Boy & Bear is a Sydney based Indie folk rock outfit with a career spanning over a decade in Australia. The band has an impressive resume of support performances, a strong catalog of material, and a sound that is very much their own. They consist of David Hoskins on Guitar and lead vocals, Killian Gavin on Guitar and vocals, Tim Hart on drums and vocals, Jonathan Hart on Mandolin and keys, and David Symes on bass. I had the opportunity to have a chat with Killian from the band ahead of their upcoming dates at The Tanks in Cairns.

I enquired about their support of folk legends, Mumford and Sons..

“ We were supporting Laura Marley, another U.K. artist, and Marcus Mumford was her drummer, so we met Marcus ages ago, before things got crazy for them, and when they came back out, they were probably one of the biggest bands in the world, and we got the support slot because of the friendship we had from a few years prior to that. It was a bit nuts”

“We were still so young and so green, but it helped to catapult us into the public awareness. It was pretty amazing that Boy and Bear was a good fit for such a gig, because, like Mumford and sons, their sound and musical stylings are not at all typical or generic. The sound is distinctive , but nothing leaps out as being familiar or borrowed. It can be hard to find your own space or sound, and I guess if you do it for a long time, and we are fortunate enough to have done this for a while now, you end up finding your own little world where you try this and that, and end up finding a group of songs that you kinda think  “That sounds like us”  

The distinctive voice of lead singer, David Hoskins, and the precise yet subtle harmonies on many of their tracks add to this sonic fingerprint.
Writers that capture fragments of real life by writing and singing about personal experience lend authenticity and distinctiveness to their work. One standout track was Back Down the Black, a song written primarily with David’s brother in mind, that explores the challenges of battling depression and hardship with someone close.

“With your head on your chest , and your chest in your mouth, you don’t look so good There’ll be change, cos this one’s too big not to see But brother, you’re scared and Im scared when you’re scared, cos you aint ‘sposed to be”

Simple but poignant lyrics that paint a clear picture of concern for someone that needs help but resists it.

“One of the great things about music is that it doesn’t always matter what the intention was behind the writing ,people can derive their own meaning from it regardless”. “We all do the songwriting. Anyone can bring an idea, and it will be workshopped by all five of us. Its probably become more fluid than it was. At the start, Dave did most of the songwriting, But when we started doing our third record, It became more of a collaborative effort, and more so with each subsequent album”

Suck On life was probably the hardest song we ever wrote. We had probably 4 or 5 different versions of it that we had recorded demos of, and we could never get it to work, and it was about 2 years and we went to Nashville to record, and we still weren’t sure if we could get it to work. It wasnt until we got a co-producer to work with it, that we came up with an arrangement that flowed , and thats what exists now”

“We have always been very protective of our production. We didn’t want a producer to come in and say ‘This is how it is’. We wanted someone who was more like a sixth member that could work with us to get a result we were all happy with”.

One of the challenges the band has faced is Dave’s health issues. He suffers from a gut flora issue that has a negative effect on his entire body, including debilitating headaches, dizziness and digestive complications.

“When Dave went down , he went down in a big way, and we weren’t even sure whether he would recover. We had been going for about 10 years at that stage, and not knowing whether we would even continue was not a nice idea to be toying with. While Dave was ill, we kept writing , and sending him demos and ideas. It was kind of like a lifeline for him. It kept him engaged and helped to rejuvenate his passion for the work.”

We discussed the production quality and innovative nature of the video clips, a vital aspect of modern music that the band has achieved at a level that belies their independent, smaller budget status .

“You might contact a number of directors and producers, send them the songs,and discuss ideas, but it takes a lot of filtering through to find ideas that are not only interesting, but executable, because we don’t have the massive budget that some artists have for producing videos.”

One example is the video to Walk The Wire, which is a tongue in cheek look at behind the scenes production of a music video, where a green screen concept goes awry in the most unexpected ways.

“That video was particularly fun to make. We have worked with that crew a number of times over the years, and that was like a pinnacle in terms of production of video clips” “We have some amazing producers and directors in Australia that use film clips to feature their work and bolster their careers, and although we have some creative input, this is not our area of expertise, so we are careful about who we work with. Its our job to find those right people, share some ideas , then say ‘They seem like they know what they’re doing’ and we just let them take the lead .”

Late last year, the band toured with Crowded House, which was the end result of being on a compilation album, performing Fall At Your Feet, back before they had even cut their first record.

“We met Tim (Finn) at his studio in Aukland, and went up to his private quarters later. The end result was , we got to tour with Crowded House, which was mad. When we originally did the song, we had no idea what it would go on to do. There were so many great artists on that album (He will have his way). So it was very surprising that it went on to do what it did. We had two days to arrange and record the song, so we had to go with our gut and just do what felt right, without overthinking it”

The band’s latest offering is a self titled album, and the North Queensland leg of the tour will be from Mackay, Airlie Beach, J.C.U. in Townsville, and finally at The Tanks in Cairns . They will be playing two shows in Cairns, on the 14th and 15th of October. The 15th is sold out, but if you’re quick, there are a few left for the 14th. Tickets are available through TicketLink.

Noel Keid

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