Where are you currently based?
Brisbane, Australia!
How did Grizzlyshark first start?
Liam: Three of us (Liam, Andrew and Adam) were in a band together previously, which shall remain nameless for the sake of our dignity, and we’d had Joey fill in on bass for us once before. When that band broke up we decided to keep playing music together and asked Joey to join us.
Andrew: I needed an excuse to hang out with Liam. A band seemed like the right move.
What’s been happening recently?
Liam: We most recently played a show with Glass Tides, Shangrila and Citadel at The Zoo in Brisbane which was awesome.
Your latest single ‘There’s No I In Quaranteam’ is out now, what influenced the sound and songwriting?
Liam: The song draws heavily from the 2008-2012 post-hardcore/emo scene, which we all grew up listening to and influenced our musical taste for years.
Andrew: I’ve been playing with the theme of this song for a fair few years. The start of it happened at a friends 18th. He had his “once a year phone call” from his father and not once was he wished a happy birthday. The train ride home broke my heart hearing how my friend had been treated by his father.
How did you go about writing There’s No I In Quaranteam?
Liam wrote the music while doing a side project that never panned out which played a similar style of music. The music itself was written first with more a Grizzlyshark spin on it than straight post-hardcore. Andrew and Joey then wrote all the lyrics and vocal melodies, though these were changing right up until we recorded the final version.
Where and when did you record/produce/master and who did you work with?
Back in July last year! Hard to believe it’s been that long. We recorded with Troy Brady (The Amity Affliction) who we’ve worked with for all of our releases to date. Having worked with him on 4 occasions he understands how we function (and sometimes don’t) as a unit, and it always feels like he knows how to get the best out of us.
How did you approach the recording process?
Doing a whole EP this time was pretty different compared to other times we’ve recorded. We came with 6 songs in various states of completion, one of which we’d done extensive pre-production with Alan Day from Four Year Strong (TMS). One of the songs got scrapped, and the 5th song got changed drastically in the recording process, and was built from some music Liam had written and lyrics and melodies that Andrew came up with during the recording process. Very different for us, as our writing process usually takes a while and we like to record quickly!
Your upcoming EP ‘MOSAIC’ is out on July 29, what can we expect?
Not consistency, that’s for sure! Our 3 released singles will be on there (TMS, What’s The Plan Gogglehead? and There’s No “I” In Quaranteam) along with 2 as yet unheard songs. It’s safe to say that none of the songs necessarily fit into exactly the same genre, which is pretty typical of Grizzlyshark at this stage. One in particular is very different to anything we’ve released at this point.
How did MOSAIC come about and what does this EP mean to you?
Honestly like most bands at the moment it came from the pandemic. When we released our last set of singles (Vicarious and Remember The Black Box) back in 2020 we were geared up to record an EP at the time with those songs and then right after we returned from the Vicarious launch tour that we played in QLD and NSW the pandemic hit. That took a lot of enthusiasm away from the music, until we started writing more, and eventually after discarding many demos we weren’t happy with, we had a set of songs we were really proud of. The name MOSAIC comes from the fact that this is a collections of from different genres written it different times, but all coming together to make Grizzlyshark what it is.
Who are you listening to at the moment?
Windwaker, Ocean Grove, ERRA, Sleep Token, Letlive.
What’s planned for the remainder of 2022 going into 2023?
We’ll be joining We Set Signals for the Brisbane and Gold Coast legs of their upcoming tour in August, and will have an EP release show at an as yet unannounced time. After that, who knows? We might direct a movie or start selling bootleg goods, honestly we have no idea!
Favourite food and place to hangout?
Death and Taxes is the “classiest” place you will find us. Otherwise Netherworld or someone’s place for boardgames is a common hangout for the band.
