Everything But The GRRR! - Minus The Bear

Seattle-based lo-fi quintet Minus The Bear recently completed a fourteen date UK tour and Gigwise caught up with them in Bristol. The boys are always full of mischief and so the interview was punctuated with loud renditions of ‘Walking In The Air’ and other such shenanigans. Formed in 2001, Minus The Bear have three EP’s and four LP’s under their belt. Lead singer and guitarist Jake, explains how he came to join the band: “I heard early demos with Dave and Cory singing and thought, they can’t sing! Neither can I, but I can sing better than that!”

Actually, Jake can sing. In fact, all five band members are accomplished musicians and, live, Minus The Bear is magnificent. Supported beautifully by 27, Minus The Bear took the stage at Bristol’s Fleece and Firkin to find the venue packed and that the crowd knew every word to every song. Guitarist Cory, sporting a pirate-style beard was heckled by fans suggesting he should shave, but he just responded with a swashbuckling ‘Oooh Ahh’. Then, the hairiest band to make music since the Wurzels, went on to silence any criticism with track after track of core-shaking prog rock, swirling hypnotising synth’, heavy core riffs and intelligent lyrics. Erin thumped the skins as manically as Animal from the Muppets (but with talent!) and during ‘Lotus,’ Cory on Bass and Dave and Jake on guitars, all dropped to their knees, bent over their instruments as if commanded by their spell and praying fervently to the Gods within.

What do Minus The Bear sound like? “No-one else,” says Cory with a grin. “We can’t be pigeon-holed,” mocking what might be a more arrogant musician’s answer to thisquestion. “We sound like classic rock for the future” says newest member, Alex. The synth and keyboardist player joined in 2006, in time for the making of the most recent Minus The Bear album, ‘Planet Of Ice’.

Released August 2007, ‘Planet Of Ice’ is an evolution in comparison to their previous offerings and, when asked if his joining the band is the reason behind this, Alex is modest: “It may have changed the dynamics slightly, but really I think it was more down to the amount of time we were afforded to work on the album. The band was already going in a Prog direction and by the time I joined there was already a song or two fleshed out. The template for the sound we wanted was already there and we all listen to or are influenced by similar records. I tried to mesh as well as I could, but a new member is bound to bring fresh input, so that may have altered things as well.”

“Alex joining helped a lot, but there were a lot of other differences with the writing of this record,” explains Cory. “We spent more time on it and we all wrote together more. Each member was less distracted by other projects – I guess we just really concentrated this time around.”

“Another difference for this record was we had a lot more written before we went into the studio,” interjects Jake “that gave us more time to concentrate in the studio and made the whole thing less stressful”.

So if they can’t be pigeon-holed as a specific genre, what type of music inspires them? “Our inspirations are so diverse”, says Alex “I have about 500 bands on my ipod. I grew up listening to Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Nirvana and they inspired me to learn guitar, although my first instrument was actually saxophone. Right now I’m listening to Laura Veirs, she’s my new obsession, oh and I really like R Kelly. ” Nope, that isn’t a typo Alex really did go on record to say he listens to R Kelly. A brave move; terrifying, but brave nonetheless.