The harder Brooklyn band Grizzly Bear dodge fame, the more famous fans they attract.
Jay-Z and wife Beyoncé came to the group’s set by the Williamsburg waterfront last year, after which Jay told the Post: “It was beautiful. They played right in front of the Empire State Building.”
The HOV-fueled fun didn’t end there, either. “[After the show], they took us out for tequila shots at some dive bar,” Grizzly Bear singer and multi-instrumentalist Ed Droste tells The Post. “I was pretty star-struck by Beyoncé. I’m not going to lie.”
Grizzly Bear play the picturesque venue at North Eighth Street and Kent Avenue again today, part of the Open Space Alliance for North Brooklyn summer series, also featuring Karen Elson and Band of Horses.
Droste’s biggest claim to fame used to be that he’s second cousins with the founder of hot wings and hot pants chain Hooters. “We used to wear Hooters shirts to school,” he says. “It was so weird, because we were 10.”
So how did that awkward, ironically clad kid end up in an indie rock band favored by hip-hop’s finest?
“A band like Grizzly Bear is trying not to make a big, relatable sound — and that ends up attracting people, because everyone loves rebellion,” Jay-Z recently told Rolling Stone.
“We would never cater to what people expect or want to hear,” Droste tells The Post, “because then the music loses its soul.”
The Brooklyn foursome layers Beach Boys-style vocal harmonies over wide-open, psychedelic freak folk. And their appeal extends beyond hipster bloggers and always-on-brand rappers with a rocker fetish. (Remember, Jay also collaborated with Linkin Park and Coldplay.) Back in 2008, Paul Simon dropped by the band’s practice space before inviting them to play a week’s worth of shows for his Brooklyn Academy of Music residency.
“He was just sitting there,” says Droste, “jamming on the guitar, telling stories, and then he said, ‘Play me one of your covers.’”
One of Simon’s songs, that is. For him.
So Grizzly Bear did their version of “Graceland,” and then “Mother and Child Reunion.”
Apparently, they passed the audition. “He was really into the idea of having it be as different from the original as possible,” Droste says.
Even Radiohead took them on tour recently as their opening act, and guitarist Jonny Greenwood called them his “favorite band in the world” from the stage.
Droste insists Grizzly Bear hasn’t made its bones on the buzz from A-list artists, but rather as a one-step-at-a-time kind of band who’ve released two EPs and three full-length records and toured for five years, often in rented vans, crashing on fans’ couches after small gigs. He never expects they’ll get as big as Radiohead (never mind that the Grizzly song “Two Weeks” is used in a Volkswagen ad that played during the Super Bowl — and hundreds of times since).
“If it were to happen, I’d be surprised,” Droste says. “With Radiohead, we got to play huge amphitheaters — it’s not the type of venue that any of us foresee being able to headline on our own.”