Bearings have announced their third album, The Best Part About Being Human, out August 18 via Pure Noise Records. Produced by Sam Guaiana (Silverstein, Between You & Me), the new album features the most tightly honed songwriting of Bearings’ near-decade career, instantly nostalgic for sweaty summer festivals and finger-pointed singalongs while serving as a clear indication of where the pop-punk genre is headed. Alongside the announcement, the band shared their new single and soon to be summer banger, “Gone So Gone“.
“The Best Part About Being Human is being alive and the second best part is writing an upbeat and exciting record with your brothers in a small house in North Hollywood,” says the band. “This record was us figuring out what we really wanted to play live, what got us excited, and I think we found that.”
On the new track, the band explains, “’Gone So Gone’ is about making fun of yourself and your situation. The song really is about heartbreak but by sort of creating it yourself. Sad but sort of funny, as with anything in life I think it’s good to laugh at yourself about it. Why else would I use the word fuss?”
By the time Bearings got the chance to properly tour their sophomore album, 2020’s Hello, It’s You, 16 months had passed due to, well, you know the story. But despite the false starts getting back onto the road, in a roundabout way the delayed gratification might have been the very best thing for the Ottawa-based pop-punk quintet and their passionate fans alike.
“I thought not being able to tour the record would be a death sentence, but it allowed people to sit with the album and connect to it in deeper ways,” says vocalist Dougie Cousins. “When we finally went and did our headline tour in 2022, crowds really knew the songs.”
In the end, Hello, It’s You solidified Bearings’ place as genre mainstays, elevating a tried-and-true pop-punk sound Alternative Press hailed as “dangerously catchy” that “could bring down a summer barbeque, if not a festival,” while their home and native land’s Exclaim! said Bearings had “entered the pop-punk big leagues.”
But as Cousins, guitarists Ryan Culligan and Ryan Fitz, bassist Collin Hanes and drummer Mike McKerracher began work on LP3 (their Pure Noise debut, Blue In The Dark, dropped in 2018) with producer Sam Guaiana (Silverstein, Between You & Me), they channeled their triumphant return to the stage in sweaty U.S. and Canadian clubs, opting for a more minimalistic approach to the songwriting process.
Centering the most elemental, essential qualities of their musicianship without falling into the kid-in-a-candy-store trappings that bog down so many artists, Bearings’ third album for Pure Noise, The Best Part About Being Human, is the sort of record that begs to be played loudly, the sounds of sunny SoCal filtered through the lens of the Great White North.
“We just wanted to make a fun record,” Cousins espouses. “Sometimes when an album is so thought out, it’s got to be as good as American Idiot or it comes off as trying too hard. I think we did new things without sending it into outer space. To me, this record sounds like how I felt when I was in grade 10 listening to blink-182: not too serious, just a good time and able to open up a little circle pit. I think we succeeded in writing songs we can play in a basement or in front of 2,000 people.”
Bearings will be hitting the road with Just Friends, Young Culture, and Youth Fountain on The Alive And Loud Tour. All tour dates can be found below. Tickets are on sale now.
September 15 – Chicago, IL – Riot Fest*
September 16 – Detroit, MI – The Sanctuary
September 17 – Toronto, CA – The Opera House
September 19 – Montréal, CA – Théâtre Fairmount
September 20 – Albany, NY – Empire Live
September 22 – Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer
September 23 – New York, NY – Racket NYC
September 24 – Boston, MA – Crystal Ballroom (Crystal Restaurant)
September 26 – Hamden, CT – Space Ballroom
September 27 – Syracuse, NY – The Song and Dance
September 29 – Pittsburgh, PA – Enclave
September 30 – Columbus, OH – Ace of Cups
October 1 – Baltimore, MD – Ottobar
October 3 – Charlotte, NC – Amos’ Southend
October 4 – Atlanta, GA – The Masquerade
October 6 – Dallas, TX – Lone Star Room Dallas
October 7 – San Antonio, TX – Paper Tiger
October 10 – Phoenix, AZ – Crescent Ballroom
October 11 – Los Angeles, CA – Echoplex
October 13 – Anaheim, CA – Chain Reaction
October 15 – Berkeley, CA – The Cornerstone
October 17 – Seattle, WA – El Corazon
October 18 – Portland, OR – Hawthorne Theatre
October 20 – Salt Lake City, UT – Soundwell
October 21 – Denver, CO – Marquis Theater
*Festival Appearance