BAR II are an amazing new indie rock band on the scene, bringing a touch of originality to an already diluted genre. They released a short, 2 track EP back in July, titled How I Fake It. If you like your indie, go check it out!
By Jane Howkins
You recently released an EP titled How I Fake It. What can you tell us about the EP?
After our first EP, Wake Up, in 2021 and our year’s recent single, Let You Down, BAR II is back with a new EP, How I Fake It. The first single, Fake It, gets deeper and deeper in its heavy stoner rock sound. It’s an endless drilling for the sweet spot, where aggression and harshness meet melody and groove. Once again, Bar II are showing how rooted their music is in a very raw vision of life. Is it real? Is it fake? Who cares? It rocks.
Actually, Fake It was on standby for a long time. We had the verses just after we shot our first single Wasted, but we were put off by the chorus – nothing exciting came. So we started working on other songs first. And one day, I remembered these verses and I figured that we had to do a five chord chorus – more of a classical music type of writing, not so often used in pop or rock – so it never ends with the same chord to bring that no ending sensation. We call it ‘the circle chorus’. So we had our ‘mad’ part, and then, the final part was just inspired by a crazy Soulwax ending we loved, kind of a journey in a mad world, video game alike.
How has the reception been so far, and where can How I Fake It be purchased?
You can find it digitally everywhere. Apple, Spotify, Tidal , Tiktok, Youtube, etc…
And for now, we are pretty happy with it. We’re on more than 100 playlists, some big ones – this is still very underground but we are not in a rush.
Have you released any singles from the EP?
Fake It is the single, but we like How I Feel too.
Do you plan to release another EP or an album anytime soon or is it too soon?
Yes, we’ve recorded a total of six songs in the same period and we decided to release them all, because we loved them all. So this is the 5th song for now. We have one left that we hope to be releasing in autumn if our schedule is ok. The whole project is called Wake Up, which has lots of meaning to us. And we are recording and producing new songs right now for the next part. An album, EPs, singles… who knows.
Has the pandemic hindered your work much?
We are a production team, so no, we have produced a lot during the pandemic and we still do. But inspiration maybe…
Your music is rather heavy, but sounds quite catchy at times. What/who influences you most as artists? What have you been listening to recently?
We are really big fan of the songwriting of Josh Hommes or Mike Kerr, so yeah, QOTSA, Royal Blood, The Kills, stuff like that inspires us a lot! Powerful and harmonically brilliant.
What is the composition process like for you?
Chaos! It can start from a riff, from a chord progression, from a melody, a rhythm… no rules, but one can inspire the other. But then the main word is that we want to surprise you. Obvious is too easy. But the goal is not complexity. The Beatles sound really easy and simple, but it’s not at all.
Where are you based? What is the music scene like in your part of the world?
We are from Brussels, Belgium. Small scene from a world point of view, but pretty eclectic.
Do you have any tour dates lined up for the UK?
Not for now – stream us instead.
Any last words for the fans?
Keep in touch, many good things are coming and we have a lot of banging music to share!