TLOBF Interview // Bear In Heaven

Following many an eye catching festival set over the summer and a remix album that deserves not to be written off under the term “money spinner” Andrew Grillo caught up with Bear in Heaven for a brief chat about Beast Rest Forth Mouth Remixed.

Remix albums tend to be a bit of a money spinner or at least a way for the label to keep an album alive. How did this one come about?

This remix album came about really naturally and quietly… Immediately upon releasing the record, we had friends and strangers alike both asking to remix songs, by mid spring, we had half of the album already remixed, in some cases, several versions of each song.. So it was an easy decision to just go ahead and curate the rest of the disc.. A month later we had a full album of really strong remixes, was very painless considering how great the results are.

The list of remixes is pretty impressive, are these people you knew and had discussed remixes with previously or did the things just get going once you’d decided to do a remix album?

It’s all pretty varied.. Some of these folks are very old friends, others are people we met on tour.. Some we asked outright, and others asked us outright.. it’s really a great example of love within the music world, mutual appreciation through remixing. We love that aspect of it.

Having seen you live the remixes tend to make sense more, it seems to be more groove-based and for want of a better word, ‘dancey’? Has it been a genuine influence to yourselves or is it just more of a fun curiosity?

Dance music has always been a major influence. We listen to it in all forms. House, afrobeat, dustep, you name it. We’ve been playing music live for over 6 years, it’s our deepest desire to make the crowd dance. Curating “dancey” remixes seemed, I dunno, just right. We never discussed this, I think our music lends itself to stripping away the dark parts and making it more fun. We like that.

Which is your favourite treatment on the album?

I can’t pick favorites! They’re all good, otherwise they wouldn’t have been included, and that’s the truth. I will say, I personally enjoy the ones where all of the remixers took the time to break out a guitar or a drum kit and write totally new parts, it’s fun to hear someone elses melodic ideas over your songs, truly inspiring.

Do you tend to relisten and revisit your records once they’re completed or just leave them alone, if so have these treatments made you feel differently about the album?

Rarely. As the record was finished, I listened to it everyday for a couple of months… Mostly as I was trying to wrap my head around what we had done. I was truly proud of it. That, and we were rehearsing the songs to play live, I need to really scrutinize the songs vs. our live versions. Since then, I very rarely listen to it, as we play the songs every night live, I’d be a mad man to listen to our record again, haha. That’s what’s also great about the remix record, it’s almost not like listening to your own music, it’s gave the record a second life for us as a band, something we can enjoy again.

So what’s next for Bear In Heaven?

Touring! We have about 6 more weeks left of tour in the US this year, and then we’re done! We’ll take a well deserved holiday. Visit our families, maybe get a tan in Mexico and then re-group in the New Year to attack a new album, we’re all very anxious to write new songs. Of course, we’re gonna take a 2 week break to tour Australia, I don’t think anyone would blame us for that.