Lone Bear: Daniel Rossen of Grizzly Bear on Going Solo and Leaving Brooklyn
Photograph by Kenneth Bachor
By Michael Tedder
Photographs by Kenneth Bachor
Two years ago Daniel Rossen released Silent Hour/Golden Mile, a lovely EP that didn’t skimp on the lap steel or bassoon. If you don’t remember it, that’s because as soon as the album came out, Rossen went back to work on Shields, the fourth album from his group Grizzly Bear, one of the defining indie rock groups of the past decade and always a reliable source of awe-inducing waves of bliss. But now that the tour for Shields—during which the band played Coachella, Lollapalooza and all the other usual spots—has concluded, Grizzly Bear is hibernating.
Rossen is taking advantage of the downtime to launch his first solo tour. And we do mean solo; it’s just going to be him up there on guitar and piano, running through Silent Hour, a few songs from In Ear Park, his 2008 album with Department of Eagles, as well as a few new and unreleased tunes. We caught up with him during a break from rehearsal to get the lowdown on the tour, going it alone, and why he decided to leave Brooklyn.
