Written by Katherine Witts

Following the success of their charity gig at UWE Frenchay, we had the pleasure of chatting with Beware the Bears, an indie band based in Bristol with nearly 3,500 monthly listeners on Spotify. 

To begin, if you can give us some background on the band and when you guys first began working together?

We are all originally from Worcester, we met in sixth form and started a band then. We later brought in Alex as our singer, a childhood friend of Joe. 

Our first single ‘ice cubes’ was part of our Music Technology course, we’d later add to our discography over the next few years!

You guys have been growing month by month, from monthly Spotify listeners almost growing day-by-day, to the success of the recent EP. How have you all found success? Has it been overwhelming at all?

We’ve loved the support we’ve received so far, the success we have achieved hasn’t been too overwhelming either. 

We’ve found it quite interesting how popular we’ve been in the US, the US being our top listener base, and the majority of our top cities being there too. US tour incoming?? Probably not. 

My personal favourite tracks of the EP have to be ‘point street’ and ‘string theory’, but what would you say is your favorite track you’ve made to date and why?

Alex: ‘apricot’, This song is one where I had a lot of fun writing the lyrics, it was fun to record as we were able to record it at Real World Studios (after winning Battle of the Bands at UWE), I also like performing it.

Max: ‘string theory’, this song draws a lot of influence from some of my favourite music such as, Radiohead and Muse. I also particularly enjoy the bass line.

Kurt: ‘pink cowboy boots’, the harmonies are quite satisfying, I also like playing this live, it’s got a nice groove to it. 

Joe: ‘midas’, I got to have a lot of fun writing the lead guitar parts, taking influence from funk, an influence not featured too heavily in our music. It’s quickly become my favourite song of ours to perform.

All of us tend to switch round our favourite songs too, it doesn’t seem to stay too consistent!

When creating the EP, what were some of the main difficulties you faced?

To be honest, we didn’t get any free time over the summer when we wrote/recorded it. Balancing a work + social life proved to be difficult, however, our hard work seems to have paid off as the feedback we have received has been very positive!

Having attended the gig on the 23rd, I especially loved the Coin cover. Would you say bands like Coin are an inspiration to your almost summer/feel-good sound and aesthetic?

Bands like Coin, Wallows, Peach Pit and Artic Monkeys certainly influence our sound. 

However, all together we have quite a variety in music tastes that culminates in the production of our sound!

Mentioning the gig, it was a huge success! Tell us a bit about how you found the night overall. Did the reception exceed your expectations? Any memorable moments?

We each had a lot of fun performing and we felt we brought a lot of energy to the performance, and from what we’ve heard everyone seemed to enjoy it! 

We were happy with the production aspects, in particular the screens kindly lent to us by Pytch, the broadcast also helped those who couldn’t make it enjoy the night as well, as this was streamed to our YouTube!

The visuals on the screens were something we were able to have a lot of fun with too!

As this was a charity event, how much did you guys end up raising for Mind in the end? Also, what made you decide to choose Mind as the chosen charity?

We had some technical problems on the night with tickets, so we were instead encouraging direct donations, and therefore don’t have a exact figure. 

We chose Mind because we believe that mental health work is an under-funded and under-appreciated area and we wanted to do our part to support as much as we can!

Finally, what can we expect to see from you guys in the future? 

We’ve got some gigs coming up very soon! Keep an eye on our social media for future updates… The same goes for our music, there are plans in place and exciting stuff to look forward too!

You can listen to Beware the Bears new EP here! 

To donate to Mind UK and support young people’s mental health, click here!