Most of us would need a break after performing 170
live shows across three continents but for Boy & Bear it was just the
energy they needed to get into a new record before they jumped on a
flight home at the end of 2014. We chatted to bassist Dave Symes about
their much-anticipated third album Limit
of Love, working with a rock legend and getting back to basics in
the studio.
Hi Dave.
Good
morning!
What are Boy
& Bear up to at the moment?
We’re sort
of starting rehearsals again now because we’re starting some shows in November
and our new album’s coming out next week. So we’re getting it all up and
running again to get this album out there and start playing and live again,
which will be great.
When I saw
you guys play at Falls 2012/2013 there was a full on mosh pit before the
sun went down. Is this now stock
standard for you guys or is it still enjoyable?
We love
playing festivals, it’s a pretty amazing sort of energy if you have a great crowd
like those festivals do. Falls Festival, Splendour – they’re amazing Australian
festivals. Bluesfest is another great one. I don’t think you ever get sick of
seeing a whole lot of people having a whole lot of fun to the songs that you’re
playing. We definitely love doing the festival thing, it’s a nice change from
doing your own show all the time.
Your
guitarist Killian told triple j that the band decided to work more
traditionally in the studio (with no overdubs in the process.) We see studio time
romanticised in films such as Love & Mercy, but what are the
challenges on the flip side?
I think
the challenge, for us, in recording in this way, was to have the confidence to
say this is actually the way you should be doing it. There’s so much technology
out there these days, it’s very easy to give yourself way too many options and
way too many decisions that you can always make later on, if you know what I
mean.
So the way that we recorded live and the techniques
we developed with our producer, Ethan Jones, was recording it all to tape and
all of us in one room. It means that the sound is spilling into our
instruments. So you have to keep everything you perform – there’s no editing
and there’s no redoing. As a basic rule you’re basically capturing what
went down altogether at one time.
I think the challenge for us was that you don’t
have the safety net. It’s like walking the tightrope without having anything
underneath it. But it’s not a new thing, it’s actually how records were made
for a long time. I think at the other end of it, we love that way of recording
– spending time together in the studio and getting great sounds and just
playing music.
I’ve had a
sneak listen to the record and the track “Just Dumb” stood out because it does
sound like your live set with lots of layers and the instrumental jams.
That’s a
pretty cool track actually because Ethan, the producer, he played a second sort
of percussion/drum part on that. So that was a point of difference on that song
which was a really nice thing. It was the only track we recorded late at night,
like really late at night. Most of the things we worked during the day or into
the evening but this one we were going to call it for the day and we said let’s
just do it now and we set up and went for it. So it’s got its own sort of vibe.
What was it
like working with Ethan Johns?
He’s like
a big kid who just loves music and loves the sound of an instrument and loves a
good song. He’s very encouraging, I think he brought the best out in us. I
think we felt like we were collaborating with him at the highest of levels. He
was interested in what we had to say. He’s open-minded, you know, he’s willing
to change if it’s the best thing for the song. Working with him was really
inspiring for us, I think we learned a lot.
The other thing is he is so experienced; he has a lot
of stories. Everyday at dinner and lunch, which was probably an hour long, he’d
basically just tell stories the whole time. But he had some pretty amazing
first and second hand stories to do with famous bands, singers,
studios. Coming from Australia, we were like “tell us that one again dad,
the one with Keith Richards.” It was a little bit like a rock ‘n’ roll hall of
fame of stories.
The cover art
for Limit of Love moves away from your folk aesthetic – it almost looks
like it belongs on an electronic record. Who created it?
Basically
John, our piano/keyboard player, is a fantastic photographer and he’s always
shooting on the road. So this is a photo that he took on the ferry from
Vancouver, Canada to Victoria Island when we had a gig there. It’s probably 40
feet above the ocean so it’s actually taken from quite a distance of this
beautiful coloured water and it’s an interesting texture because it’s quite
rough water.
We had a meeting with the design guys at Headjam
in Newcastle. They’ve done a bunch of stuff for us. We wanted things to be
really simple and to reflect the way we wrote and recorded, simple and classic.
In a way, it’s kind of cool you say electronic because in a way it outlines
what we’re all about and not just the band name and the title and any sort of
image. They chose this photo out of about 500 and we kind of dug it.
We wrote all the record in the south of Sydney down
the coast so we did spend a lot of time by the ocean while we writing the music
so it sort of tied in really nicely. And I like the fact that John’s the
photographer, it’s his artwork.
What is the
value of leaving your routine and physical space (from Sydney to Berry) to
write music?
The reason
for doing it, I think , is it’s nice to get to a space or an environment when
you can just focus for a while.We’d hire a house on the coast for 7-10 days at
a time and we did about three trips like this. We all live in Sydney and we do
do some writing together, we might book 2 or 3 days in a week to get together
but then everybody returns to their life or someone runs late because they had
togo to the post office on the way. Life can get in the way, which is fine. But
we find when we book this time away, it’s a really nice way to focus. Even when
we stop jamming and writing, we might be cooking a meal and talking about the
kind of music we want to make or listening to some albums that we want to check
out or we can listen to our demos. We can work around the clock but in a really
relaxed well. It seems to work for us. We all get on really well. We work well
together.
Oh so there’s
no band rivalries to uncover!
Ha maybe
after this next tour.
And before
the national Australian tour, guys are going back overseas.
Yeah it’s
the first time the album’s coming out globally, at the same time, which is
cool. It’s exciting. So we’re obviously here now, we’re doing a tour late Jan
and February so we’re going to do some promo shows in Europe, the UK and
America, and we’ll go back there next year if all things work as they could.
We’ve been home all year, except for recording in England for 5 weeks. It’s
been nice to spend time at home because last year we were gone for about 11
months over the year so it was a big one. But it’s amazing to have that
opportunity.
What do you
think of the idea that touring sucks out creative energy?
There is
an interesting story for us this time. We finished our last show December 13
last year in Paris. We finished after the big year and a half all sort of with
that feeling, you know, whenever you finish anything it’s slightly
exhausted but really happy. We went back to London because we had to fly out of
London to get home and we had to try and meet Ethan (Johns) before we went home
because we’d already started to discuss the next record a few months before. We
were just doing it for a practical reason, let’s do it while we’re here. It’s
amazing, we got to the airport that night after having a two-hour meeting with
him.
Now I don’t think that happens every time, we were
lucky that we had things worked out. But I think that says a lot about how we
ended up dealing with last year, we were definitely tired and you don’t have
the brainpower to think of new songs but at the same time you get hungry for it
because you’ve been doing the same kind of material for a year and a half and
you do have a few new things that have come out of that.
What’s the
best part of home shows?
I think
it’s nice to play and have family and friends at the shows. When you’re away
for a long time it’s nice to have that connection. We love playing at home.
We’ve got amazing audiences here who have been there with the band since the
beginning. We’re doing some cool venues this time, so it’s exciting. It’s a
really nice grounding thing for us I think.