Dave's voice is still there, which it is, it's like the grounding tonality perhaps of the band's songs live. We can always rework what the other sounds are and what the elements are, to help make it make more sense in a live setting.

Where there any particular genres or artists you were listening to that inspired the sound when you were making the album?

Dave Hosking: It's weird, at least from my perspective when we're writing, I don't tend to listen to a lot of music. It's almost like, I'm putting all my musical energy into what we're doing as a band. I probably only just started listening to music again in the last two or three months. My partner, she's always got some sort of instrumental music on in the background... I haven't been seeking out new bands or finding inspiration from that point, 'cause I think your brain gets sort of maxed out and we were writing for two years. When I was listening, I was listening to demos and trying to work out the arrangements. Then by the time you do that, you're sort of like — I don't know if I've got any room for new music. But that's just my take on it.

Killian Gavin: I'm the same. I find when you start, if you try and listen to other music, all it does is triggers the analytical part of your brain. Where you start thinking about songwriting and you start analysing tonalities and sounds. You're not ever really switching off because you're still in the middle of making the album. So your brain is constantly being triggered by listening to other music. I share the same sentiment as Hos, which is a bit of a black-out approach, where I rarely listen to much music when we're making an album. I don't know if all the other guys do but I know what we definitely do.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.