Biography
Toxic Bears are an avant garage, experimental punk rock band based in Brisbane, Australia. Their music ranges from melodic hardcore to funk, jazz and Latin-infused garage rock. The band has recorded three albums and an EP.
Their latest album, Nine Meals (2019), was tracked and mixed by the band in Brisbane and mastered by Jason Livermore (Propaghandi, The Descendents, All) at The Blasting Room in Colorado. It is the first album to feature lead singer and guitarist Rapido Bear (Mark Limb), who was the band’s videographer on its fabled journey through some of Japan’s smallest and loudest live venues in 2015. Toxic Bears' adventures through underground music scenes in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya and Gifu featured in The Guardian: "No record label, no promotion, no merch, no reason to tour Japan".
In 2018, Rapido succeeded founding Bears frontman Shane Robertson (Big Bear).
Drummer Jamie Coyle, guitarist Josh Robertson and former singer / bassist / guitarist Shane Robertson first played together in the early 1990s in melodic hardcore band Cage of Joy. The trio reformed in 2007 as Toxic Bears. Jamie had studied at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music and played in jazz ensembles. Josh had been involved in Australian hip hop through Decipher. Bassist Scott Brady, who played with alternative rock outfits Cipher and Holocene, joined Toxic Bears in 2015.
Jamie’s “Pokerface” was an early example of the Bears’ garage fusion, a punk adaptation of a Cuban songo beat. “Yakuza Café” draws on Jamaican disco. “Thai Eyes” features a Purdie shuffle interlude. “Earth, Wind and Fire Ant” rides on a funk break and a Latin breakdown.
Songs drawn from Josh’s journalistic encounters include “Spymaster” - about the first woman to run MI5 - and “Thai Eyes” - about members of an outlaw motorcycle gang.
Toxic Bears write, record and play ritually in their own acoustically-engineered studio using gear purchased in a chain of secondhand stores in central Japan. They record live together in the same room. Only vocals, percussion and some guitar leads are overdubbed.
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