Boy & Bear announced to play Wanderer Music Festival – an interview with band member Jon Hart

By creammagazine, May 22, 2025

Having formed in 2009, Australian outfit Boy & Bear quickly began scooping up ARIA awards, receiving five trophies in one year alone, including those for Breakthrough Artist, Single and Album of the Year, and Best Group. Subsequently the boys became the darlings of indie radio, print, the internet – sometimes even television (tele-what?).

Initially a solo project – just Dave Hosking on vocals and guitar – the individual status morphed into a quintet, with the arrival of Killian Gavin on guitar, Jake Tarasenko on bass – who has since been replaced with Dave Symes, Tim Hart on drums, and brother Jon Hart on, well, lots of instruments.

Listening to the instrumentation on a Boy & Bear track – something genius like Setting Sun or current single Apex– you’ll hear why each of these players get as much attention as the band’s frontman.

This year, Boy & Bear will be playing at the Wanderer Festival, held at Pambula Beach, NSW from October 3rd-5th. Joining them on the festival bill will be artists as diverse as The Living End, Missy Higgins, Jacob Banks (US), Petit Biscuit (France), Hockey Dad and more.

B&B multi-instrumentalist Jon Hart chatted with Cream about influences on the Boy & Bear sound, smoking spliffs in Amsterdam, and music’s modern fascination of bands with animals in their name. Read on.

Interview by Antonino Tati

 

Hi Jon. I like the connotation of the psychedelic and the dreamy in the Boy & Bear sound. Listening to a song like [one of the band’s earlier singles] Southern Sun brings to mind elements of folk bands like Bread and America, sometimes even Fleetwood Mac or Pink Floyd. Did you listen to classic records from these artists, growing up?

Yeah, and I think you’ve picked some key ones there. Fleetwood Mac and America were definitely things that were sitting around on my parents’ record player at home. Tim and I grew up together so that’s already two of us, while Killian, our guitarist, is a big Pink Floyd fan. I’m a Floyd fan, too, but it’s not something my parents would have listened to, but something I got into later.

 

You play keyboards for the band, as well as some rather obscure instruments, like the banjo and the mandolin. Have you always veered from traditional rock’n’roll instruments as you were learning music?

Well it’s a funny thing because I probably thought of myself as a guitarist up until five years ago. From the extension of that came an interest in other string instruments like the banjo and the mandolin. At that time, I was a bit of a Ryan Adams fan, and he’s kind of got that ‘all-country’ thing going so every now and then he’ll let something quite traditional sneak in. And I couldn’t help pay attention to those things, but I’d say I play those things in a non-traditional way. I’m sort of a guitarist-come-keyboard player, if you know what I mean, as opposed to someone who has a real blue-grass background.

 

“That’s how we all approach our instruments; none of us are virtuosos but we probably have an idiosyncratic approach which allows the sound to be sculpted in a way that is coherent to all of us as a band.”

 

What do strangers say to you, if you’re at a pub or a club, when they ask what you do for a living and you tell them “I play banjo and mandolin”. What do girls or guys, whoever you’re chatting to, say in response to that?

Most people are pretty interested. I find if I say, “I play keyboard”, that’s one thing, but if I say, “Oh, I play a bit of keyboard, oh and some banjo and mandolin”, it’s a bit of a conversation starter. Some people find it fascinating that you might use old instruments from a particular [historic] context and put them into a more contemporary setting.

 

Why do you think more music listeners are tuning in to this traditional-gone-contemporary sound? It practically wouldn’t have been heard of in much of the ’80s and ’90s, dare it compete with electronic and grunge. Now we’re hearing a folkish sound from artists such as yourselves, Ed Sheeran, Bon Iver, Mumford & Sons…

I think it’s the cycle that continues in music. What’s old becomes new again. Maybe Mumford & Sons were the ones who really brought the banjo back into the limelight. And just as a whole, I might add, I think their music comes across as very authentic and honest. The songs are something you can grab straight away, and it’s not something that’s trickery from a computer or a mixing desk.

 

 

You said earlier that there is a psychedelic element to some of your music. I’m wondering if you ever get inspired by a little pot. Any spliff-smoking to achieve those psychedelic touches?

I don’t think we’ve ever had it in a studio environment or in a song-writing environment. It might happen when we’re touring Europe and might be passing through Amsterdam. I mean, “When in Amsterdam”, right? As far as I’m aware, and speaking on my own behalf, there hasn’t been obvious influence of it… yet.

 

So it’s certainly not on the schedule – 10am: Smoke spliff; 10.30am: Write opening track…

[Laughs] No, no. Not so ordered like that.

 

I heard a Boy & Bear song on the soundtrack of 90210 quite some time ago. What’s the strangest medium or place you’ve heard a Boy & Bear track being played?

It’s more a case of where other people have heard our songs. I’ve received texts from friends saying, “I’m in a clothing store in Brooklyn and you guys are playing on the stereo”. And I’m like, oh, our record’s not really available in America [Ed: in hardcopy, perhaps; certainly available digitally]. But somebody had tracked it down; maybe we’d been played on a college radio station. Anyway, that’s always a cool thing to hear.

 

Well things are now more global with music delivery via the net. Do you like the digital means of delivering music, or did you prefer the old-school packaging of vinyl and CDs?

Personally, I’m a record buyer, so I’ll physically go out and buy something. I like seeing the effort involved in the packaging, and I like being able to read the liner notes of who played what; even the thank-you messages. For me that’s an important experience. But I’ve got a cousin who’s 10 years younger than me and I don’t think she’s ever bought a CD but she’s a music lover nonetheless and she’ll be turning me on to things on the digital scene on a regular basis. There’s also the differences in the way revenue works, between [physical records] and digital downloads, but that’s a separate question.

 

“In terms of people being able to access music so easily, that’s a good thing. People will often hear our music online and then want to come and see us live, so that’s great too.”

 

The name Boy & Bear, who came up with it?

I think it was Dave who came up with the name, and he’d probably hope I leave it at that. But he found out about some online ‘bandname generator’ and found a few names on that. Then a shortlist went around, and Boy & Bear is what came out of it – a couple of names mashed together.

 

Why are animals so popular in band names this millennium? From Arctic Monkeys to Wolf & Cub, Animal Collective, Fleet Foxes, and of course you guys.

I don’t know. I think we hadn’t paid attention to that when we named the band. Then we realised, hey, there’s a lot of bear bands out there alone – Grizzly Bear, as well, were quite big at the time. And bands with other animal names too, so you’re right. But it just kind of happened. We just like it.

 

Boy & Bear play the Wanderer Festival at Pambula Beach, NSW on the weekend of October 3rd-5th, 2025.