Little Bear, The Next Big Thing! 28/1/13

Image compliments of GC Photographics

Little Bear are set to be Derry’s next big success. The band have gone from having a local following of fans to receiving growing interest from record labels and now the possibility of a new single! The group has been going from strength to strength playing gigs and making appearances at festivals across the country. Steven McCool, lead singer, explains where it all began.

“We started in the tech, myself, Ryan and Mark meet in the Tech and then we formed LaFaro, we formed it with Lilo and Gerry Craig, it was all a bit of craic, we weren’t really taking it too serious. We disbanded that band and a few of us decided we wanted to take it serious. I had a whole pile of songs that I’d written in the house sitting in my bedroom and Ryan and Mark were writing stuff and we threw them together and they were very similar sounding so we just stuck them together and Little Bear came out of it then.”

Even though Steven had even more than a little experience being on stage he still manages to get a little stage fright in the lime light. “Even though I’ve been playing for years in bands, we were in a couple of bands before and even though it might not look it we’re still extremely nervous on stage, especially me. I panic beforehand going on stage. You’d probably see me slightly getting over it but it’s taken me years of different bands to get the nerves to even talk on stage, never mind sing!”

But sing he does and the songs that Little Bear have been writing and performing have had such a great reception however, where did they get the idea for their name? I asked Steven to tell me how a band of big lads came up with the name ‘Little Bear’. “The name Little Bear was very last minute as well. I’d be all into the Cosmos and that and it’s Ursa Minor, it’s a constellation. We were sitting thinking of names, we were playing this festival called MacFest and we didn’t have a name and the guy emailed us saying, “We’re putting you on the bill, but we don’t have a name for you, gone give us a name”. My son happened to be wearing a jumper that said ‘little bear’ on it and I was thought that mixes everything in together so I ended up just sending him off Little Bear without even telling the rest of the band. I did a search on Google then and I couldn’t really find anything with the Little Bear name. Afterwards then an abundance of bands with ‘Bear’ sort of came out, especially in Northern Ireland. There was like ‘Exit Pursued by Bear’, ‘The Big Grizzly’ and there’s another one that’s ‘Something Bear’. Then it was too late because we had already played gigs as far as Dublin and been known as Little Bear and it would’ve been wasted if we had of changed the name because people wouldn’t have been able to find us or know who we were.”

Steven went on to describe some of the events and experiences that have been a highlight for the band so far. “The main highlights are giggin’. We’ve played some pretty good shows, just before Christmas we played two sold out Academy shows in Dublin with Hudson Taylor, that was amazing, was packed to the rafters and people were right up the front singing along to the songs, amazing. We did the Hard Working Class Heroes, but through that we were asked to do a thing called the So Far Session, if you’ve ever heard of the Sofa Sessions, the first one that was done was actually the So Far Sessions and it was done in America but now they have recruited people all over the world to pick out acts they think are great. They video you in random places, so they asked us to do it in Dublin and we ended up in a hotel lobby, really snazzy hotel, kind of Tim Burton style, all these weird angles and all. We thought nothing of it, we got in and set up, it ended up being bunged, completely jammed. It was rammed with people but they were all sitting down so ye’d be standing playing and they were just sitting at your feet starring up at ye. It was the most nerve wrecking thing I’ve even done in my life. I’m nervous as it is anyway but then to have them sort of standing right in front of ye. The whole place went silent when we started to play and there was a big massive round of applause at the end of it and we were buzzing. All the right people were there too, MCD, the head of MCD was there. They’ve been in contact ever since so it was the right place at the right time I think.”

For anyone looking to get their hands on a CD or two, you won’t have to wait much longer as Little Bear have revealed that they will be releasing a single in the spring. There are even a few samples online to keep you going but they won’t be online forever so don’t wait around. “We have stuff on SoundCloud, that was intended to be an EP, we had planned a release and all but then there was a few records labels interested who told us to hold back. We did all the recordings live in the Blast Furnace in one day and then Conor Mason did all the mixing. They know that that’s live and they have loads of production ideas. ‘This can be reworked, that can be reworked, why don’t you hold off for a bigger budget?’ So, that’s the reason we haven’t released an EP yet. We’re going to be doing a single of a song we haven’t played yet called Race With the Tide. We’ve been writing it for ages and we’re really happy with it, it’s one of our better ones, that’s why chosen it to be a single with a record label. We can get a bigger budget to get in and record it the way it needs to be recorded. We’re going in soon to record so might be available in March or April, spring time, hopefully there will be a video as well.

If you’d like to see them live, Little Bear are headlining at the Jammhouse event on the 2^nd February in the Playhouse. The night will also feature The Clameens and Kevin Brown. Kicks off at 9pm and tickets are only £6.