Boy & Bear needed to 'escape Nashville' to bring their second record to life, frontman Dave Hosking has revealed.

Speaking to theMusic.com.au Hosking said that he had a troublesome time in the famous US music city as he struggled to find inspiration for what would become Harlequin Dream.

“I started writing about two months after we got back from Nashville. I felt like Nashville was a little distressing at times, because I just didn't have the motivation to start writing over there.”

The record, which was released today, was eventually recorded with Wayne Connolly in Sydney's Albert Studios. “We were just so driven this time around to do it ourselves, and originally that was the plan – to just go in… the five of us with just an engineer,” Hosking said, “but our management team convinced us just to do a session with someone like Wayne, and it just went so well.”

Footage from those sessions can be seen in the latest 'making of' video by the band, which theMusic is premiering below:

In the interview Hosking also admits that the band set out to write “easy to consume songs”, saying, “I think there was a real realisation that the old stuff is really clever and ingenious, and then as we dug deeper we realised it's not that easy to pull off, they're hopefully songs that people can sing along to.”

The band will be touring throughout October and November, with the full dates below: