Beartoe Interview

Beartoe Sings For His Supper | Exclusive Live Performances and Conversation With Florida’s Own Beartoe

by • December 27, 2014

My songs express my human condition; either you’re going to react to them or you’re not.”

If you’ve been around Florida for the past few years or more, chances are good you’ve seen the Beartoe moniker attached to various bars, clubs and festivals all across The Sunshine State. Regularly playing four and five shows a week—sometimes multiple shows a night, usually for two and three hours a pop—Beartoe’s got to be one of the hardest working musicians in Florida.

Beartoe Interview

Maybe that wasn’t always the case, but he appears to be grabbing at the reins and picking up a fair amount of speed. Born in Washington, D.C. and growing up in Maryland before landing in Deland, Roberto Aguilar—known as simply Beartoe to his friends—used music as a way to pass the time, something to combat his boredom. After a fair amount of begging, his dad gave him an amp and electric guitar when he was in the 7th grade. His brother eventually got a drum set and the two of them started playing music together.

Learning music led to writing songs. Writing songs led to dreaming—the siblings would talk for hours about where they could go with their music and what they could do. Eventually Beartoe and his brother Nathaniel were leading worship at church camps. He’s not so religious now, but he remembers seeing full congregations respond to the music he was helping create onstage. They moved with the songs played, singing and clapping and closing their eyes, too. They felt what was being created.

It showed Beartoe what the power of music could do. It gave him a taste of what a good performance could do for someone.

“People would just get lost. It was supposed to be about the Lord in that setting, but you’re controlling the emotional responses in the room. It was a great place to learn,” he says, adding he played songs with titles like “Lord I Lift Your Name On High” and “The Blood of the Lamb.”

“Worship leaders are very aware of the influence they have over the congregation, much like the performer does over his or her audience. In fact, there really isn’t much of a difference.”

The brothers continued to write on their own, which led to starting a couple bands in college (Sine, Dish). The latter was as good to watch as it was to listen to; it had his brother playing percussion on whatever he could get his hands on. You name it, he probably played it: buckets, pots and pans, a hubcap and chain on top acting as a snare. They created such a buzz, they went all the way to L.A. to record an album.

What followed, though? A standstill. It was the end of a road of sorts for them, a parting of ways.

“It was really tough on me, too,” he admits. “It felt like we’d been together for over 20 years and, all of a-sudden, we had this very evident space between us. Still, even though we don’t play together anymore, we worked it out.”

His brother went off to DC and plays with a Caribbean jazz band. He even got a degree in music and teaches it to the young and impressionable. What sort of started as a pastime appears to have directed each of their lives and helped identify who they are and what they regularly do. For Beartoe, that means playing a one-man show at the Lucky Lure and belting out Marvin Gaye and Joe Cocker covers along with his originals or leading his other band (Heckfire) at Davinci in Deland.

Today, Beartoe calls New Smyrna Beach home and is slowly establishing a presence there. He says he’s learned a lot about the industry and understands what he’s doing now, better than ever, how he wants to be experienced and heard. It means taking the catalog of 200 or so songs rattling around his brain and sharing them at every spot in the state that’ll allow him to do so.

“In Florida, you have so many beach towns … which means you’re always going to have music, and it’s a vacation spot, so you’re always going to have an audience. A lot of them are bar gigs, but plenty of guys still make a living doing that,” he says.

“I want to play elsewhere, too, but I need to blow my state up first. Aside from the fact all of Florida will be underwater in the next couple years, it’s a great circuit.”

As for that far-off future? Playing the gigs he wants to play ranks high—less shows, better quality gigs, more festivals—and making a living off of writing and singing songs to an appreciative crowd. Owning a house (with or without wheels) and being close to the beach is high on the list, too.

Beartoe Live Concert Photo

Getting to perform more intimate shows is a solid goal, something he’s not always able to control, given his line of work.

“I get so much more power when people are actually tuned in and listening, even if it’s just one person,” he says.

“I went to see Tom Waits in this big beautiful theater not long ago and everyone was really hanging on his words and enjoying the performance … all except for two people, and they were sitting right behind us, talking over him. That’s just rude. There’s a time and a place for that, but certainly not during a concert.

If you’d like to give your undivided attention to Beartoe in the very near future, now’s your chance. He’s playing at The Smiling Bison in Orlando on Jan. 1, 2015 at 8pm.

A conversation with Beartoe and all video recordings by Dainon Moody.


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