From the depths of North Yorkshire comes the earth-shattering sound of Scruffy Bear. Spreading a message of creativity and self expression, they are loud and raw yet embrace a depth of eclectic influences.
Georgy, Jack, Sass and Ryan come together to encompass soulful fuzz rock with a serious and stylish attitude on their new EP Face the Rain.
We asked frontwoman Georgy to do an in depth track by track breakdown of the EP for us. Read it below.
Stories of Strange Women
‘Stories of Strange Women’ is for all the weirdos out there that second guess themselves. I grew up always taking solace in stories about unique people that stuck to their guns and didn’t change for anyone else. ‘Stories’ opens the EP up with me shouting about listening to your spirit and not getting in your head. We wanted ‘Stories’ to be uplifting, a bit dancey and something to stomp around to. Funnily enough the main chorus riff was inspired by comedian Tom Segura’s walk on song. Back in lockdown number one, Sass (bass), Ryan (drums) and I lived together in the North East and our guitarist Jack was still living in Manchester bless him. We’d send ideas back and forth and one day he sent the riff over – I’ve never seen Sass and Ryan move so fast into the little music room we had! It was instantly like “woooow, this is different for us but it really works”. It was really quite easy after that to put the song together and it’s so much fun to play live. Stand up and keep being weird and wonderful!
Magic at our Fingertips
The EP then follows on to ‘Magic at our Fingertips’ – about my frustrations with people not taking climate change seriously. With laid back verses and a Black Sabbath-esque chorus riff, I think ‘Magic’ leads you into a bit of a false sense of security in the verses and then just slaps you in the face in the choruses. I love how contrasting ‘Magic’ is – it really helps depict how huge corporations “green wash” their marketing and products, but yet they’re some of the biggest contributors to climate change with waste and single use products. Ryan & Sass’groove in the verses is infectious and when it moves into the middle 8, how tight they play together is just something special. Jack’s solo however – WOW. We were blown away when he first started playing with all the ideas he had for the solo. I love that it almost tells a story, it’s not just “shredding” and being technically amazing (which he is) it has so much FEEL to it. I can’t help but scream every time we play it live cos it’s so like whaaaat how you do that boy!!! Also, I never thought I’d be doing a spoken word section in a song, no seriously I really didn’t, but I think we were listening to too much Rush at that point and it sunk into my veins. Oops!
Blackmoss
‘Blackmoss’ is third and just fully punches you in the face and gives you no choice but to pay attention. We often play around with dynamics in verses vs choruses in songs but we wanted to be really loud and energetic throughout the song until it really calls for quiet and contrast in the middle 8. The lyrics for this song took me a little while to write, I know we’ve all struggled in so many different ways over the last few years and the instrumentation for ‘Blackmoss’ was the perfect bed for exploring the fine line between anger in what’s happening and also not adding to the shit pile that is the world at the moment. Everything is very heavy, I’ve heard so many people say the last few years they’ve experienced their highest highs and also lowest lows. To me, ‘Blackmoss’ really reflects that. I hate that everything is spun so negatively, and we are trained to look for the worst in people and situations. ‘Blackmoss’ is trying to work through the mud of confusion that everything is in and not get too bogged down with it, whilst also learning to be open to other people’s experiences. Listen out for the middle section – Sass’s ticking clock bass part mixed with Ryan’s rim clicking part is my faaaave thing and then Jack absolutely RIPS a solo over the ending riff.
Solace
The EP finishes with ‘Solace’. ‘Solace’ is a straight up love song but in more of a 70s Blues Rock fashion and it veeeeery contrasting to the previous song ‘Blackmoss’. This song is about only feeling truly at home when you’re with that other person – nothing ever feels complete without them. It’s that feeling of solace when they’re close by and you know everything will be okay. ‘Solace’ is a continuous builder of a song, it starts off quite soft and just grows with passion the more the song goes on – just as I think love grows. We’ve had several different versions of this song and for years we couldn’t find the perfect counterpart to the riff. It initially didn’t start off as a love song but after finding the perfect soft verse to go with the riff and the more space it had it just naturally fell into that place. There’s even a bit of flute on the track – make sure to listen out for it!
