We were lucky to catch up with Joe Perry recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Joe, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

Originally I never thought I would be in a band. I started off in my grade school years looking at joining the military (pretty laughable now). Once I got into high school and thought all my plans were set, wham, I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. I thought I had lost out on what I had planned but it turned out to be the biggest blessing from God. I eventually ended up in the small rural town of Seguin, Texas to attend college at Texas Lutheran University. I thought I would never find anyone cool there or interested in my growing love of music, but I was proven wrong yet again. In my preliminary college years I met Jonathan Kerr (rhythm guitarist) and Ryan Hannasch (drummer). We started playing with some additional guys in a band called “Daily Departures” but that quickly sizzled out because some band members wanted to pursue music professionally while others wanted to pursue it as a hobby. This led to our core group forming “Swimming with Bears”. I was hooked when we played our first gigs around Austin and San Antonio and people were digging our music and buying our merchandise. I was amazed at the reception we received from across the country and different parts of the globe. This month we released our newest single “Nocturnal Rehearsal” and we look forward to pursuing our creative dreams!

Joe, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My introduction into the craft of music was when I was little. My parents would take me to church (I usually slept during the sermons), however, I was always wide eyed when watching the musicians play as one and I loved seeing them support each other in their individual parts. That love would quickly grow as my parents would buy me cassettes and CD’s of various artists. I would lay in bed and listen to songs over and over again for hours, imagining myself on stage playing in front of a large audience. By the time my middle school years approached, I wanted to play in a band just like all the rock bands I had listened to; however, my parents enrolled me into concert band and somehow I ended up with my assigned instrument being the flute. As you might imagine, my friends gave me a hard time for being the only boy in the band who was playing the flute- they always had interesting and far from appropriate things to say about me and the flute. But those years taught me the value of playing as a unit and the importance of timing and staying in the pocket. Around the beginning of my 7th grade year, my desire for playing rock music grew, so I asked my dad to get me a guitar. As we were perusing the music store, I pointed to a bass guitar and said that’s what I want. My dad tried to convince me otherwise, telling me everyone wants to be the lead guitarist or the drummer, but I did not want that life, so he caved and got me my first bass guitar. I would sit in my room and play bass lines from different bands and try to even make my own renditions of their bass lines. It was not until later in college that I began to learn the other half of my craft, singing. Combining singing while playing bass was when I really had to put in hours of practice, it took me about a summer to put it together and years to do it without thinking. Something that I take pride in is that what you hear on the album is what you hear live, as a band we always aim to play better than our record. I love hearing the feedback from fans that the concert sounded better than the recording!

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

I think the continued rise of real estate cost in many metropolitan downtowns has forced a lot of creatives out. I can relate to this just from how far I have moved away from the Austin downtown area in the past few years. With many corporations and their employees moving to Austin from out of state, the cost of real estate has increased and in turn has kicked the “starving artists” out. Downtown Austin use to have so many spots for artists to hangout and to exchange stories and ideas, but that has been disbanded with the cocktail bars and high-end night life. This has been worsened by less people exploring new venues for adventure’s sake post-COVID. People use to “venue hop” to see if they could find a new emerging artist, but this night life experience for the most part has stopped. This has forced venues to pay artist less and less. With all this being said, I think society could help their creatives by creating living spaces where artists and other lower income people could live closer to downtown without forfeiting their safety or dignity. I also want to encourage music fans to check out new venues and support places featuring local musicians. I love being able to go to a venue and see an act I have never heard before and being surprised by the talent I hear.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Then most rewarding aspect of being a creative is sharing something that is purely imagined out of your mind and given to the world as a gift. Art is meant not only to be shared but interpreted, discussed, and absorbed into the culture. If I hum a song that is familiar, it will invoke different memories for many people. One person may think about a time with their family, for another, a painful memory might emerge, and for someone else, a time they felt loved. This is the power and joy of creating art, not only does it stir emotions, it makes memories.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://swimmingwithbears.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swimmingwithbears/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swimmingwithbears
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4PprNtyMUp_eg6RL4oqK_A
• Other: I am attaching our newest single Nocturnal Rehearsal Nocturnal Rehearsal link: https://ffm.to/dej6jjy

Image Credits
Renee Dominguez