Minus the Bear.

DURING THE FALL of 2004, Minus the Bear embarked on an 11-week tour that took them across North America from their home in Seattle, WA, to the streets and hot springs of Reykjavik, Iceland, and finally from one historic European city to the next. Hardly novices to the open road, this was the Bear's most extensive tour in their four-year career and proved not only to be successful in bringing their impeccable melodies, driving dance beats, and trademark Metallica-inspired finger tapping to curious chicos and chicas, but proved to be the creative source behind their sophomore release Menos El Oso.

After their nightly band practice, the Bear and I meet in the living room of bassist Cory Murchy's Tudor-style home that he rents with his girlfriend in the hip Seattle neighborhood of Capitol Hill. The six of us gather around one tape and two twelve packs of beer like a campfire to trade road worn stories and discuss arguably their strongest and most sophisticated release to date. Tour is a favorite topic of conversation among the Bear, and they recount each like old men reminiscing about world wars fought and won. The guys laugh and josh with one another, and A they finish each other's lively tales. It how much they really enjoy their tours, especially in retrospect.

One of their more memorable experiences came from Spain, where they connected with and were heavily influenced by the vibrant and passionate Spanish culture. In cities like St Feliu and Barcelona, singer and guitarist Jake Snider tapped into his wanderlust muse as the basis to many of the story-driven songs on Menos El Oso (Spanish for Minus the Bear). Fragrant with romanticism and nostalgia, Snider's songs are the daydreams of a young man self-conscious about maturing, the loss of innocence, and escaping the hum-drum of every day life. It's a far cry from all the bars, drinking, and girl trope that characterized much of the Bear's previous songs and bogged them down with a reputation as a party band that they now have little interest in keeping.

"I'm pretty much supposed to be an adult now, but I don't like the idea of being totally settled down, so it is this escapism-type thing that I'm working through in the songs," explains Snider. When I prod him further on his change in lyrical subject matter he shrugs it off, wanting the nuances of each song to stand on its own for the listener to connect in their own way with the record.

In contrast, the Bear is much more candid about their music; making sure I understand that the synchronicity with all five players and the transitions that sound effortlessly executed on Menos El Oso are anything but, and take a lot of time.

While most people would have been at the throats of their travel mates after two and a half long months cramped together in a van, the Bear were bonding over how they wanted their next record to sound. Drummer Erin Tate explains that many of their sonic ideas were actually cultivated while driving between and during down time at shows throughout their 2004 tour.

"In Europe, we couldn't really talk to anyone but the four other people in the band and our driver, so we spent a lot of time listening to and talking about music," says Tate. "There were a ton of records that we all got into individually and brought back to the rest of the group. Something about that was inspiring and really shaped the back end of the songs."

The technically savvy Bear were intrigued by the guitar parts and production methods of bands like the Books and Four Tet, and equally interested in the beats of Daft Punk and Frou Frou. When they returned from tour they immediately entered Studio Litho and Snider's Bat Cave and began constructing a new foundation for the group's fourth release for the indie label Suicide Squeeze.

"We definitely tried our hardest on this one. We wanted it to be a different record for us. We wrote different parts and tried new things in the studio that we normally wouldn't do," reveals guitarist Dave Knudson.

And as Tate points out, they also had a lot of fun writing it. For three months the group experimented with various mics and setups, desecrated the standard ambient rock drum sound, ran Knudson's riffs through samplers (which they then looped), stripped away all unnecessary layers, added the angelic vocals from members of the Velvet Teen and the New Trust along with Seattle solo artist Heather Duby, and complimented parts with subtle keyboards and electronic quips.

Production wizard and synth master Matt Bayles concludes, "We've all had our personal non-music related things happen that took our heads in and out of our band, but because of that 11-week monster tour, we're back here together and more than ever on the same page."

They certainly are. Menos El Oso is the sum of its parts, uniting five very talented players and strong personalities into one exciting forward moving sound that is wholly unique to the Bear. It's also an astonishing intimate travelogue that adheres to no border or genre, but rather documents a group's personal and musical growth, and will go on to be enjoyed by listeners for years and years to come.