ONE ON ONE: AN INTERVIEW WITH BEARPARK!

I'M ALFIE CLARK, AND TODAY I'M JOINED BY THE INDIE ROCK THREE PIECE FROM THE NORTH EAST. THEY'VE JUST ANNOUNCED THEIR SELF-TITLED ALBUM, WHICH IS OUT ON JUNE 14TH. IT'S SHAY, ADAM, AND GUY FROM BEAR PARK. HOW ARE WE DOING, LADS?

Shay: Hello, mate. We're all right. We're feeling good.

THE ALBUM HAS FINALLY BEEN ANNOUNCED. HOW ARE YOU FEELING IN THE LEAD UP TO THE 14TH? NOW IT'S ALL OUT THERE?

Shay: It's scary, but it's very exciting. I think the way you approach an album is you want to build up to it the best you can, but you want to save all the good stuff for when it’s actually out. So the run-up is about seeing, yeah, it's this, but not wasting too much of your content and too much of your energy because you don't really have anything to present to people. So when it comes out, smash it.

AND OBVIOUSLY BEING A SELF-TITLED ALBUM, HISTORICALLY SELF-TITLED ALBUMS ARE MEANT TO BE A REPRESENTATION AND A REAL, “HERE IS WHAT WE ARE” FOR A BAND. A GREAT EXAMPLE OF THAT JUST FROM THIS YEAR, NECK DEEP, I'M NOT TOO SURE IF YOU KNOW WHO THEY ARE, THEY HAD A SELF-TITLED ALBUM RELEASE AND IT WAS FANTASTIC AND A REAL REPRESENTATION OF WHAT THEY ARE AS A BAND. WOULD YOU SAY THAT YOUR ALBUM HAS ACHIEVED A SIMILAR ACCOLADE?

Guy: Ours is like, it's a lot of years’ worth of songs. There's a song on the album that we did in 2019, that's like nearly five years’ worth of material, so I think it is a perfect representation of everything we've done so far up until now.

I WAS GOING TO BRING THIS UP LATER IN THE INTERVIEW, BUT NOW YOU SAY IT, YOU MENTIONED, I THINK ON YOUR INSTAGRAM A FEW WEEKS AGO ABOUT ‘KEEP ON SMILING’, THAT WAS CONCEIVED TWO YEARS AGO NOW. I'M IMAGINING THERE'S A LOT MORE TRACKS THAT HAVE BEEN PICKED UP OFF THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR AND HONED AND REFINED AND I CAN IMAGINE THERE'S STILL A LOT MORE THAT ARE STILL UNTAPPED AND WAITING TO BE RELEASED.

Shay: Yeah, that's it mate. I think because the thing with an album is you've got to make one to look back on and think, “I've done that, now I can improve from that”. So there was a time where we're making it where we're like, “we'll put this song in, we'll put that song in”, because at the time we didn't have a huge, huge back catalogue. So a lot of it we didn't get the chance to pick and choose from. I feel like that's exactly what makes it quite a raw good representation of places where we've been. As Guy says, it's the past few years leading up, so it can start with ones that are technically more simple and ones that are technically more complex.

YEAH, YOU MENTIONED COMPLEX AND MY FIRST FEW LISTENS, THE ONE TRACK THAT STOOD TO ME AS THAT MOST COMPLEX AND DEVELOPED TRACK WOULD BE ‘THE OTHER WAY’ WITH THE STORYTELLING, THE ACOUSTICS AND THOSE SUBDUED SCREAMS AT THE BACK END OF THE TRACK, IT HONESTLY LEFT ME A BIT STUNNED. I REALLY WASN'T EXPECTING SOMETHING LIKE THAT FROM YOU. SO CAN YOU JUST GIVE US A BIT MORE INSIGHT ON HOW THAT CAME TO BE AND THE WHOLE CREATIVE PROCESS BEHIND THAT ONE TRACK?

Shay: Yeah, I remember when I wrote that one, I sent it to the chat and Lee, my manager, he said, “It's not your best one” and by all means, people might not think that's the best one, but we were like, “No, come on, that's good”. So when we came to do it, when we were in the studio, there was just so much and it was the longest day we spent in the studio, with the screams being the last thing we did, just on a whim.

Guy: Yeah, I think we were in the studio till about two or three in the morning or something like that.

ANOTHER TRACK, IT'S HUNG WITH YOU FOR YEARS NOW BEING TRACK THREE ‘THEME PARKS’ WHICH FOR THE DEDICATED AND TUNED EAR, IT'S JUST A REIMAGINING OF ‘CARBON THEME PARK’ FROM FOUR YEARS AGO. I MEAN IT IS STILL YOUR MOST STREAMED SONG ON SPOTIFY, BUT WHY WAS IT THIS SONG THAT YOU DECIDED TO PICK UP AGAIN AND GIVE IT A COMPLETELY NEW LEASE OF LIFE?

Shay: I mean, it's a song that obviously means a lot to us. It got us to where we are now. It got us to label interest, things like that and we felt a little bit like having a song that we owe so much to us being so outdated, we felt like we just need to brush it up a bit and make it something we listen to and think, “Oh, it's crap, I hate it”. The label said they wanted to re-record it, and initially, I think we were a bit like, “Can we just leave that behind?”. But they were adamant on it, so I went away and redid the lyrics because all the lyrics are different, mostly, and then when me and Guy demoed it, we made it feel a little bit more jolly, and it feels much more jolly now. I remember when we were in the studio, that was the one Gary, our producer, he reacted to that the best and then Eric, who also works for the label, he said “I told you that was your best song”, so they obviously believe in it and now we believe in it because it does sound really good.

AND YOU MENTIONED GARY, I CAN ONLY IMAGINE YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT GARY POWELL FROM THE LIBERTINES. I CAN IMAGINE HIS EXPERIENCE AND THE DECADES HE'S HAD IN THE GAME HAS BEEN INVALUABLE TO THE CREATION OF THE ALBUM. HOW HAS THAT EXPERIENCE AND THE SUPPORT OF THE LABEL HELPED?

Adam: It was good as a drummer who worked with him because, obviously he's the drummer of The Libs, so it was cool meeting someone of that calibre and just learning new stuff from him.

Guy: It's not just the drums that he does, though. It's like he's got so much musical knowledge.

Shay: Yeah, he's very good with his backing vocals. Yeah, he's very, very good with that. We really like working on that stuff with him and honestly, all these little random ideas that you could never have thought of, he’ll just be like, “All right, let's do that”, and it works.

Guy: In ‘Head of the United States’ , there's a reggae bit in the middle and that was just on the spot. He just told Adam to play a reggae beat, it just fell into place.

IT'S VERY TELLING THAT YOU'RE ALL SIGNED TO A LABEL NOW AND BEING A YOUNGER BAND IT CAN BE A LITTLE BIT TOO FORWARD, BUT YOU'RE VERY FORTUNATE IN THE SENSE THAT YOU ARE IN A PLACE THAT A LOT OF OUR BANDS IN THE SAME SPACE AS YOU IN THE SAME VEIN AND DON'T HAVE THOSE ADVANTAGES, BUT THAT STILL ALL HAS TO COME WITH HARD WORK. YOU CAN'T JUST STEP IN AND LET OTHER PEOPLE DO THE WORK FOR YOU, SO I CAN IMAGINE IT'S BEEN A VERY TAXING BUT REWARDING TIME FOR YOU ALL.

Guy: It's been years in the make. We didn't release anything for two years, but we had stuff to release and it was just excruciating. But I think it has been worth it because we've recorded an album. Not many bands in the North East get to record albums, it's always when you can scrape enough money together to record a single, that's all you can do. We're definitely really lucky, but that's not to say we haven't put in the hard work because it's been really hard. We actually spent nearly £2,000 on an EP and we never released it because the label came along and said, “We want to record songs with you”, so we sat away for two years.

IT'S ALMOST TELLING AS WELL, THE PRODUCTION AND EVERYTHING HAS LEVELLED UP GIGANTICALLY ON YOUR SIDE. IS THAT A BIG FACTOR FOR YOU AS WELL? MAKING SURE THE ALBUM SOUNDS AS GOOD AS IT CAN BECAUSE I THINK IN THE MODERN STREAMING AGE, THE LAST THING YOU WANT TO DO IS MAKE SOMETHING SAMEY OR BORING THAT IS REALLY GOING TO JUST DISINTEREST PEOPLE. HOW IMPORTANT IS IT THAT YOU DIFFERENTIATE YOURSELVES AND MAKE THE BEST MUSIC THAT YOU CAN?

Shay: I think it's massively important and I think with us, I don't think there is necessarily a band that people can relate us to, one band at least. For example, we're being told, “You're a bit like The Jam”, but people probably are lulled into thinking we like The Jam because we wear modern-looking suits, whereas I think the sound isn't very Jam-like.

Guy: I think another thing is actually the way we record the music. You talk about production, we try to keep as much of a live feel of it as we can. The first couple of hours of a studio session is us playing together live in a room until we get the take and then we'll add things on, but I feel like a lot of the time now it's one instrument of time.

Shay: Like Guys saying, that's how we do it with the drums because I feel like if you were doing the drums by themselves in the studio, you're almost not feeling it and you've got nothing around you, so you're just drumming away like that, but when me and Guy are playing with Adam for his takes, he's bouncing off our plane to create that feel. It's about being honest and raw, and as Guy says, a live feel. Obviously, with modern technology, it's very easy to go down the path of being overproduced and using all this stuff to your advantage, when in reality it's quite nice to go back to just simply playing together.

I WANT TO BRING THIS UP BECAUSE IT IS A BIT OF A CONSCIENTIOUS TOPIC IN THE MUSIC SPACE, ESPECIALLY THROUGH IN A SOCIAL MEDIA AGE WHERE PROMOTION IS SUCH A BIG THING AND I SEE ON TWITTER AND TIKTOK, THESE WANNABE INDIE ARTISTS JUST SPOUTING SOME JUST REALLY JUST POOR AND BOTTOM OF THE BARREL LYRICS OVER THESE BORING GUITARS AND IT PUTS MY MIND IN A BAD PLACE FOR THE INDIE SCENE. WHY ARE YOU TAKING A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO THIS PROMOTION MAKING OF THE ALBUM?

Shay: People try to guess what other people are thinking and what other people want. For example, you'll know what I mean if you're talking about a band people try to copy, you're thinking of the Arctic Monkeys or up here, Sam Fender, so people try to copy that. I think people would think in their own heads, if I make something that sounds like that or style of him or that band or whoever, people are going to think that's going to be what people want, but people just end up saying to you, that just sounds like that. So it's about hitting the right spot of thinking people are going to recognize that. They’re either going to like or think you’re just copying something else

Guy: In a way, it kinda promotes itself. If you're doing something no one's heard before, It's harder to promote yourself when you've got to prove that you're not like the Arctic Monkeys, but if people don't even need to think about that, it's its own thing, you don't really need to put as much effort in. So that's good when we're at such an early stage, just sticking out a bit and that's always been the case. Lee, our manager, only really picked us up because he thought Shay's voice was different so it's what happens.

ME AND YOU, SHAY, WE TALKED A COUPLE OF YEARS BACK FOR AN INTERVIEW THAT I DID FOR UNIVERSITY AND YOU MENTIONED A COUPLE OF BANDS THAT YOU'D BEEN INFLUENCED BY, BANDS LIKE HOCKEY DAD AND WALLOWS. I REMEMBER YOU MENTIONED PINK FLOYD AND QUEEN AS WELL, HAVE THOSE INFLUENCES CHANGED AND VARIED AS THE YEARS WENT ON, HAS YOUR MUSIC TASTES HAVE DEVELOPED AND CHANGED, OR HAS THE CORE INFLUENCES STUCK AROUND AND KEPT WITHIN THE CREATIVE PROCESS?

Shay: I would say they've definitely stuck around. I'd say stuff does leave, but the core stuff never really does. For example, we did another interview the other day where people tend to ask, “What's your influences?”, and Wallows and Hockey Dad, for example, we always say them because that's a core thing.

Guy: That's not to say it hasn't grown, though. Adam's not all about queen and you've got the hip hop stuff but that gives it a different feel on the drums. You wouldn't imagine an indie song with a hip hop beat or something like that.

Shay: I think, for example, if you were to link Hockey Dad and Wallows, I would say the formats and arrangements of songs and melodies are more like Wallows, but the main thing with Hockey Dad is the guitar tone and that raw, bluesy, surfy guitar tone, which we would then implement into that more pop friendly Wallows format in a way. I don't think Wallows' sounds inspire us much, but rather just the way they set out to make a catchy song.

I'M CURIOUS ABOUT THE HIP HOP THING BECAUSE THAT'S SOMETHING THAT I DIDN'T PERSONALLY CATCH. WHERE DOES THAT STEM FROM? IS THAT STEMMING FROM OLD SCHOOL STUFF IN THE '90S OR BOOMBAP REVIVAL, THINGS LIKE THAT?

Adam: Most of them, stuff like The Far Side, A Tribe Called Quest, it's mainly just the drums that I'll play something from and it just comes from there.

GOING OFF THE ALBUM FOR NOW, YOU'VE GOT A BIG SUMMER COMING UP AS WELL. PLENTY OF FESTIVALS THAT I'VE SEEN HAS BEEN BOOKED FOR, WHETHER THAT BE IN THE NORTH EAST OR OTHER AREAS OF THE UK. WHERE ARE YOU MOST EXCITED TO PLAY?

Guy: The Hardwick lineup is crazy. I can't believe we're on that poster. But Lindesfarne is a festival I've always grown up wanting to go to and the first time I'm going I’m also playing it, so that's pretty crazy. We also got the local ones. Coast Fest won best new festival and we played last year. It was class and I just love supporting little communities around the North East with their festivals. I'm excited for all of them. I don't think there's one that I'm most buzzing about any festival you get as a band, it's just golden. Unless it's Glastonbury, Glastonbury is the exception.

YOU'VE BEEN ON THE ROAD ALREADY LOADS THIS YEAR. I MEAN, HE'S BEEN TOURING WITH SO MANY DIFFERENT BANDS AND ARTISTS AND CALL IT CLICHÉ, BUT WHAT IS THE WORST AND THE BEST PART ABOUT BEING A BAND ON TOUR?

Guy: Mine is just the diet and the lack of sleep, after two days, it just kills me. But the best thing is the moment when you come off stage and you just have that relief because I get really bad stage fright, so when I come off I can just relax.

Shay: For me, apart from actually playing the show, something about getting set up is fun, getting your stuff on the stage, you're plugged in and you know you're all ready to go and put on your show is great and then after, like these are saying, when we played with The Libertines in Leeds after the show, me and Guy went in an ice bath because Pete and Carl from The Libs do an ice bath after every show. They asked me during soundcheck if we wanted to, and I said, “Oh, not right now”, then went to go and say bye to them and Pete asked if I was still up for the ice bath. So Guy went in and I was a bit more reluctant, but then I did it and it felt so good. At first, I expected the best thing to be seeing new places, but you don't see anything. When we played Leeds and when we played Glasgow, we didn't see the cities.

EVEN THOUGH YOU DON’T SEE THE CITIES MUCH, YOU DO SEE LOTS OF NEW VENUES, IS THERE ANY VENUES THAT YOU'VE PLAYED AT RECENTLY THAT'S STUCK IN YOUR MIND?

Guy: There was a place in Glasgow, It was like an old repurposed church and it had the first real food we'd eaten in three days. That was a really cool venue, it had a high ceiling, but it had all these hanging things. It was the most Libertines-esque venue. It was class.

Shay: We played this place in Scunthorpe with Andrew Cushin called Cafe Indie and it's just a free café. It's almost like a youth club and you go down some stairs and they've got this massive stage and it's sick.

ONE LAST THING BEFORE WE CLOSE THIS OUT, FOR ANYONE READING THIS OR LISTENING TO IT AND HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO YOU LOT ARE, I NEED TO QUICKLY JUST SUM UP THE ALBUM AND WHAT THEY SHOULD EXPECT GOING INTO THIS FROM THIS NEW AND UPCOMING BAND.

Shay: Well, you probably know we're called Bear Park, as we've mentioned, but this album, which is a self-titled album, it's a roller coaster. It's got loads of stuff on it. It's got your classic indie bangers, it's got quieter songs which are more mellow. You can close your eyes and go to sleep with them, songs that make you sing, you could drive to them, you could hoover to them, you could just go about your day. It's just everyday easy listening.

Guy: I would say there's a song for every emotion on that album.

PERFECT, THANK YOU VERY MUCH, LADS. THIS HAS BEEN A HIVE MAGAZINE INTERVIEW WITH BEAR PARK.

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