Bear Tracks

What the hell is a Limbeck? Short answer: He's a member of Limbeck, a So-Cal cocktail of Jayhawks roots rock and Shins dream-pop that more often than not gets called alt-country.

The long answer: Many moons ago, the Bastards of Limbeck were a teen pop-punk band named after Charles in Charge sidekick Buddy Lembeck, since the guy who played Lembeck—Christian nutjob Willie Aames—was the father of one of the Bastards' friends and is, when you think about it, ridiculously easy to make fun of. Eventually, the Bastards figured out who all of their fathers were and shortened their name to simply Limbeck. Guitarist Patrick Carrie explains this over the phone from home, shortly before he begins answering some questions about his band's eponymous new album.

What can we expect from the new album?

You can expect the most diverse thing we've done in our whole lives...which I don't know how much that says about us. But it's true.

What did you set out to accomplish this time around?

We were going to change our band name to the Bears and we were going to name the album The Bears, but people didn't think it was a good enough sign of our music. But I think it is, because we were tackling a lot of new [musical] areas. I wouldn't say we ditched the alt-country thing, but it's definitely a lesser presence on this record.

What kind of new musical areas did you tackle?

We really love the Beach Boys and power-pop and all that, but we also gave a big healthy nod to the days when we loved everything under the sun that was pop-punk.

This is also your fourth album, but you're releasing it self-titled. Any reason?

We feel really solid about the music we're making and the direction we're taking. The better story is, we were actually going to change our band name to the Bears because we thought, "How badass would it be if a band that was established and had records out changed their name to the Bears mid-career and then still played the same songs?"

Wait a minute. You weren't joking earlier. You guys were really going to rename yourselves the Bears?

No, no, we were 100 percent serious. When we get out on tour, our beards grow out, and we just like the bear adventure imagery. Not that it would've been a publicity scam, but it kind of would've been a publicity scam.