SOUNDZ
Mostly Bears co-founder Lopez surprised by band's budding fame
By Kevin W. Smith
KSMITH@AZSTARNET.COM
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 04.26.2007
You may be just becoming familiar with Mostly Bears, but the act knows Tucson well.
Both of the band's founders, Brian Lopez (guitar/vocals) and Geoffrey Hidalgo (bass/vocals), attended Tucson High School.
Previously, they were in another local act, Gorilla Behind Bars, which lasted from 2001 to 2004.
"A lot of people think we've just been here for like six months playing shows," said classically trained guitarist Lopez, 24. "Everyone in this band definitely wears Tucson on their sleeves."
Mostly Bears is an eclectic and energetic rock group that can conjure the progressiveness of the Mars Volta and counts influences from screamo to Radiohead to Animal Collective.
After six months spent in Spain in 2005, Lopez returned to Tucson and started Mostly Bears with Hidalgo on the condition that this band was going to be in it for real. The friends eventually ran into an old acquaintance, drummer Nick Wantland, and the trio found they had chemistry.
In 2006, Mostly Bears began playing house parties and venues like the now defunct 36 Chambers. The group got its first major show at Fall Crawl last year.
Summer plans for Mostly Bears' include touring and releasing an EP.
Recently, Lopez, wearing a vintage blue basketball jersey and large sunglasses, had time to chat at a Downtown coffee shop.
Where'd you guys get your name?
"We went through about 80 different names. A lot of the names were drawn out of the Tucson Yellow Pages. It ended up being like three that we narrowed it down to. (One was) Sex Rash From Tokyo, which I still love to this day. We just thought it might be a little bit too risqué."
That wasn't in the phone book, though, right?
"No, that was from an actual sex rash that someone got from Tokyo. Then, Tiger Data — that made it in there somehow. That was not out of the phone book, either. Then, Mostly Bears, which most definitely is a little store in Tucson. I think they sell bears...mostly."
What do you think of the Tucson music scene?
"Everyone's trying to help each other out. I've talked to people in bigger cities and it's very atypical as to what's going on here."
In a short amount of time, you guys seem to have built a devoted local following. How did that happen?
"I can't say enough good things about our fans; they're (expletive) awesome. It started out with, like, 30 friends who knew that we played music, and we were in the middle of transitioning bands, so they knew something was going to come out of it. And it was them coming to our shows and telling their friends and telling their friends, so you get that snowball effect."
Are you surprised at that?
"I'm surprised at the exponential rate at how it has caught on. I did not expect it to happen this fast. But that's good, though. I'm fully confident we're going to keep this momentum up."
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