Review: Minus the Bear – Menos El Oso

AbsolutePunk Nov 21, 2005

Minus the Bear has returned with their highly anticipated sophomore full-length. The appropriately titled Menos El Oso (meaning Minus the Bear in Spanish) is different from the band’s previous works, but still distinctly Minus the Bear. MTB is known for electro-rock songs full of finger tapping work on the guitar, with lyrics about girls, booze, women, alcohol, and more drinking. While Menos El Oso is a bit toned down from their previous releases, the lyrics are still dark and witty, and the music is as unique as ever. Minus the Bear is so very different from other bands out there in the sense that they are extremely talented song writers. Instead of settling for cheap hooks and choruses, Minus the Bear writes songs that get better with ever listen. Menos El Oso is an album that I was grossly unimpressed with upon first listen. The overall tempo is slower than the band’s earlier releases, the music seems to be less technical at first glance (not really the case), and the whole album just seemed to drag. Then, after weeks and weeks of constant listening, Menos El Oso has grown to be one of my favorite albums this year. As it gets better with each listen, I realized that Minus the Bear has created a brilliant album, full of mid-tempo songs that contain melodies in all kinds of places. In almost every track, you’ll find yourself singing along to the guitar line or the bouncing bass line instead of the vocal melody. The songwriting displayed on Menos El Oso is outstanding.

AbsolutePunk Nov 18, 2005

This interview was conducted with Matt, Eron, and JT of Hawthorne Heights on November 18th, 2005 in Atlanta, GA at the band’s show at the Masquerade with Aiden, Bayside, and Silverstein.

Also, please make sure you go to the show and give your support to Anthony and Jack of Bayside. I know they appreciate every fan that comes up to them and gives them a hug; it really does mean a lot.

AbsolutePunk Nov 11, 2005

How exactly did the band come about and what made you want to start one in the first place?

Well I have known Spencer, our drummer for most of my life, and I met Brent in high school, he transferred schools in his junior year, and met Brendon in their senior year. We had him come to a band practice to try out for guitar, I actually started out as the singer, and in one of those early practices we had him sing for some reason and found out he had a much better voice than I did.

AbsolutePunk Oct 17, 2005

Thanks to Mike Green for taking the time out of his day(s) to answer these questions for me. I highly suggest reading all of the text below because it’s extremely informing, especially to those who are interested in pursuing careers in the music business.

How long did it take you to build up your name to the point where you were able to make production your full time job? In other words, when did you realize, “This is my career and this is what I will be doing to pay my bills and survive”?

I always loved recording and have played guitar for 13 years, but never really had any formal training. My formal education was in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UC Berkeley (Go Bears!) class of 2002. I was designing computer chips for a living when I went to a show and saw a then-unsigned band called The Matches play. I loved the band the first time I saw them and told them that I would record them for $100.00. So we ended up working together for nine months for $100.00!! And those sessions are the ones that are on the Epitaph release of their album!

I was very fortunate that The Matches album on which I worked received a lot of recognition. I’m also very appreciative of The Matches because they also took me to a lot of their A&R meetings where I made some of my best contacts. I had so much fun working on the Matches record that I decided to tell my dork boss to “shove it” and I decided to be a producer/engineer/songwriter full-time. It’s like this: if you have no wife, no kids, no mortgage, and no responsibilities, why not do something you love for the rest of your life?

In response to “how long did it take to make a name”, my first real album came out mid 2004 (The Matches), but I’m too shy to say whether or not I’ve “made a name” for myself, so once I’ve made a good enough name you’ll do the math.

AbsolutePunk Sep 15, 2005

So Phantoms came out a few months ago.

About five months ago. Well, April 26th.

Ok, yeah, that’s five months. So how has life been since then? How has life changed?

How has it changed? I don’t know necessarily that it’s changed. For us, I think, we’ve all been anticipating finally having a full length record out and having it, since we had the EP out and we toured on it for so long. That was like a collection of songs, I mean, some of those were really, really old songs, even at that time we recorded them. For us, the change is just being able to get out there and play stuff that we feel, that we wrote together as a band. With that record, everybody in the band now was there when we made it. Our other songs before, people came into the band after the fact and stuff. We’re just excited that we get to play something that we created. As far as life, I’m not sure how much life has changed. We’re still living in the RV, living in here and on tour all the time. It’s kind of similar, we just get to play different songs now.

AbsolutePunk Aug 29, 2005

So, you are in a few bands (Something Corporate/Jack’s Mannequin). How did you first start getting involved in music?

Since I was little I was always fascinated by music. Whether I could play or not, I would grab every musical instrument I could get my hands on. Eventually around the age of nine on the heels of my uncle passing away, I found myself at the family piano, writing my first song. From there I never stopped and spend most of my time thinking about music and those rare perfect songs.

AbsolutePunk Jul 29, 2005

First of all, everyone of course wants to know, how are you doing with your illness?

I mean, I feel pretty good. I feel pretty good today but I definitely have some days where I don’t feel that good. I mean, I feel pretty good and I’m trying to keep my head in a good spot and eat healthy, you know. I just can’t let anything stop me.

AbsolutePunk Jun 29, 2005

Is there any significance behind the name Acceptance?

We are suppose to have a better story. But we actually played our first show without a name. And then someone just said acceptance and it stuck. We tried to change it but its hard to get all of us to agree on one thing, so we decided it wasn’t a big deal even though there was a lot of cliché band names coming out.

AbsolutePunk Jun 13, 2005

For all the people reading this interview, can you first introduce yourself and tell us what you do in Amber Pacific.

Justin Westcott and I am a guitarist in Amber Pacific.

Greg: I’m Greg and I play bass and do a bit of writing.

Will: I’m Will.

AbsolutePunk Oct 29, 2003

I heard that Mae started as a two-piece and then you guys added more members. What made you decide to add more members?

Well actually what it was the two piece was a recording project, our bass player Mark has a studio back home and we’re good friends so he offered me some free studio time at his convenience when he wasn’t working so I wrote some songs and I was playing with our drummer Jacob just as friends. At first it was just a fun recording project and then it sort of accidentally turned into this.

AbsolutePunk Aug 24, 2003

Hi, this is Roze from AbsolutePunk.net

Hi Roze!

AbsolutePunk Aug 18, 2002

We’ll start off with the dreaded question, how’d you get the name?

John: I suppose I’ll have to answer this one. Do you want the real answer or the fun answer?

Both!

John [Fake Answer]: It was a reference to a Smith’s single that was a b-side to “How Soon Is Now?”

Eddie: Taking Back Sunday is just a name that we came up with that was a song by a friend’s band. We used to go see them all the time but they broke up.

John: Derek from The Reunion Show was in the band.

Review: Minus the Bear – Menos El Oso

Interview: Hawthorne Heights

Interview: Ryan Ross of Panic! at the Disco

Interview: Mike Green

Interview: Kaylan Cloyd of Acceptance

Interview: Andrew McMahon of Jack’s Mannequin

Interview: Daryl Palumbo of Glassjaw

Interview: Acceptance

Interview: Amber Pacific

Interview: Dave Elkins of Mae

Interview: Matt Skiba of Alkaline Trio

Interview: Taking Back Sunday