Emmy: How did the name come about?
Alex: Long time ago me and my brother Matt here,
We was hitchhikin' down a long and lonesome road. All of a sudden, there shined a shiny bear. In the middle of the road.
And he said: "Name your band Bear Witness, or I'll eat your soul."
Well me and Matt, we looked at each other,
And we each said. "Okay."
Emmy: How would you describe your genre to someone who isn't familiar with your music?
Alex: It’s quite hard to pinpoint it to one genre as we love lots of different types of music and so we have quite a varied sound. But if I had to sum it up I'd say beautiful noise. We have been calling our music that for a while, we put so much effort into making sure the music has great melody whilst also containing raw power. So if you like the sound of ‘beautiful noise’ then give us a listen haha.
Emmy: How did the band form?
Alex: Me and my brother have been playing together since the first time we picked up our instruments, so maybe around 13 years. But the band properly formed in 2013, the band we were in at the time was effectively falling apart. The singer had been really unreliable and so it kind of destabilised everything and made it very hard to organise practices and keep everyone motivated. We decided to start a band as the two of us with the focus being on making music we loved playing and making it the best it could be.
Emmy: What are some of the artists that influence you?
Alex: We have quite a varied list of influences, we both listen to different things and that really adds to the sound in a nice way. To name a few: Nirvana, Muse, Mutemath, Queens of The Stone Age, Nothing But Thieves, Prince, Highly Suspect, Twenty One Pilots, Michael Jackson, The Weeknd, Jeff Buckley, Kings of Leon, Goo Goo Dolls, Post Malone, The Glitch Mob, Jack White, The Police, Pearl Jam, Chris Cornell, the list goes on and on! Most importantly though we're really inspired by Jeff Goldblum, his jazz stuff is actually sick haha Emmy: If you could tour with any artist or band (still active or not) who would it be?
Alex: I'd have to say Twenty One Pilots, they're really doing some incredible things with music right now, blending so many genres together, it's quite inspiring to see an act that are so varied doing so well.
Emmy: What's your favorite show you've played?
Alex: So far it would have to be the release show we played for our single 'Perfect Living' earlier this year at The Sunflower Lounge in Birmingham. We held a giveaway of a free poster for whoever bounced around the most to that song and man did we get a good response! The entire room was electric, it was amazing to see.
Emmy: What's the future hold for the band?
Alex: Ultimately we just want to keep pushing to get to a point where we can make a living off the music. We've got our 2nd EP 'DAWN' coming out on the 18th of October which is definitely our best material yet. The songs are just better, and I like to think we've gotten better as musicians too. We're releasing the single 'Tokyo's Ruin' alongside it - which is equally exciting as the video we've made for it is the final part in a 3 chapter short film we've made out of the singles from 'DAWN'. We put so much into making the film: we learnt how to use special FX, storyboarded the entire thing and shot in some crazy places; the peak of Mt. Snowdon to name one of them! The film was inspired a lot by Bladerunner and other sci fi, so it follows a similar dystopian storyline. You'll have to watch it to find out more!
Following from that we've already got some cool ideas in the works for the 3rd EP, we're smashing a few genres together so it hopefully can't be dismissed as 'just another rock EP' - we don't want to give too much away, but it's going to sound unreal.