Lone Bear: Daniel Rossen of Grizzly Bear on Going Solo and Leaving Brooklyn
You released an EP two years ago, but you didn’t get around to touring for it, right?
Yeah, that’s correct. I did that EP while in the midst of doing the last Grizzly Bear record, so, you know, when I finished it, the band was still working and we were only about halfway done with our record. I mean, I could’ve just bailed and toured, but it would have been pretty negligent. We were kind of on a roll; we wanted to keep going and finish the record. I just decided to make it a casual thing, just release the EP and not worry about promoting it too much. In any case, this upcoming tour isn’t specifically promoting that EP. I decided it would be something interesting to try because I’ve never played entire shows alone. And since I have kind of a back catalogue of songs from the Department of Eagles releases, and also the EP, and I have unreleased songs that I’ve given away over the years, I have a lot of material that’s never really been played live, so I thought this would be an excuse to play some of those songs and also try some new things I’ve been working on. It’s just a new challenge. It’s demanding in a way that playing with a band is not, I think. At least, rehearsing for it thus far has been. It may be a little scary at times, but I’m hoping it’ll be a growth experience of some kind to do this.
So it’s just going to be you up there with a guitar? or do you have any backing musicians?
No, that’s what I’m saying. It’s just me. There’ll be piano and guitar but nobody else onstage. Just me alone.
So completely alone?
[Laughs] Yep. It’s funny, people seem to be really surprised by that. I guess it’s just not something people do very much anymore. But yeah, the show will be somewhat in the vein of performances of older times, like solo performances, I guess, something like that. I think it could be a special sort of experience for both me and the audience since it’s not such a common way to perform these days. The show either works or it doesn’t, depending on how much you give to the audience.
So how do you feel about it? Are you nervous at all?
I mean, I don’t quite know what it’s going to be; but that’s kind of part of the challenge, just to see if I can put something together that feels good. I don’t really know how it’s going to be received. In truth, I set up the tour almost like a dare to myself, just like, “Can I do this at all?” It’s true, I still don’t actually know. But I feel good about it.