Bear Creek

Bear Creek is the band’s fourth studio album and fifth full album release. Released June 5th 2012, it was produced with the help of Trina Shoemaker. Bear Creek is the name of the studio where the majority of the album was recorded. As Brandi Carlile said in 2011 after the recording “the title is still up in the air, although Carlile says that she’d “love to go the way of Elton John and name the record after the studio. It would be one thing if the studio was called something stupid, but Bear Creek is pretty cool.”

Trina Shoemaker said in an interview “My main memory of Bear Creek is falling in love with Brandi, Tim and Phil (Hanseroth) and discovering that they, like me, are foul mouthed studio hounds who love hi jinx and tom foolery,”

During the pandemic when the band played each of their albums in full, live via the Veeps platform, the band discussed most of the songs as they played each one.

On that special Brandi referred to the album as a ‘long one and a weird one!…and added “We recorded most of the songs in the back of a tour bus, and use a lot of them on the recording.”

She recalls “I just remember it being this random experience of just writing crazy songs… is this what we’re suppose to be doing… is this it…is this what we’re suppose to be doing?” At the time they asked if they could make the album by themselves without a producer. While it was agreed, they were asked to send in a bunch of songs before hand. They were given the go ahead, and she says “what you hear is a bunch of young people set free from a major label, and set free from producers just trying to figure out who they are.”

“I feel like that when I listen to this record, like we are just clutching at things, in a really good way. We were so in love the experience after, we put every song we recorded on the record.” and “when i listen to this record in my life, I hear a great moment of transition. From not knowing to knowing.” Tim agrees “Absolutely, I was just thinking ‘who let us make this thing'”. He adds, “I gotta give a shout out to Greg Linn, Greg let us do kind of whatever we wanted, and always supported us through all those records.” Greg Linn was Sony BMG VP of Marketing at the time.

Trina Shoemaker also reflected “The label wanted us to do a few days of pre-production before we started cutting the record. We were meant to just rehearse for the first three days and the label wanted to come by and basically make sure that I was capable (since I wasn’t their first choice to produce). I was just plain old Shoemaker with no hits to my name,” Shoemaker explained. “Fuck that, I told the band and proceeded to start cutting tracks right away. We got “What Did I Ever Come Here For” the first night.”

“I loved experiencing Brandi come into her own as a guitar player. I wanted her playing on everything, even if at that time she was raw and ragged. I found her playing enchanting and her nascent talent worthy.“

“I loved creating the sonics that allow the main harmonic content in “Hard Way Home” to sound like steel drums. It’s a combination of one of Tim’s oddball guitars and a Wurlitzer piano (I believe).“

“I remember begging Brandi to try the falsetto voices in the 2nd and 4th verses of “What Did I Ever Come Here For”. She pushed back hard on that, but she agreed to try and she ended up liking it, quite a lot I think.”

There were 18 songs recorded for Bear Creek, but only 13 made the cut.
We know there was one song “Rattled” – which most likely turned up as Rattle My Bones from 2014 The Secret Sisters album Put Your Needle Down , and we wonder what else is sitting in the archives. As she menioned in an article at the time, it looks like she assumes it was going to be on the album .

In a 2018 interview with Vice (promoting BTWIFY), Brandi Carlile was said there would be song’s she probably wouldn’t have put on the album in retrospect including, “Probably “I’ll Still Be There,” maybe “Rise Again,” maybe even “Just Kids.” 

A few Song notes for Bear Creek:

Long Way Home – Written by Tim Hanseroth, Brandi Carlile and Phil Hanseroth

Raise Hell – Written by Brandi Carlile, Tim Hanseroth
Once affectionally referred to by Brandi as Ray’s Hell, as it became a small anthem on the back of a difficult tour with Ray Lamontagne where the band were promoting Bear Creek. While written prior to going on tour with him, in the Summer of 2011, it took on new meaning. The song later appeared as a record day vinyl single release, recorded live on their Hard Way Home tour in 2013. Read more about that here.

Save Part of Yourself For Me – Written by Tim Hanseroth, Brandi Carlile

That Wasn’t Me – Written by Brandi Carlile – A deep dive of the track is here.
The lead single released to support the Bear Creek album 2012. You can read about this song in depth here. About addiction and her experience of her father coming out of addiction and forgiveness and healing. She says “By the time I finished writing this song, I didn’t know if it was about me or for me.” She has more recently said about the singing of the song that she doesn’t sing it now without hearing Tanya Tucker’s version of it when she joined them live on stage.

Keep Your Heart Young. Tim Hanseroth and Phil Hanseroth, Brandi Carile.
It was actually written by Tim Hanseroth. In July 2024 Tim did a IG live, and sang the song. The story he tells during that live was they were on the tour bus and he woke up from a dream with the song fully formed in his mind. He’d dreamt the whole song. He ran to the back of the bus to quickly right the song down there and then, and their then drummer Allison Miller, asked what he was doing and when he explained she quickly threw him a pencil. Thus the song was born. He joked that he didn’t write it – that it wrote itself and appeared to him in the dream.

The song is often sung live at concerts with the young children in their lives coming on stage to join in.

100 – Written by Phil Hanseroth, Brandi Carlile
Of this song during the pandemic special she says “this is a fun song to sing. It’s a crazy song. I don’t know the hell what we were doing.” She added, “I love it so much, I love even singing because of the fearlessness of it.”

A Promise To Keep -Written by Tim Hanseroth, Brandi Carlile
First heard as a demo recording released in 2009 for Record Store Day on a 7inch vinyl as a B side to Downpour. It was written by Tim.
In the video special “Live at Bear Creek” Brandi talks to what the song is about, “I don’t think there is anyone that can’t relate to that nuclear fallout that happens after the loss of something massive. The way you walk through the world doing the same things, re-enacting the same scenarios over and over again. You continue on with your habits of talking in your sleep, or laying on your side of the bed if you’ve gone through a split. Even after the event has happened, the breakup, the divorce, the loss of a loved one, you sort of continue on in your ways. That’s what A Promise to Keep is about. It’s about going through the motions after a difficult time.”

I’ll Still Be There – Written by Phil Hansertoth, Brandi Carlile

What Did I Ever Come Here For – Written by Phil Hanseroth, Brandi Carlile
Phil wrote this song, and they demo’d it with some acoustic guitar and cello and claps and clicks. But when they were in the studio with Trina Shoemaker, Brandi tells how she just played it on piano for soundcheck, but they ended up keeping it. In the Veeps special they revert back to the original plan and play on guitars (including Phil on guitar, not bass). When they performed it for the special it was mentioned they’ve never played the song live. Except for when Brandi goes up to the prison to sing for the women in prison at Christmas time because it was one of the songs in If Project documentary. Brandi says they love it. “It’s an example of a lyric that hits close to women for that gals that are incarerated, but didn’t probably mean that to you [Phil] when you wrote it.” Phil confirms its about an astral projection dream.

Heart’s Content Written by Brandi Carlile
Brandi says “This song is about that relationship in your life, that you so want to feel good and feel right but something just wont click.”

Rise Again – Written by Tim Hanseroth, Brandi Carlile, Phil Hanseroth

In The Morrow -Written by Tim Hanseroth, Brandi Carlile

Just Kids – Written by Brandi Carlile

Track List

Full list of versions :