Boy & Bear
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Boy & Bear

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In 2009 singer/songwriter Dave Hosking formed Boy & Bear with the inclusion of guitarist Killian Gavin, Tim Hart on drums and Jon Hart on bass. It was an explosive mix of musicianship and songwriting creativity that resulted in Boy & Bear putting out their debut album, Moonfire, in 2011. Incredibly this release garnered five ARIA awards and saw Boy & Bear become Australia’s pre-eminent rock act resulting, in 18 months of solid touring that included shows as part of US festival Lollapalooza.


Starting in January this year, Boy & Bear started work on their follow-up to the juggernaut of success that was their debut record. While for many, the pressure of having to follow-up such an amazing debut may have been difficult, Hosking enjoyed the challenge. “I thought it was pretty awesome, but it depends who you ask in the band. My favourite part of this is recording and being in the studio. There’s always pressure because I think if you make a shit record it makes your life particularly difficult,” he reflects with a wry chuckle.

For this interview with Boy & Bear to discuss Harlequin Dream, Beat magazine was lucky enough be talking to both Hosking and Killian Gavin. Sitting beside each other in a comfortable couch in a quiet room at the Beat offices, both band members eagerly answer questions, happily putting their personal spin on each answer, demonstrating they are not pushing a company line. Gavin addresses the question of ‘follow-up album pressure’ more deeply than his bandmate, illustrating Hosking’s point that it is subjective. “I don’t think you ever want to do it again. It is a feeling to move on the next big thing you have been working on. You might look at what you did on the last one and what you liked and if you want to do more of that,” states Gavin. 

Due out this Friday August 16, Harlequin Dream is a classic rock album. Where its predecessor had a lot going on, this album sees the band strip back their sound to something quite driving and instrumentally focused. Hosking retakes the conversation’s reigns to discuss the direction of this album, “The most pertinent thing to me on this record is that we embraced classic structures. Going into writing this album, we decided that whatever the rules of music are, we are going to follow it.”

Hosking now lifts his voice slightly, indicating self-consciousness as he indicates that the musical direction of Harlequin Dream is, somewhat a reaction to the direction of rock bands on the whole. “Personally, I know that I just got a little bit sick of hearing so much ambient music around at moment, I mean it’s beautiful and fantastic but I think we just wanted to write stuff which had verse and chorus, to write stuff that was melodic and has fun with that and not try and make it too edgy.”

All this talk of sticking to rules and being inspired by classic rock requires some focus, and it is refreshing that Hosking is more than happy to admit his influences when writing this album, referring to the pin-up boys of the Americana genre of the 1970s, the band America that was, funnily enough, founded in England by sons of American military fathers stationed there. “I am a big America fan. You know the song Horse With No Name? I was so fascinated by how beautiful that song is, but it has only two chords in the whole song.”

Boy & Bear’s first single from Harlequin Dream is Southern Son, a just shy of five minute slow-burning rock song. Interestingly, Gavin admits this song reminds him a lot of that aforementioned America classic hit, both in essence and song structure.  “Southern Sun, at least when I first started writing it, it was really just F and G – the old me would of looked to move it and add to it, but this time round I was like ‘it feels really good so I am just going to stick with it’. I mean, there was a teeny little change in the bridge, but the whole song is just two chords and I think the inspiration was drawn from a song like Horse With No Name – trying to do simplicity, but do it well,” he contends.

Interestingly, and somewhat poetically, Southern Son actually came together as a song just hours before Boy & Bear hit the stage on last New Year’s Eve at Falls Festival.

Hosking explains, “So I had that two chord groove that I liked and a melody and a chorus melody that I had been mucking around with for a little while. In the backstage area, Tim and I were just dicking around with it and I started singing and he was like: ‘What did you just sing?’ and I was like ‘I don’t know’ to which he said ‘I think you sung this’ and he wrote the words down. And more words kept coming out and Cymes [Killian] had his little beats machine on his iPhone that he used to create a basic beat. It was really cool, sometimes all the words just fall out and it comes together.”

Boy & Bear’s debut album, Moonfire, was a certified hit, it is undeniable, on the back of rollicking rhythms and Hosking’s heartfelt and earthy vocals. A fan favourite from that album is Feeding Line, a song that has a lot going on, but it all works beautifully as a soaring transcendence.

Gavin talks about the studio experience when writing and recording their debut record, “I think when we wrote the first record, there were a lot of learning curves and studio experiences we hadn’t come across yet, whereas on Harlequin Dream we were a lot more focused and we had a way clearer picture of what kind of record that we wanted to make. This time, the feel, the tempo and the pace were a lot more clearer, and having the opportunity this time round to just go really hard on something we were really intending to do from day one.”

Hosking chimes in on this point and discusses that the band benefited this time around from knowing exactly what they wanted the record to sound-like. “That’s the key; you can’t get caught in the middle ground there, that is, have any ambiguity between band members on the direction of the album because then you have me trying to do a song with only two chords [Southern Sun]  and the guys are drawing inspirations that don’t work with my motivation.”

This streamlined and unified approach to their second album has also bled into the way Boy & Bear are approaching their first tour of Harlequin Dream, with the band working hard currently to construct a set that flows with the inclusion of new songs and old songs.

“Every tour we’ve done we have worked really hard in constructing a set and sculpting segues. So the next challenge for us is working out where the new songs will go to keep the flow. We’ve done one show recently with new stuff and we’re edging towards a fully formed set where the new works with the old.”

Of the new songs, Hosking discusses what they suspect will be the most rocking live and what will be the most poignant live. “I would say the song Bridges, but none of the new album is high energy; tempos are a lot slower than the first album,” says Hosking.

He now discusses what they anticipate to be the ‘lighter out’ new album track, “I think it would be Arrowflight, because it’s kind of lower down in my vocal register, a little bit Nick Drake and Terry Reid, with a really simple verse chorus. Lyrically it is slightly more ambiguous, but it is definitely an introspective song; I literally finished the lyrics five minutes before we recorded the album. So I think lyrics reflect the sacrifice of getting to this album that is feeling good about where I’ve finished up, though there was a bit of a trail of damage to get here – ending relationships mostly”.

BY DAN WATT