Lone Bear: Daniel Rossen of Grizzly Bear on Going Solo and Leaving Brooklyn
So what made you decide to move from Brooklyn?
A number of things. My girlfriend’s an artist and she got kicked out of her studio in Greenpoint because the landlord decided to give the space to his son so that he could have more area to spread out. She essentially couldn’t find anywhere to work anymore that wasn’t absurdly expensive, the size of a closet, or way far out in an outerborough. It was just representative of what’s happening in a lot of Brooklyn: the more central neighborhoods are getting intolerably expensive for most people, and truly, artists are getting pushed out of the city and it’s boring [laughs]. That’s not the Brooklyn that I lived in when I was younger. It just felt like it was time to go. A lot of our friends were leaving, a lot of artists and musicians that we know that can’t really afford to be there are just leaving and it just makes the neighborhood so much less interesting.
But you’re missing out on all the new Dunkin’ Donuts.
Yeah, exactly [laughs]. The thing is, I still love it, and I’m hoping that we will move back, but it just timed itself well in this way where I’m gonna do some shows on the road, and now we have a chance to travel a little bit and not feel like we have to be in any one place for a while. I’m kind of hoping that at the end of the year or in a couple years from now we will move back to New York, because I still feel a certain pride in being a part of that city. Even if I feel like it’s changing in a way that makes it a little bit less enjoyable or productive or inspiring to live in as a member of the arts community, I guess.
You sort of have to hope the fever will break at some point.
Yeah, I think it just has to become more affordable for people, however that has to happen. It started to feel a little bit like, I don’t know, our old neighborhood was all restaurants and clothes and artisanal sundries. It felt like a purely consumer experience. It didn’t feel like there was any life to it beyond that. [laughs] Which I’m sure is not necessarily true, but it just started to feel that way, where it was like, “What is this? What is this neighborhood now?”
You were living in Greenpoint, right?
Toward the end, yeah.
How long had you lived in the Brooklyn area?
Since around 2002.
Oh, wow, so you really got to see it change.
Yeah, I mean when I first moved there I was living in South Brooklyn and I kinda bummed around, couch-surfed during the early years of the band around North Brooklyn until I settled in Greenpoint. And I lived up near McGolrick Park pretty much the whole time I was in Greenpoint. And it’s not bad, I still love it. But again, my bandmates have also dispersed. They pretty much all moved out. I was the last to hold out in Brooklyn. We just finally decided to take off when my girlfriend lost her space. It was kind of like, we just have to go now.
Where are you originally from?
I’m actually from LA. I grew up in LA. I moved to New York when I was 18 to go to school. I’ve always sort of felt more at home on the East Coast. I feel more myself there than in LA. Topanga is interesting, though, because it’s way up in the hills outside the city. You have access to Los Angeles, but you don’t have to actually be in it, so you don’t get the malaise that city can induce. [laughs] Topanga’s actually a classic arts community; a lot of musicans, actors, and artists took refuge here in the 50s and 60s. It has a nice, rich history to it. It feels good to rehearse up here and it’s a great temporary spot.
So you have no real plans ahead of you for what you’re going to do next?
Not really, no. The band doesn’t have any plans as of now, and my only plan is to work on music casually and see how it feels and see what happens. Working on film music is definitely a direction I’m interested in. And if we get to a point in the next year of making another record as a band and it feels natural and good, then we’ll definitely do that, but there’s no cycle or schedule in place to make anything happen.