by Paul Richter
photo by Evan Rau

Bear Claw is not only named after a tasty donut, but what bear's have on their bear fingers. Of course, I'm alluding to claws. Bear claws. Bear Claw, on the other hand, is a three piece which thinks outside of the donut, immediately evident with the fact that they have no guitarist. Yep, it's two bassists (Rick and Rob) and a drummer (Scott) keeping their shit tight and thick, with a brutal, lo-fi (of course!) rock sound reminiscent of Big Black.

When and how was Bear Claw formed?
Scott: Bear Claw was formed in August of 2003 in Carbondale IL. We were attending college and Rich decided to live down there for a bit while we were going to school.

Were you in any previous bands noteworthy of mention?
We had previously been in a band by the name of Hello Operator and Bear Claw was a release for a flood of ideas that we’d had with Hello Operator that were not fitting the mold. Rich also had the idea to start a 2 bass oriented band for quite sometime. Mainly because he originally being a bass player, had always had ideas for two bass parts while writing bass lines and this idea of a two bass loud rock band developed.

How long does it take someone to figure out you don't have a guitar?
Well…actually we’ve had several people hear the record and not realize at all that there is no guitar. In fact we even had one review refer to the album as having “Industrial Guitars”. So I guess on average we have someone after a listen or two start to realize that something is different. At a live show is fairly obvious.

Was there ever a thought to include a guitarist in the band? Not that I think it's 'missing' or anything…
There was never a thought to include a guitarist, mainly because the two bass guitar thing was the platform from which we started the project. Also I think we all wanted to show that guitar players are overrated. But seriously… no guitar ever will be in Bear Claw... and we have had offers.

Okay, so you've got two basses and drums, but it sounds way more technical then your average bass/bass/drums setup. What's going on behind the music? What's your setup?
Man, this will take a bit and is probably more than you wanted but anyway, Rich uses a ’91 Ernie Ball MusicMan bass with a maple neck with everything all the way up except for the bass control which is at the center point. Then he goes into a solid state Ampeg SVT-200T, cranks the gain all the way up, with the bass and middle mid’s cranked up and the low mids moderate. Then he takes the line out into a mid 70’s Ampeg V-4 to warm up the tone a bit and to get better and more controlled feedback. Then he goes into an Ampeg 2x15 cab. This bass handles more of the guitar-ish side of Bear Claw but is by no means a guitar tone.

The other bass player, Rob, uses a ’78 Travis Bean TB-2000. He plugs the Travis Bean into a 70’s Ampeg SVT head on channel 2 for the lows and highs and then jumps out of that channel into a Boss bass overdrive and into channel 1 to overdrive the highs and mids. Doing this keeps the low end tighter while getting a nice smooth overdrive for the upper end. Then he goes into an Ampeg 8x10. This bass is setup to handle more of the lows and traditional bass tones but is quite aggressive and edgy sounding.

For the drums, I use a 70’s Vistalite kit. Vistalite was a line of drums in the 70’s made by Ludwig that were unique in that the shells were made of Lucite. It is comprised of a 26x14” kick, 14x10” rack tom, with 16x16” and 18x16” floor toms. I also use a Bison Volcano snare which is very unique because it goes from 14” on top to 15” on the bottom. In addition its 1” thick and is not made of plys but rather staves of wood like in a barrel; in other words its very very loud and full sounding. I chose this kit because of its attack and it just sounded right for what we were trying to do musically.

Who wrote the lyrics for "Through a Child's Eyes"? Story behind that?
Rich wrote the lyrics for "Through a Child's Eyes".
Rich: I wrote the lyrics to talk about how as we get older we lose our innocence and that we should try our best to gain it back. There are so many variables that change us as we get older and it's sad that we let the everyday worthless bullshit get in the way of what's really important to us.

What are those button things on the CD jacket?
They are actually part of a rubber mat that is at most of the Metra train stations around Chicago. Our good friend Scott Duggan took the photos and did all the art work. Mitch Cheney of Sick Room Records did the layout.

Doing anything exciting for St. Patrick's Day?
Not really…drinking I assume.

www.bearclawrock.com

2004 “Find The Sun” (Sick Room)