This fall, interview prodigy Drew Ailes had an informative conversation with Bear Vs Shark's John Gaviglio (guitar, bass, vocals).
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What bands specifically influenced Bear Vs. Shark during the writing of Terrorhawk?
The writing of Terrorhawk...I'd say, well, we retreated up north to the woods and we brought a boombox. On the boombox we listened to a lot of Clash, a lot of Black Sabbath, some Husker Du, probably took some Led Zeppelin, and definitely I'd say The Constantines. Listened to that a lot. Um...and our first album. That was actually the CD we probably played the most. I'm just kidding. I made that up.
I thought maybe you did.
Wouldn't that be funny? "Yeah, our first album influenced our second album the most."
"Pretty much all we do is buy our own merch and hang out..."
[laughing]
Yeah, that's a pretty good list right there.
What happened since the first and second album that sparked the kind of songwriting that you hear on Terrorhawk? I know it's not completely different than the first album but it's so much more cohesive.
There's a few different reasons. The first being that we've just been playing a hell of a lot more and have improved as musicians. We can just play a lot more things and our ability is just a lot better. The second reason being that we got a new drummer. Although our first drummer was a really good drummer, his ability to comprehend and invent different kinds of time signatures and beats weren't up to the same level as Ashley's, our new drummer. Having Ashley there, we're able to do a lot more things that we wanted to do before. We can explain things to him in musical terms because he's more trained in music than Brandon was. He could do them. And it wasn't just us telling him what to do, he'd actually come to practice and be like, "okay, I've got this beat..." He's just a whole hell of a lot better for us.
How did you get hooked up with Matt Ellard?
Pretty much through the label. Just because he had worked with Converge and Fear Before The March Of The Flames. They thought he'd be more suited for us being as how he has a more eclectic background, having worked with Morphine and Converge...
Motorhead and Jane's Addiction...
Yeah, like, all these different bands. Just all off the wall. And we feel like our sound is not really specific, like hard or soft, or fast sounding, it's kind of all over the board sometimes. So we felt like that would be the best option for us. After talking to our friends in Fear Before The March Of The Flames, they told us that he was a really awesome dude and that he was from England, so everything he said sounded important. So we figured hell, why not? And he was able to hook us up with Dana Colley for the sax part.
Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. Did you ever expect that a member of Morphine would appear on a record that you worked on?
That was like, one of the coolest things that's ever happened to me in my life. So yeah, I never thought about that, how that would ever happen. We told Matt Ellard we were looking for a sax player and he just called him up. The guy came to the studio and just jammed for like, 45 minutes in the sound booth and....eh, I came. Pretty awesome.
Understandably so. Saxophone often has that effect on the male organ.
Funny story on the side, Mark and I ran into him at South By Southwest and we were like, "hey what's up, nice to see you, Dana!" And he was like, "hey, do I know you guys?" And we said "we're from Bear Vs. Shark! You came in and recorded on our album." And he was just like, "uh...", still had no idea. "Matt Ellard called you, you came to the studio in January and played on our album." Then he goes, "oh yeah, hey guys. What's up? Uh, hey...I gotta go."
Ah, that's amazing. Yeah, I suppose bringing guest musicians that you don't know could work out like that, because most of them don't give a shit who you are in the end.
Hah, yeah.
How are the lyrics typically written?
I don't write them. From what I've seen, Mark writes a lot of poetry and a lot of lyrics. And he'll have them. And then...he'll fit them to a song we're writing. Or it'll be like, we'll write a song and then he'll come in and be like, "okay, I need to write lyrics." And we'll just kind of jam on it over and over again while he runs through some ideas. It's pretty much just like every which way he comes up with them.
Has he ever explained or have you ever cared to ask what the hell they're about?
I have asked, and I kind of like to interpret them myself. He kind of likes people to do that too. I know on "Iron Bug" I just figured out that the...I don't know if you could call it a chorus, the slower part, he says something in there and it's about me. So that's pretty cool. Actually, he says my name, and he also said something that pertains to when we were up north writing the album. And I just figured that out. It's like, "hey kids, you're in the fucking graveyard now," because we'd always drive by this graveyard up north and everybody in the band would be like, "hey John, that's where you're going to end up one day, in the graveyard!" They were just picking on me for some reason.
That sounds pretty ruthless.
Yeah, I don't know, it's just one of those stupid things that everybody laughs about. "You're gonna die, huhuhuh."
How did you join the Equal Vision roster in the first place?
Well, we had been a band for about six months before we recorded the demo, the seven song EP. We sent out like, eight copies to labels that we wanted to work with. They were the only ones that responded....uh...favorably? So they flew out to Michigan and saw us play a show at a skate park in front of eight kids and they immediately signed up. So that's how that happened. Pretty incredible, kind of. I know they get a ton of demos every day. I was there today and there was just stacks and stacks of CD that they were about to listen to.
Yeah, I'm not sure I'd like that job. Then again, I do reviews so I guess I already have that job only I don't get paid for it.
Yeah, Equal Vision does accept unsolicited material, so if you're in a band, send them your CD because they will listen to it. Although it did take them like, six months to get back to us.
What bands were you guys involved with prior to Bear Vs Shark?
I played with a couple of bands in college, just really for fun. I played in a cover band that covered Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" for Halloween. We also played in a band in high school. Derek and I played in a bunch of bands. One of them called The Tale Of Cybermonkey And His Amazing Floating Vegetable Peeler and another band titled The Facetitious Diphthongs. Mike hasn't really been in any other bands before this. Ashley used to play in Reverend Right Time And The First Cousins Of Funk. It's a funk band from Michigan.
I heard he also used to do work for Psychopathic Records.
He did, he did. He was in Zug Island playing drums right before playing drums. They're the rock band that's on Psychopathic.
Yeah, and that he did session work or live work with ICP and Twiztid.
Yeah, he was kind of the sessions drummer for the label, Psychopathic. So he recorded on all those albums. He's not from the same kind of musical background as us. It's weird because we grew up with him. Mark and him were best friends from like, seventh grade or something. We all went to college and he joined a bunch of bands and hit the road. And then like, in Detroit, there's only so many opportunities for a drummer, and he ended up just hooking up with the guys from Insane Clown Posse and they paid his bills for him and stuff. And then we got him back...because he was....he was...wait, he was on the dark side so...we got him back to the light side?
I see.
I don't know. I don't know. Whatever. Either way it's fine.
I think he was in The Dark Carnival.
Dark Lotus?
Black Lotus?
Alright, there it is.
I think we've made a full circle now. You'll be on tour with Fear Before The March Of The Flames, Fall Of Troy, and Since By Man. While most, if not all of these bands, tend to splice in a fair amount of creativity within their style, it still seems like you guys stick out like a sore thumb on that tour as opposed to going out with a band like Planes Mistaken For Stars, per se.
Mmhm.
Wait, that's not even a question at all. I don't know why I wrote that.
Correct!
[laughing]
Excellent!
True. Um...yeah. Did you have any comments on that?
No, no. I could've sworn that was a question, but looking over it, there's no question mark to be seen anywhere.
When I'm writing, sometimes I switch the first two words and it'll make a question.
Uh...be you'll on tour...?
Okay, no, that doesn't work.
No, no. I don't know.
How do I feel about that?
Yeah, do you prefer going out with bands who are closer to your style? I guess that's a question now.
Yeah, that'll work. Yeah, we probably would, but we never have. Even Planes Mistaken For Stars...they're more up our alley for sure, but it's not...
They're still pretty far displaced.
Yeah, exactly. I don't think there's really a lot of bands we can tour with. I think we appeal to the fans of Since By Man and maybe Fall Of Troy and Fear Before The March Of The Flames, but I think we could also appeal to fans of bands who are a lot quieter, too. I don't know, it's cool.
In the event that you ever did get to go on tour with a lot quieter bands, who would you like to go on tour with?
I'd love to tour with The Constantines, number one. Number two, Murder By Death. Number three, Lucero. Um, well, yeah. I have a pretty big list, so I'll just leave it at that.
No, keep going.
Well, I'd love to tour with Modest Mouse, of course. I'd love to tour with The Murder City Devils, although they're not quiet. But if they were still around today, I'd love to tour with them. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. Ah, nevermind. That's good.
How are the crowd's responses usually at shows like that, particularly when you were out with Horse The Band and Curl Up And Die?
Actually really good. We're starting to bring actually a lot of kids who are coming to see us these days thanks to Lambgoat and other people who have reviewed us. There's a lot of kids who come to see us and the response has been really cool. Even on the Fear Before The March Of The Flames tour, I think a lot of the kids are really young and impressionable, so we'll just tell them that we're cool and hope that they believe us.
Do you know if Mark has any plans to showcase his artwork or to work on any other albums?
Not albums, but he's done other band's t-shirt designs. Like he's done Circa Survive's design...and I think he's working on some more stuff too. As for showcasing his artwork, I don't think he's had really enough time since we've been touring so much lately to do his paintings and to do things like that. So I don't really know what he has going on right now or his plans for the future.
What would you say is the hardest thing about being in the band?
Being away from home. Missing my girlfriend and the other comforts of home.
I know you said you were in college, did anyone else attend school and what for?
Yeah, I attended for German and economics at the University of Michigan. Double major. Derek went for English, but he didn't graduate. He's like, one class away from Michigan State. Mike and Mark both graduated from Eastern Michigan, Mark with a Fine Arts degree and Mike with an English degree, and Ashley didn't go anywhere.
People have accused you guys of not taking yourselves seriously having a name like Bear Vs Shark and having Castlevania-inspired song titles.
[laughing]
How does that strike you? Does it bother you that some people don't take it seriously?
I don't really give a shit. I mean, people can think what we want. I think that we very obviously take our music very seriously. We're just giggling schoolgirls half the time, we really try to make each other laugh, so we don't want to come across as some super serious and pretentious dudes or anything. Like I said, it's very obvious we take the music very seriously but it's not like we have to shove it down everybody's throats that we're super serious about everything. You need a laugh every now and then and have a good time.
If you had to choose one movie to represent Bear Vs Shark, what would that movie be?
"Some Kind Of Monster."
"Some Kind Of Monster?"
Yeah. [laughing]
Because of it's cutting-edge, raw, brutality?
Yeah. [laughing]
You said that, not me.
Cool.
And have you ever been in any contact with Minus The Bear or even Shark Attack, and have you ever considered forming a supergroup and calling it Minus The Bear Vs Shark Attack?
Um, I've never thought about that. No. Thank you for giving me that thought, though. Minus The Bear are our friends on, uh, Myspace. We actually played opposite of them on the two stages at Furnace Fest two years ago, them on the larger stage and us on the smaller stage, and they definitely had the bigger crowd. We actually just played with a band called Shark Shark two days ago and I wanted to beat them up, but I figured I probably shouldn't. And I realized I've never been in a fight in my life so they'd probably beat my ass. So I really decided I wouldn't do it.
I saw a video today of an octopus attacking and killing a three-foot shark.
Whoa.
Yeah.
Octopus do have really weird mouths.
They're really intelligent, too.
Yeah, there's some crazy ones living off the Gulf of Mexico.
Yeah, yeah. That's the rumor.
And then there's actually a band called We Versus The Shark and I think that's bullshit. And you can tell them that if you ever see them. Tell them that I think their name is bullshit.
It'll be in the interview. I assure you everyone will know that We Versus The Shark is full of shit. Full of shark shit.
They even acknowledged in an interview that they knew who we were before they named their band.
Terrible. Just terrible.
I hate them. Anyways. Moving on.
Lastly, in your opinion, who are some of the bands who you feel deserve a little more attention?
I think that's this band out of Detroit called Heads Will Roll. They definitely deserve to be signed to some sort of label and have their album released nationally. They're fucking awesome. Another band, I mean, they're on Sub Pop, but I think everybody should listen to The Constantines. I think they're so awesome. But I mean, you know, a lot of people do listen to them.
Alright, well that concludes our interview.
Cool. Well, thanks for the interview, we appreciate it.
