Four years spent coming to terms with a debilitating illness hasn't dampened Boy & Bear frontman Dave Hoskings' lust for life, as the band return home for a national tour.
After a much-publicised struggle with chronic dysbiosis – a microbial imbalance in the gut – Hoskings is enjoying playing and touring as much as ever, despite the journey towards fourth album 'Suck On Light' being a tough one. “Life's really good,” he says. “[The album] felt like a long time coming and when I listen to it, I'm still happy with it.
“It feels good to be back.” - Dave Hoskings (Boy & Bear frontman)
“I think we were able to produce something that we're really proud of it, and it's nice to be on this end of the cycle with the record, and we're thinking about touring and travel. It feels good to be back.”
Hoskings' accompanying diagnosis of anxiety and depression was also overcome as the multiple ARIA Award-winning band got back to business. “At the back end of the last record I had kind of fallen to pieces,” Hoskings says.
“I had to work out what the hell was going on and that took a bit of time. I've been a pretty open book about the whole thing and I've come a really long way.
“I've still got some challenges and I've still got a way to go, but that's still moving in the right direction and I just have to stay patient and keep seeing the really effective doctors that I'm seeing.
“The main thing is that I'm much more comfortable and my functionality is much better. I'm up and I'm working and I'm surfing a bit, so that's really good.”
The Sydney five-piece will play The Drop Festival in Noosa, Newcastle, Manly, Coolangatta, Torquay and Busselton, and a slew of regional and metropolitan shows starting 29 February and ending in May with the completion of their 65-date world tour. “Touring is going really great,” Hoskings says.
“We love playing in Australia, but the world is a really big place and we want to embrace the scope of that – being able to travel, play in festivals and try to compete in these markets is really fun.
“North America has been great. We haven't been back to Europe for a little while, but sales have been really strong for this tour, which is kind of heartening, I guess.
“We've been out of the game for a while and you never know whether people might have moved on, but it feels like our core fan base is really solid. It still feels really odd, in a nice way, that people on the other side of the world who speak a different language are still embracing what we do. We get to travel over there, play and sell out some gigs, which is amazing.”
scenestr QLD cover Feb 2020
A love for touring regional areas was established early in the indie rockers' 11-year career. “Our early years were much more 'adrenaline', more excitement and much more partying,” Dave says.
“Now, we want to pace ourselves a bit. We still love getting up on stage and playing, but the difficult part is all the travel and the lack of sleep and things like that. Each one of us has our own routine and we generally know what we're getting ourselves into. We do a bit of prep and we feel pretty good about it.
“If you don't do the regional shows, you've only really got five or six gigs in Australia, in terms of capital cities. But right from the start, we had a discussion with our management and it was definitely something we wanted to do.
“It's not always easy touring regional Australia. It has its challenges, but it's been a really rewarding thing making that decision early, so there are crowds and audiences that are used to us coming.
“That's been really good for us, and it feels like people are just welcoming and enjoying the fact we've made the effort to get out of the major cities, although we're hitting Brisbane at The Fortitude Music Hall. That should be really cool; I've heard so many great things about the venue.”
'Suck On Light' was recorded in Nashville and features themes of overcoming hardships and emerging from the other side with a smile. “We decided we wanted to work with Collin Depuis and he was based in Nashville,” Hoskings says.
“So, it was either we head there or we get him to come to us. Nashville is probably just got the edge on a lot of studios around Australia. There are plenty of great players if you need them and really good musical resources – it's just a really effective place to record.
“We would definitely succumb to the fact that we've got one foot firmly planted in pop music and, I think, with good pop music, when you dig underneath it, there's more complicated things going on. I think that some songs take time and certain things can take a while. But you also don't want to lose that musical instinct and energy that can come.
“The whole recording took us about six weeks, so not an extremely long time, but not banging it out either. It can be a bit of a time warp in the studio from 10am to 7pm and you don't know where the day went. We did try to get out of the studio once a week – even to just chuck a Frisbee around or get on the bikes.”
With a new lease on life and his health conditions under control, Dave has been productive. “I've been kind of noodling around with stuff,” he says.
“I had some demos, so I set up a file on my computer which just said 'album five'. I took a photo and sent it to the boys just as a little motivation, I guess. I'll try to build a body of work over a period of time and I'm already thinking about the fifth record.”
Boy & Bear 2020 Tour Dates
Thu 26 Mar - Tanks Arts Centre (Cairns)Fri 27 Mar - Tanks Arts Centre (Cairns) - sold out
Thu 2 Apr - CBD Hotel (Mackay)
Fri 3 Apr - Magnum's (Airlie Beach, QLD)
Sat 4 Apr - JCU Uni Bar (Townsville)
Thu 9 Apr - The Cube (Wodonga)
Thu 23 Apr - Downtown On Hindley (Adelaide)
Fri 1 May - Palais Theatre (Melbourne)
Sat 2 May - The State Theatre (Sydney)
Fri 8 May - The Fortitude Music Hall (Brisbane)
Sat 9 May - Perth Concert Hall
Fri 15 May - UC Refectory (Canberra)
Sat 16 May - Waves (Wollongong)
Boy & Bear @ The Drop Festival 2020 Dates
Sat 29 Feb - NoosaSat 7 Mar - Newcastle
Sat 14 Mar - Manly
Sat 28 Mar - Coolangatta
Sat 11 Apr - Torquay
Sat 25 Apr - Busselton
