Chase The Bear: Young Blood to Revitalize Vancouver’s Rock Scene

By Taina Boehm

Most of the guys from Chase the Bear hail from the city of Fort St. John, which for them, lacked warmth and the necessary musical prospects. Their journey to becoming a Vancouver-based band sees them leaving Fort St. John (for guitarist Jordan Phillips, Northern Carolina), then living for a bit in Kelowna and Victoria, doing a laborious year of weekly ferry-commuting to practice together as a band in Vancouver, until they finally all decided to reside in the same city. It sounds like a huge effort and time commitment just to be able to rehearse together but they say it all went by in a flash.

“It doesn’t feel like it was a year…but does it feel like we’ve been a band for almost two years?”

“That’s how you know it’s the right band, is when it doesn’t even feel like two years yet.”

Don’t people say that about relationships? I feel like there are so many parallels you can draw between group dynamics and romantic relationships.

“Absolutely. I’ve learned a lot about romance through my bands. I mean, I feel like it should be the other way around.”

There was definitely some courting involved during the assembly of the band. Drummer Connor Brooks recalls the day when he was spotted and scouted out at while playing a show in Victoria. “What happened was that Troy came up to me and said, ‘you’re gonna be in my band’, and I was like ‘okay.’” Jordan has a similar, albeit reversed story. “I kept approaching them on the street as buskers, asking to play with them, and they hated the idea of that because I was sixteen. And then eventually they let me and I slowly got my way in.”

The band finally settled together in Vancouver during September of last year. Reflecting on their reasons for making the final move, they joked that this is where musicians come to chase their dreams of becoming rock stars. “I mean it’s not, but when you grow up in Fort St. John it sure is!” Turns out logistics also played a big role in getting all the guys together in Vancouver. “I think the major reason was the ferry ‘cause the majority of our gigs were on the Mainland.”

Was there anything that really caught you off guard when you guys finally settled in Vancouver? Anything that was a surprise with regards to the city, or joining the music community?

“The thing that I’ve noticed about music communities, comparing Kelowna, Victoria, and here, is that they’re all the same, but each one just grows in size. The music community here I find is very welcoming, which didn’t catch me off guard – I was expecting that.”

“I was actually surprised at how small it is, because like, you go to a show and it’s like, I know those people from that band that we played with. I mean I went to Nimbus for music business, and I ended up meeting a bunch of people and musicians there, and I still run into them at shows. You get that small world feeling all the time here.

“It’s not that there’s a huge rock scene in Vancouver though, here it seems like it’s kind of niche.”

“Bigtime”

“I love it though, it’s bursting with creativity. You see art everywhere. Buskers on the street, artists, it’s the same kind of feeling that I got when I moved to Victoria, it’s just like ‘wow, this is fucking amazing, this is a place where an artist can grow.’ Hopefully.”

Your growth is probably pretty heavily determined by your attitude.

“And the quality of the product.”

“You can live in the most beautiful place in the world and if you’re down and out all the time, you’re never going to experience it.”

Speaking of beautiful places, why is it important to bring music to rural communities?

“There’s just not a lot of shit to do there. That’s a big thing (about playing shows), you can inspire somebody to do something. I feel like a big part of me being a musician was going to see metal shows at the local theatre, and going to mosh pits and stuff.”

“It’s really nice when you live in a small town and then a band comes through, it’s a very exciting thing. It’s important to bring music to those people.”

“It’s kinda funny because Fort St. John had the chance to have a big music event, but they didn’t want to attract the attention, so they gave it to Dawson Creek.”

“Once again, middle of nowhere. It’s such a weird demographic, it’s all like country, dad-rock, and metal.”

Yarling or screaming.

“Yarling, is that the sound of country music?”

Yarling aside, these guys are fully aware of how much hard work and ridiculous luck it can take to make it in the present-day music industry.

“I’ve kind of thought about that, you know. I work really hard to try and push the band, and sometimes there’s a thought of ‘I can put in all of this work for nothing’, and I think that’s what we all think. We know that we could work our asses off for ten years, and it just might not work. But, I love it. And it would be worth it.”

“There is no destination in music. When you get to your spot, you gotta figure out what’s next.”

Are you guys gonna take this next EP in a different direction? Any new instruments, or different approaches?

“That’ll really depend on how our producer wants to approach it. I think it would be fucking dope if we had a song that could support a horn section or something like that. But it would have to be the right song. Yeah, it all depends on what songs we do – one of Danny’s favourites is a ballad actually. The other one we got that Danny really likes is a song that I wrote that’s really punk rock, or kinda like bluesy-punk.

“As far as experimentation goes, we’re always exploring different avenues.”

“Oh yeah, our songwriting is everywhere. We’ve got reggae songs, we’ve got 50s style songs. We have like, punk rock songs, we’re all over the place. I love it. We have a song that’s basically country and disco. You can definitely expect a mixed bag.”

One thing I noticed from what I’ve read about you guys are glowing show reviews. Like so much life, zest, showmanship, great sounds, and just consistency with your energy. Is there anything you’re specifically working on to make your live show even better?

“New songs, new songs mainly.”

“Ummm confetti?”

“Fire?”

“Well, we’ve added a keys player, which is really fun.”

“More recently we’ll do like, random jams as transitions.”

It sounds like you guys are having a pretty positive experience so far in Vancouver. I’m excited for your trajectory, like, it feels like there are some great things in store for you guys. What words of advice would you have for another relatively young band that’s new to Vancouver and maybe has small-town roots such as yourselves?

“Just keep playing shows. With passion. You gotta show people that you enjoy it, don’t just stand there. You can have amazing music, and if you don’t move around, people aren’t going to be interested. Showmanship and the stage show are just as important as the music. But yeah just keep playing live shows and just try to keep improving on what you can do visually, like creating moments.”

“Make as many friends as you can. Like, that’s the reason why we got ninety-nine percent of all the gigs in the past year, was because of a friend of a friend.”

“Do the battle of the bands shit. Do the competitions. Kick ass, don’t act like it’s a write-off, do it for real. Even if you’re just playing to the bartender, give it a hundred percent. And don’t look like you hate your life when you do it.”

“You WILL just play to the bartender, it will happen.”

Chase the Bear are excited and ready to play a smattering of tour dates around BC this summer, and we are just as excited to see them share their tenacity, verve, and killer live performance with the future masses.

The luckiest bartender in Vancouver will be serving up drinks at the next Chase the Bear show at the Astoria on Hastings, Saturday, May 18th. Grab your tickets ASAP for this show, this is not the rock ‘n’ roll event to miss out on.