Photo by Ty Johnson
British rock outfit Bear’s Den is destined to have a bright year, having just released their new Without/Within EP alongside their new North American tour.
While the new material comes only months after last spring’s Agape EP, the trio—comprised of Andrew Davies, Joey Haynes and Kevin Jones—shook things up with this latest project.
“It’s some of the personal material we’ve produced,” Davies tells Variance about the new music. “Lyrically, I feel more of an attachment to these songs than to some of the earlier ones. Musically, we wanted to sort of try new things and not be afraid to experiment. The EP is a great vehicle to show what [we’re] doing and get some of our music out there.”
Only a couple of years old, the band has already had quite a run. Opening for Mumford and Sons last year certainly helped increase their profile, but Davies admits the experience was still unnerving.
"It’s kind of incredible because you can hardly believe you’re even doing that,” says Davies. “It’s just thousands of people. Like a really good dream but also terrifying.”
It was a great benchmark for the band, which has gained a reputation for being very much DIY. But despite the bumps in the road, while seeing their peers climb the ladder of success, Davies says he wouldn’t change a thing.
“It’s quite dangerous when you make music to assume that you’re going to get signed to a label and you’re going to get loads of money and be really successful very quickly,” he explains. "For us, it was more about earning the right to do certain things. It’s always been within our own limitations, and that’s why it’s been great. Because there haven’t been people we need to pay back or any of that. We just grabbed the equipment we had and went to Wales for a couple of weeks and recorded a bunch of songs. And that’s where it started. There are certainly quicker ways of climbing up, but this was the best way for us to push our music. And it’s important to us, because when good things happen, it has a certain kind of value for us knowing that we worked really hard for this. So when we can have a tour manager and all these other perks, then we’ll really appreciate it. It’s kind of like, we’ve earned this. It’s kind of nice to have that kind of motivation.”
Without/Within is out now, with a full-length planned sometime in the next year. For tour dates and information, click here.