Grizzly Bear is a busy band — they’re at the beginning of a two month tour, and they just released their new disc Veckatimest — but singer Ed Droste still finds time to Twitter. Not only does the Brooklyn-based songwriter use the social networking site to chat with fans, he tweets at least four or five times a day.
“Someone signed me on over a year ago,” he says, almost apologetic that he’s such an avid Twitter user. “At first I was confused, I just posted once, but I recently re-logged in and now I get it. But I feel conflicted about it.”
Droste uses Twitter to connect with fans, which is a good thing as Droste offers regular updates on live shows and information about the band’s new record.
One thing he hasn’t tweeted about, however, is why he chose such a peculiar name for the band’s sophomore full-length. Droste explains, over the phone, that the disc’s moniker comes from an uninhabited island near Cape Cod, where they recorded.
“We like to name albums based on where we’re doing them,” he says, adding that the band’s first disc, Yellow House, was recorded in a place that was just that. “We didn’t go on the island, but we liked the abstract nature of it.”
While the way they name their discs hasn’t changed, how they create them has. On Yellow House Droste and his co-songwriter Daniel Rossen brought already finished tracks to the rest of the band. This time around they started from scratch.
“We came into this with a blank slate,” says Droste. “We’d take weekend trips out of town to see what we could come up with. We didn’t want to rush ourselves — everything was natural and organic.”
The result is another indie folk disc filled with copious amounts of Beach Boys-like harmonies. While it’s similar to Yellow House, its stronger focus and even more layered vocals prove that their new songwriting strategy has worked wonders.
Droste thinks the more inclusive writing approach has helped too. “The instrumentation and vocals are clearer; the drums are louder; there’s a stronger sense of confidence,” he says. “Everyone is a lot more at ease with their abilities and, also, since the last album, everyone’s grown up.”
Grizzly Bear live
• Toronto for a show at the Phoenix Concert Theatre June 5.
