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Indie Rock band ‘Bear Attack’ playing June 16 

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L.A-based Indie Rock band ‘Bear Attack’ playing June 16

Group is main act at “Songwriter’s At Play” show at Sculpterra Winery

When most people hear “bear attack”, gruesome images of death and despair come to mind, a name that seems much more suitable for a death-metal band than for an indie-rock group comprised of music students. “The name initially got thrown around as a half-joke, but somehow it just stuck,” says the band. “We like to think of our music as a fun surprise!”

This Bear Attack is a 5-piece group whose members hail from four different regions of the U.S: Brandon Bae (guitar) and Nick Campbell (bass) from Los Angeles, Mia Minichiello (vocals/guitar/piano) from Boston, Eric Radloff (vocals/guitar/piano) from Minnesota and Logan Shrewsbury (drums/percussion) from Ashland, Oregon. After meeting at USC’s Thornton School of Music and each gigging around as supporting musicians for other acts, they became close friends and decided to create a band of their own. Finally having a creative outlet led to an outpouring of honest and artistic music, and so Bear Attack was born. They quickly became a favorite live act amongst the USC student body, as well as an emerging musical force within the L.A music scene.

Drawing upon their diverse personal and musical backgrounds, Bear Attack crafts mature, melodic pop songs with influences ranging from Radiohead’s harmonic sensibilities to the emotional honesty of folk acts like The Weepies. One of the unique elements of Bear Attack’s music is the shared male and female lead vocal throughout all of their songs, influenced by the vocal writing techniques of choral composers such as Eric Whitacre, as well as the Irish songwriters The Swell Season. “Singing and creating very individual harmonies and vocal lines is a very important aspect to our songwriting and melodic sensibility”, says Mia Minichiello, one of the lead singer/songwriters of the group alongside Eric Radloff.

Bear Attack successfully funded their debut 6-song EP, Shapes, through online fundraising site Kickstarter with the support of more than 80 unique donors. Since its release last summer, three songs have been featured on the hit ABC Family show, Pretty Little Liars. In particular, “The Backpack Song” was prominently featured in a critical scene in the season three finale, which garnered the band a global following. Their world-wide presence lead to being featured on national Swedish radio, having cover videos of “The Backpack Song” being put up by musicians in Germany, and having physical CD orders from places such as Singapore and New Zealand through their Bandcamp page. Their music made stirs in the U.S as well, with the L.A Times’ “L.A Unheard” music blog describing Bear Attack as “full of careful harmonies and colorful guitar chords…it’s serious, mature music – impressively so for a band barely old enough to drink”.

Now that everyone in the band has graduated, they hope to have the opportunity to reach new audiences and build their fanbase even more. The band will embark on their first west-coast tour this June.”

Come see them Sunday, June 16 at Sculpterra Winery.

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About the author: Publisher Scott Brennan

Scott Brennan is the publisher of this newspaper and founder of Access Publishing. Follow him on Twitter, LinkedIn, or follow his blog.