Wednesday-music.com profile: Grizzly Bear

Brooklyn based Grizzly Bear is made up of Daniel Rossen (songwriting/guitar), Ed Droste (songwriting/guitar), Chris Taylor (bass/woodwinds/electronics/vocals) and Christopher Bear (drums/vocals). All four members of the acid-folk/neo-psychedelic lo-fi quintet contribute vocals.

Grizzly Bear connected while students at New York University. During freshman year, Daniel met Chris Taylor in the dorm. Sophomore year, Chris Taylor met Christopher Bear through "jazz stuff" they were playing. Upon meeting Christopher Bear, Daniel realized that as teenagers, they went to jazz camp together. Ed met Christopher Bear while working on a documentary at NYU.

Daniel grew up in Boston and comes from a long musical history. His grandfather was head of the Harvard music department, his aunt is a classically trained cellist, and his mother taught music at a Boston elementary school.

Ed's voice is full and wide reaching, reminiscent of the late 80's New Wave, but it took him some time to find his confidence. "I was insecure about the songs, about my voice," Ed said. "I was fearful of judgment and fearful of what people would think and just generally fearful."

He continued to work and wrote a collection of "tortured and creepy but very beautiful songs". In 2004, the band released their debut, Horn of Plenty. "That album is this weird faded Polaroid of my past," Ed said.

In 2005, Horn of Plenty was successfully re-released as a remix album and placed Grizzly Bear right in the middle of an emerging Brooklyn music scene. The band really doesn't like to talk about their success. "We really hate commenting about, like, our stature," Ed explains. "because if you're talking about being in the scene and being a leader and self-referencing in this weird ranking system of how big you are or how small you are or who likes you, it inherently sounds douchey."

After isolating themselves for three weeks at an estate in the Catskills, and having nothing to do but make pasta and music, they emerged with the recordings of what became their third LP. On may 26, 2009, to great anticipation, the band released Veckatimest (named for a small island off cape cod).

Click here to listen to a May 21, 2009 set recorded by WNYC. Click here to listen to a July 05, 2007 Pop Sessions interview and performance recorded by KEXP. Click here to listen to an NPR Morning Edition story airing originally on November 06, 2007. Click here for an in-studio set recorded by WXPN for World Café on October 10, 2006. Click here to listen to a few songs from a February 10, 2007 gig at Minneapolis' "Live from 7th Street Wintry", recorded by Schedule Two.

Check here to see if Grizzly Bear have any gigs scheduled near you.

As always, please buy this album from your local independent music store by people who know and love music and not from retailers like Wal-Mart (soulless, globally-homogenizing, community-killers) or I-tunes (albums should be listened to as an entire composition with album cover and liner notes in hand). Incidentally, these two companies sell more music than any other retailer in the United States. That my friend, bites.

Grizzly Bear rocks…

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