INTERVIEW: Bear Call Talks Dreamy New Single “Harsh”

With a vintage sound ala Mac DeMarco, San Francisco group Bear Call create a brand of psych-pop purely their own. Their new album “Fancy Acid” comes to us led by the video/single “Harsh” which perfectly matches the washed-out textures of the song with a vibrant visual palette.

To celebrate the release of “Harsh,” we sent Bear Call some interview questions to help introduce them to our loyal Groundsounds readers.

Look for Bear Call out on tour later this September and “Harsh” on Bandcamp here.

Hi, Bear Call! Congrats on your new video for “Harsh”. Can you tell us a little more on who you are and how you first got into making music?

Hey thanks! This past album we operated primarily as a two-piece (Aaron and myself -Skyler). The two of us have been playing together in this project for 3 years and after the recording of “Fancy Acid”, our upcoming full length, we recruited our buds Sam Faw and Ryan Elliott to round out the lineup.

Aaron got into playing music listening to Zeppelin and The Beatles (go figure) and his parents were cool enough to let him have a drum set in the house. As for myself; my mom was always bumping stuff like Nirvana and Alice in Chains on my way to school as a kid and my dad got me my first guitar when I was about 15. Bad call on their part.

What’s your songwriting process like? Who are some of your biggest influences?

We mapped out the songs just jamming live in our garage and once we were happy enough with the structure, we’d record a scratch guitar take. Aaron would track the drums on a few songs. Then for a few, like “Harsh” he would add some synth or sample patches and bring it to me. We spent a lot of time shaping half-finished songs into the final product on this album. Very disorganized, but it worked.

We were definitely listening to a lot of Holy Drug Couple and HOLY. Kind of sounds religious but that’s show biz baby. Honestly, the inspiration for not so much the sound, but the process, came from Kevin Parker. After our last tour we were ready to get back into the studio to record but looking at our schedule and the kind of album we wanted to make, we didn’t want to constrain ourselves to time slots in a normal studio. So Aaron started expanding his collection of recording gear and got really good, really quick and found some boss ass tones. It’s not perfect but we’re happy with it.

How did you approach the video for “Harsh”? How do you feel it connects with the themes of the song?

This was Aaron’s brainchild. We had recorded an entirely different video first but ended up scrapping it after editing began. This was like, weeks of shooting too, but we felt the old video was distracting from the song and thought we could do better. Aaron thought of the video when he couldn’t get to sleep one night – he was just imagining what he would want to see while listening to the track. He just wanted something that was aesthetic since its probably the sexiest track we’ll put out. Ultimately there isn’t much of a thematic connection, it’s just a feel, like something to get into while listening to the song.

Any new San Francisco-based artists/venues/purveyors of the arts you could turn our readers onto?

Definitely want to start with the roofs over our musical heads – Amnesia and Bottom of the Hill are consistently two of the most approachable venues for locals and touring acts. BFF.fm and The Bay Bridged are wonderful champions of local music in the media. We recorded our first album over at Tiny Telephone, which is an incredible studio with rates totally under market value. Our buddy Robby, who mixed this album, is a super talented engineer who has been recording tracks for this Rocks in Your Head (Sonny Smith’s new label-venture) compilation and we hope to see him stay busy contributing to this music community.

Where can we follow you and where can our readers catch you live next?

We’re on the facebook/Instagram/spotify holy trinity. Oh and twitter. Our album release show is at September 9th with Hater from Sweden at Rickshaw Stop here in San Francisco. After that, we hit the road for 3 weeks to support the album. Check our socials for tour dates – we’d love to see you there. ☺

Any parting thoughts? Open platform!

We want to thank Mike at Resurrection Records for putting this album out. Take the time to make those little sandwich idea recipes on the side of the Triscuit boxes. Low key delicious.