Bear The Moon are a band formed in the fall of 2022, comprised of Alex Karshner (Vocals/Guitar), Justin Ghamandi (Guitar), Lawrence Cobb (Bass ), and Travis Gray (Drums). BTM are dropping their first EP, Microscopic on July 26th and then will be playing Northside Tavern on Saturday, July 29th with The Yugos, Indre, and Happy Tuesday!
Go Presave the EP and get to know the band prior to the show at Northside Tavern!
Tell us how Bear The Moon came to be…. Lawrence & I (Alex) met through work after discovering how we shared similar interests like fishing, outdoor activities and most of all music. We even found out that we had a mutual friend named Justin, who would end up later joining Bear The Moon. Around 2021, I decided to stop making music for a solo project I had been doing for a year or two and felt a strong pull to go in a different direction musically. At the same time Lawrence and Justin had decided to end a project they were doing together as well. While in the process of trying to revamp my entire way of writing and sound, Lawrence had asked me to help teach him how to write and compose music. So twice a week we would meet up and do writing sessions where I would show him the steps by starting a song from scratch and building from a chord progression or even a simple drum groove. As I was showing him these steps he started to more feel comfortable as a writer and began to throw ideas in that he was hearing. Over time (about two months) we looked down and had a small collection of songs we both actually enjoyed and felt like could really turn into something. Two of those early song ideas included “Diamond” and “Overflow”, both of which can be heard on our debut EP. Once I realized these songs were the style of music I wanted to shift to all along, I immediately took the opportunity and asked Lawrence if he would want to start a band. After we decided we wanted to possibly take this to the next step, we tried to find a drummer. It boiled down to using an app called Vampr which essentially is Tinder but for musicians to find each other and work together instead. Luckily it wasn’t long at all before we got linked up with Travis through the app. To be clear, we got extremely lucky to have found Travis in Vampr. The amount of questionable characters I saw scrolling through before Travis came around didn’t put a lot of confidence that this would be how we found a drummer. For him to be as talented, sane and not an apparent serial killer like other Vampr users I’ve seen, was incredible. From the first day we Jammed with him, we knew we found the guy. With his worship & marching band background, he added the perfect amount of control and back bone to our sound. After about of month of Travis jamming with us and him learning the songs we put together, we asked our mutual friend Justin to join as well. Besides Justin being a talented multi-instrumentalist, I’ve always liked his unique guitar tones and interesting choice of music so I thought he would undoubtedly bring something good to the table. So after we convinced him to join us, we began the early steps of creating what is now known as Bear The Moon.
What do want your listeners to get out of your music?
Ultimately we hope listeners can find something about our sound and latch onto it. Whether it be the lyrics, the varying dynamics from song to song, catchy melodies or the moments of energetic realism we try to convey in our music. Anything. We just want people to find something about us to be theirs. If that makes sense.
How did the name of the band come to be?
I (Justin) remember we went through a myriad of names and themes for some time and eventually came to a mutual agreement of something more “natural’ themed. I think Travis had the word ‘moon’ in mind and we tried to attach that somehow. I think it was Alex’s fiancé Kaitlyn, who ultimately came up with the band name “bear the moon”, and we ended up going with that.
What can fans expect at a live show?
We try to touch on a number of different moods throughout our set. We think people can expect to experience upbeat moments followed by lively, feel good jams that resolve into warm, intimate mid tempo tunes to make you feel something.
What is next for Bear The Moon?
We expect to play a lot of shows to end the year for sure. There’s still some experience and comfortability to be gained there for us. We also don’t want to have a large gap between releases. We play the entire Microscopic EP during our live set but also a few of what’s to come down the road. So I guess you will have to make it out to a show and see what that might sound like. ;) But really, the name of the game these days is to keep people’s attention so we’re going to try our best to do so.
