Boys To Men

In five short years Sydney's Boy & Bear have gone from strength to strength, receiving critical and commercial praise and touring non-stop nationally and overseas. Their debut album Moonfire garnered five ARIA Awards and their follow-up, last year's Harlequin Dream, managed to top the ARIA charts. Drummer Tim Hart says despite the success, the band still have their feet planted firmly on the ground.

“The only thing that's changed is the fact we have a little bit more time and resources with which to explore music,” says Hart. “I think we're the same lads that I started out in the band with all those years ago, the same jokes in the back of the van and sharing rooms together. The one thing that happened is we lost Jake [Tarasenko], our first bass player, and we have Dave Symes now which is alright. I think if you're smart, you don't let that thing change you and you just keep trying to make the best music you possibly can.”

Boy & Bear's upcoming tour will pack in 30 dates in only a month-and-a-half. Hart says it's a chance for fans from regional areas to finally see the band in the flesh.

“It's always been really important for us to tour regionally, but we had a finite sort of period of about eight weeks and we decided instead of going out and doing capital cities, we'd go out and try to get to as many regional [places] as we could. I think that one of the nicest things about touring is the variety between places. Obviously at home we're fortunate because the triple j support we've had has been really wonderful and so a lot of these guys in regional areas that have been listening to the music for years, it's maybe their first chance to come to see it live. It's really exciting and there's a lot of anticipation for it.”

Harlequin Dream, Boy & Bear's latest record from last year, saw the five-piece move into more surreal lyrical imagery with an added emphasis on groove and sonic textures throughout the songs. But Hart says that while their sound has evolved and changed past the folk labels put upon them with their earlier tracks, they didn't feel any pressure to remain inside the folk box, even though they were following up such a successful record of the form.

“Sometimes what people think they want and what they actually want are two different things,” says Aitken. “I think if a band makes the same album twice, there's always an element of disappointment and I don't think it's something that we could have ever done as musicians anyway. So the band didn't feel any pressure.

“I think if anything we felt pressured to just keep evolving as artists, like we had to do something different,” Hart adds. “And our fans have really come along for the ride, [although] I'm sure some people do prefer the old sound, and that's fine, that's for them. But I think a lot really enjoy the correlation between the two [records] and enjoy the progression [of our sound].”

That being said, Hart is quick to joke about the band forgoing their folk leanings for an added emphasis on rock in their new songs and live shows.

“When we first formed we were sort of trying to find out what our sound was and now we've just become complete rock gods,” he jokes. “But I guess for us now it's been about going back to the music we grew up with and a lot of that was the '70s pop stuff. You know, Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles and then into the '80s with ELO and some of the Springsteen stuff.

“It's been really fun for us because it's music to listen to and so it's great playing that stuff and evolving in that way. Folk's still very much a part of who we are, but I guess the evolution of the sound was really natural; we just wanted to play music we enjoy, and that's what we get to do these days.”