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Music

Bars of Gold are Incredibly Passionate About Making Teeth (and Music)

The ex-Bear Vs. Shark members discuss the pros and cons of being ex-Bear Vs. Shark members. Plus, stream their new album, 'Wheels'.

Bear Vs. Shark didn’t know what the fuck they were doing. Singer Marc Paffi and drummer Brandon Moss will be the first to admit it. They over-toured, they made naïve mistakes, and the band ended up dissolving. So when the two teamed up to start making music again years later, they were a bit smarter about it and kept it casual. The casual project eventually became Bars of Gold. The band is a bit jazzier than the music they’ve made in the past but it’s still got that Bear Vs. Shark bite to it. Speaking of bite, they’ve got some interesting careers that include making teeth and teaching artsy kids. We talked to Brandon and Marc about that and their newfound appreciation for being a band. Their new album, Wheels, is out next week. Stream the whole thing below.

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So which one of you is the one who makes the teeth?
Marc: Oh, I make the teeth.

I’ve heard you’re incredibly passionate about it.
Marc: Yeah, I kind of fell into it a lot when we were touring a lot with Bear Vs. Shark. It’s a family business. I would work for a week and then tour for a while and come back for a few days and work. Although it might not sound that exciting, I think it’s rather exciting.

Explain the excitement of teeth-making.
Marc: There’s a lot that goes into it. You have to account for—a lot of cases we get are people that—when you look at their mouth, and the models of their mandibular and maxillary jaws—their lower and upper jaws—you realize that this person, without these fake teeth, would have no means to eat any kind of food whatsoever. You get a lot of people who have two teeth in their mouth and that’s it. And you have to construct teeth that not only are gonna function, but aesthetically look like their teeth so when they smile, you wouldn’t be able to say, “Oh, that guy has fake teeth.” It’s rather exciting.

This feels like the one profession we haven’t had for a reality show.
Marc: [laughs] You’re probably right, man.

I heard you wake up super early for it too.
Marc: I do, yeah. Usually I’m up by a quarter to six. We start at 7 which I guess isn’t that early. But it is for me because I hate mornings. So we have to get there before a lot of the dentists’ offices open. Dentists have some of the weirdest hours in the world. A lot of dentists come up with stories like, “Oh, this person is getting married and leaving the country tomorrow. They can’t be missing every single one of their fronts. They have to take wedding pictures.” Or whatever it is. It’s all these wild stories and they’re all the same.

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What’s the craziest story you’ve gotten?
Marc: Oh goddamn. So, they come with all these crazy excuses. One time we actually had a dentist tell us this person was not only leaving the country to get married but they had a perfectly nice partial that was eaten by their dog. So you have somebody that is leaving the country tomorrow, getting married and taking wedding pictures, and their dog ate their teeth.

The trifecta of lame excuses. They must’ve been so pissed at that dog.
Marc: Yeah, or it was complete bullshit. The dentist was probably under pressure to get it done and used the three main excuses which are marry, country, dog. But it’s amazing how many people have fake teeth. You would have no idea. And that means that whoever’s making the fake teeth is doing a really good job because you shouldn’t be able to tell.

So Brandon, I assume you are the teacher?
Brandon: Yes.

I heard you teach at a school for gifted children?
Brandon: [laughs] Like the X-Men? I teach at a magnet school. So it’s an arts school. We have a really strong arts program. We have a lot of dancers. We don’t have a football team or anything. We have a dance team.

Is it one of those schools where grades don’t matter?
Brandon: [laughs] I think as badly as my students which it was like that, no, it’s not. It’s still a public high school. It’s just that the kids that are there, they definitely want to have a stronger arts thing going on. I don’t even teach any of that which is really funny.

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What subject do you teach?
Brandon: I’m the social studies teacher.

So do you have all these kids who are super artsy and have no interest in learning about social studies?
Brandon: Oh yeah, oh yeah.

And are there parents like, “My kid’s gonna be in the New York Symphony, he doesn’t need to learn social studies”?
It’s funny because the kids’ parents never say anything like that and the kids are pretty realistic. Even though there are some kids are aiming for that, it’s a working class suburb of Detroit.

So you probably don’t have a lot of time to devote to the band during the school year.
I definitely front-end a lot of stuff during the school year. I manage to make it work. This is the job that brought me back to Michigan. I was living on the East Coast for a couple of years. When I had an offer to come back, I took it.

So you two are the members of Bars of Gold that was formerly half of Bear Vs. Shark.

Brandon:

Yeah.

And you guys broke up around 2005?
Marc: Yeah, I think it was 2005.

Were you guys working on anything between then and now or did you sort of give it a rest for a while?
Brandon: I wasn’t in Bear Vs. Shark the last year it was a band. They were touring a lot more after I was in the band. But as soon as I stepped away from touring, I started fiddling around with the guys that are in Bars of Gold. We started a band called Wildcatting. We didn’t take anything seriously and that band has always been, I don’t want to say an experimental band, but it was always an experiment for us. We never intended to have a singer, we’d just wing a lot of things.

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Marc: They started playing around and playing local shows and I wasn’t doing anything so I started playing with Brandon on the side. On occasion, we’d get together and write a couple of songs. Then it just turned into an every week thing. It wasn’t really a plan to be a band. It was more of an experiment that turned into Bars of Gold.

From what I’ve heard, a large reason Bear Vs. Shark called it quits was that you guys were fed up with touring at that point. Was that the case?
Marc: Yeah, we were just tired. It pretty much came down to the point where we take a break or call it a day. And after Brandon left, that wasn’t the end of the story as far as personalities of the band. It just continued to snowball and it was at the point where we needed to replace a member or call it a day so I personally took the responsibility of calling it a day with the band. I always felt so different after Brandon left and that’s not to say that the good friend of mine who replaced him wasn’t fantastic because he was, but I’m nostalgic about when you know, when you start a band, you have these members and when you start putting in different pieces of the puzzle, it becomes a whole different band so why would you call it the same thing? That’s still my point for this band too. I think everyone feels the same way. The five of us are Bars of Gold and if someone decides to bow out, it’s not gonna be Bars of Gold anymore.

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When you were gearing up with Bars of Gold and getting the word out, how do you think the reception was given your connection with Bear Vs. Shark? Do you ever feel like you stayed away too long? Did you lose any of that momentum?
Marc: No, I think Bear Vs. Shark was never…I mean, we never…

Brandon: We didn’t know what we were doing. [laughs]

Marc: Yeah Brandon is totally right. If we could’ve gotten the love we’re getting now for Bear Vs. Shark, maybe none of this would ever have happened. All these people are coming out of the woodwork that we never knew existed. And a lot of them too are like, “Man, I never got to see you guys live but if I could, I would have.” I don’t know. I knew going into this, it was gonna be like “Hey Mercedes, ex-Braid”. A lot of it was “Bars of Gold, ex-Bear Vs. Shark” and I think the other three dudes in the band knew that going into it, there was always gonna be a reference to what me and Brandon did.

But it seems to be helping you guys. You got a good amount of attention for the album. I’m assuming a lot of that is from carrying the name.
Brandon: Yeah, I can definitely say that it’s not one of those things where we’re trying to shy away from it. I’m definitely, and I’m sure Marc would say the same thing, super proud of all the stuff we did in the past. It’s awesome. It’s super humbling, like Marc said, where people come out of the woodwork. We go to Chicago or New York or these other towns that aren’t Detroit and people really come out of the woodwork to talk to us about the past. In some ways maybe, I don’t know if we lost momentum. Sometimes when you’re in the middle of a storm, you don’t even realize you’re moving. I know that being in Wildcatting and then Bars of Gold, it never felt like momentum at all. I would say it’s helped us. We’ve made so many friends in just the last year or two and it’s been because of those connections to things we did in the past. Really what we’re doing now is just an extension of what we were doing then.

What’s the biggest difference you’ve noticed from putting this new album out and putting the last Bear Vs. Shark album out?
Marc: I just feel so much more confident and maybe it’s because I’m 34 years old. Bear Vs. Shark was so much more nerve wracking because we clearly didn’t know what we were doing. For some reason, when Bear Vs. Shark got signed and we put out our first record, we had no idea. We did the classic thing of like, “Oh, let’s pick three labels and send them a five-song demo.” It happened to work out for us then. This might sound completely asinine, but I could really give a shit about what the industry thinks about us. I think I speak for the other four dudes in the band. We just love what we’re doing right now. Whatever happens happens. There are so many bands we knew from Bear Vs. Shark that are no longer bands because they got drilled into the ground from stupid ass, insane non-stop touring. You tour forever and everyone hates each other and hates touring and they break up. Fucking dumb.

I guess that’s why being a teacher and making teeth are important things to have on the side.
Brandon: An interesting thing for me is, I’m thinking of how it was in Bear Vs. Shark and we started out when we were in college and it was an excuse to hang out, for all of us. We started making songs and weren’t really taking it seriously. Then we figured, “Eh, you know, let’s send some stuff out. This is what bands do. They send out music, they play in basements.” So then all of a sudden, things just started happening. I give a lot of deference to Equal Vision for taking a chance on a bunch of goofballs. And boom, we were on the road and it just sort of surprised everyone. And I hate to make it sound like we were idiots but in many ways, we were kind of just going with the flow. I think we’ve done way better jobs in this band of making our own little world. We’re trying to have fun in it while we have it. It feels like we’re making a fort. We’re finding leaves and trying to cover it up. It’s fun. It’s the most fun I’ve had in a band ever. We make these little forts and hide in them.

Pre-order Wheels here.

Dan Ozzi has so many dental puns that he is trying so hard not to use right now. Follow him on Twitter - @danozzi