Since the release of Yellow House, which was ostensibly the band’s first ‘group’ effort, Rossen entered a relentless touring and recording cycle with both Grizzly Bear and his Department of Eagles project that lasted some five years.
Of course, with pop hits comes great expectation, so it’s a surprise to find their recently released follow up Shields – by now another qualified success with a higher UK and US chart ranking still – sees the band succeeding on their own terms with a jazzier slow-burner, finding the mean between its predecessor’s relative brevity and the unfurling majesty of 2006’s Yellow House.Īssured and confident though the new record is, in conversation Rossen projects the idea of a band just getting back on the bike – one you sense could either play the long game or disappear completely, such is his own noted personal uncertainty toward a long-term career in the music industry. It’s always surreal when you’re experiencing that you’re trying to have a good time, and there’s fun happening, but there’s also just an undercurrent of stress the whole time.”Įnsuring that the band’s name became lodged in the wider public consciousness, Two Weeks was one of the few unlikely radio hits of the year that you simply couldn’t begrudge one more play. “It felt like we jumped right in,” says Rossen of stepping inside the rollercoaster. “ I don’t know – it’s a Native American word! We just call it Veck!”īoth on home soil and abroad, Grizzly Bear were fortunate to drum up the kind of televised exposure that’s more typically reserved for mainstream performers, rolling the dice by debuting Veckatimest’s lead single via David Letterman’s non-more-huge national television show.
Veck-catty-mest? “I don’t think anybody quite knows how to say that,” the band’s singer and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Rossen interjects, mere hours before the band make their UK live return at End of the Road festival. Seemingly by stealth, they infiltrated the US Billboard top 10 and assured a place in our hearts with their third LP even if we never did work out how to pronounce the title.