Lawrence.com

Seattle prog /modern rock five-piece Minus the Bear plays Friday October at The Granada Theater in Lawrence as part of their 10th Anniversary Tour. In advance of the show, Drummer Erin Tate was interviewed about being in a band for 10 years, the challenges of playing an album in its entirety every night and Genesis.

Lawrence.com: Even though you are touted as a prog rock band, your songs have a pretty distinct sense of melody. How do you balance pop hooks with intricate instrumentation?

Erin Tate: I think it depends on the song honestly. Certain types of songs that we’re writing calls for catchier stuff and other songs call for more “out there” stuff. It really depends on the individual song. The prog rock comments really came from that "Planet of Ice" record (2007) that we did where we really went out of our way to make things more Yes-influenced or Pink Floyd and King Crimson and get back to some of the roots. I don’t think it’s a huge part of the band, but it definitely comes up in that its something that we’re all influenced by. But as far as hooky stuff, it kind of depends on the song, it’s like f--- yeah, man, let’s make this catchier or let’s make this poppier, but it’s not something we spend a lot of time thinking about.

Lawrence.com: Is it fair to say that some of your songs come from pure experimentation?

ET: Absolutely. It’s a big part of our songwriting — taking something and literally, we could write a song in a day and then we’ll spend two weeks working on the same song and seeing what options we can get out of it. A song that is two minutes could literally turn into a 15-minute song and then it could go back to a 10-minute song. We have a really hard time knowing when to quit. In the studio when we’re finally recording something is when we know when to quit and then we just record it and it’s done. We have a hard time not experimenting, I guess.

Lawrence.com: Are there priorities? Do you say “The song’s finished when we accomplish this?”

ET: No, not necessarily. There’s no set logic into it. We just do what we do and it’s whatever sounds good to us. It’s not like we really think about it too much, it’s just whatever the song needs.

Lawrence.com: You guys just worked with producer Joe Chicarelli (My Morning Jacket, The Shins) on 2010’s "Omni." What was that collaboration like? How did things change with him in the mix?

ET: It was really different. We’ve always done stuff ourselves/with Matt Bayles, who used to be in the band for every one of the records we’ve done besides "Omni," so it was a totally different process having someone we didn’t know step in and — we’d never met him, we’d only talked to him on the phone — it was just a whole different ballgame, which is what we wanted, We wanted a sixth head to come in and like, “Well, this song would sound good if you did this” and then we would listen to him or not listen to him. He’s a very dominating figure. He’s a very strong, opinionated man and so it was very different for us spending eight years doing everything completely on our own and then having someone come in and tell us what to do. We’ve never been on a label that tells us what to do, we’ve never had management that tells us what to do, so it was literally the first time that any of us in our entire musical careers had someone instructing us on what to do. It was a whole different record process than any of us had ever done.

Lawrence.com: Did he push into certain things that you wouldn’t have considered before that you’re now happy about?

ET: Umm … yeah. It was back and forth. There were things about it that were like, “Holy crap, I never thought about recording something this way” or doing something this way. And then there’s stuff that you look back on and you’re like, "Ugh, why did I compromise.” It’s just a whole different thing and that’s what you have to expect with an eight-time Grammy-winning producer. It’s not going to be your run-of-the-mill recording session, it’s going to be different—which is what we wanted and why we hired him but it was very different than anything any of us had ever done.

Lawrence.com: Now Minus the Bear is celebrating 10 years as a band and is playing your debut record, 2002's "Highly Refined Pirates," every night. This is a crowd-pleasing move for sure, but what does it do to the band, playing old songs every night? Is it healthy to look back?

ET: Yeah, we went into this knowing it was going to be 10 years and we’re about to go into the studio to record a new record and we were like “Do we have time to do something fun?” Yes, we do. We have time. In that vein, [our old label] Suicide Squeeze is pressing "Highly Refined Pirates" on vinyl because it’s been out of print for a long time. And then we’ve never released our first EP on vinyl, and in this day and age, vinyl’s becoming more of a thing and we’re old — we buy records and we listen to them rather than illegally download stuff and we all appreciate the packaging and all the stuff that goes along with a vinyl release more so than a CD. So we started talking about it and it just seemed like a fun thing to do. There are songs that we’ve never played live before and there’s stuff to challenge us. We’ve actually been in the last few days trying to write out a setlist, so it will be interesting. We’ve never played a record as a whole live, but we’re not just playing the record, we’re going to do a whole set on top of that.

Lawrence.com: What about music excites you now as opposed to 10 years ago? What’s different for you guys?

ET: Well, it’s different in that we’re old, jaded bastards. To be completely honest — and this is me speaking for myself here — music doesn’t excite me as much as a 32-year-old man as it did as a 22-year-old man. Now, I get more excitement going back and listening to older stuff that maybe I wasn’t as super hip with back in the day. An indie rock band or punk band was more exciting to me at 22, and at 32, I’d rather listen to Genesis. It’s different in that sense. Being in a band for 10 years and being around the same three guys and playing music together and spending nine months out of our years being together constantly — there’s a growing-up process that you get and I think it’s been very apparent in our music. Growing up drastically affects what you do as musicians.

Lawrence.com: So — Peter Gabriel or Phil Collins Genesis?

ET: Oh, Phil Collins all the way. I have this argument with people constantly, but I got to tell you, I love Phil Collins.

Lawrence.com: I really thought you would go the other way.

ET: Nope. Absolutely not. Peter Gabriel is just a little too theatrical for me. He’s amazing, don’t get me wrong, but when Phil stepped up it was really like “OK, now you guys have hit songs.”

Lawrence.com: So does that mean that [vocalist] Jake [Snider] is not going to be dressing like a dandelion onstage anytime soon?

ET: I f---ing hope not.

Lawrence.com: What’s the biggest change in the music industry in the last 10 years?

ET: It’s radically different. Bands could sell a million records 10 years ago and it just doesn’t happen anymore. The coolest part of that with that and the sharing of music and the Spotifys and all that stuff is that your touring capability can get bigger through just word of mouth. It not people having to go to the record store to buy your record and then be like “Cool, this band’s on tour, I want to see them.” Everyone knows this. Bands have to tour in order to make a living. This is our job. We don’t work besides this. We have to be on the road all the time. Because if we weren’t, we would all be working at Microsoft.