On the final date of their UK tour, Laura Snapes talks to Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor about orchestras, Jay-Z and personal loss.

Following in the footsteps of Hole and Spiritualized, Grizzly Bear are the latest in a long line of bands to interpret ‘He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)’, written by Carole King and renowned songwriter Gerry Goffin in the 1962 as a response to singer Little Eva’s defence of the domestic violence she experienced at the hands of her boyfriend. As Daniel Rossen, Ed Droste, Chris Taylor and Ed Bear close their show at the Anson Rooms with their interpretation of the song (taken from 2008’s Friend EP), it takes on a new meaning similar to that inferred by former Sleater-Kinney luminary Carrie Brownstein about Bon Iver’s debut album – “it’s like being punched in the heart, in a good way.”

Grizzly Bear are a genuine example of the sum being greater than its parts, particularly live – their awkward, almost broken-sounding chord transitions combine with visibly manifested classical sensibilities and perhaps the greatest group male harmonies since the Beach Boys to create an otherworldly experience, one whose urgent, crashing punctuations deliver an indescribable emotional blow.

In a way, Bristol gets off lightly – there’s “only” the stage-wide improvised chandelier of suspended jars lit beautifully from the inside and a hard-driven set perfected by a summer of touring festivals across the globe to contend with – the weekend previously in London, the band played to the stirrings of the London Symphony Orchestra, as arranged by their friend and accomplished Julliard graduate, Nico Muhly. The show won near-universal acclaim.

Orchestral accompaniment seems to have been thematic amongst cerebral indie groups this year – from Sufjan Stevens’ BQE project with the Brooklyn Academy of Music to Brooklyn’s Dirty Projectors announcing a show with the LA Philharmonic next February – but as the band’s bassist and multi-instrumentalist Chris Taylor explains, such organisations usually provide the impetus for collaboration.

“From my understanding, it’s more of their attempt to bring classical music to a younger audience, it’s not like we go out searching symphonies! I don’t think Dave Longstreth from Dirty Projectors wrote an email to LA Phil’ and said, ‘Hey, will you guys play with us?’ They asked us, it’s a really cool thing.

“I played in symphony for eight or nine years and there’s so much amazing classical music out there that no-one ever checks out, they just know like, Vivaldi, Mozart, and maybe they know Bach and Beethoven, but generally it doesn’t seem to go farther than that. Oh man, there’s so much cooler stuff that would be really great if people knew about it – Alban Berg, Bartók, Debussy and Stockhausen, those are the heavyweights. So I think it’s just their attempt to revive the classical music world a little bit by bring in a younger audience to meld the two together.”

Playing with orchestras of this calibre is an honour doubtlessly afforded to them by the remarkable success of their second album, Veckatimest, named after an uninhabited island off Cape Cod near where they recorded. It found itself at number 8 in the American Billboard charts in its first week of release and brought the formerly  quietly known indie band into the bedrooms of teenagers worldwide when they were asked to contribute to the New Moon soundtrack. And just in case you hadn’t seen the much-retweeted and blogged video of them dancing to ‘About Face’ in Williamsburg this August, Beyoncé and Jay-Z are fans.

“It was really cool that that happened, but at the same time I don’t really need people gossiping about it.”

I moot a theory that the surprised fervour surrounding their presence had subconsciously racist undertones.

“Hmm… That’s probably going too far. I think the novelty of it was that one, it’s not only one of the most famous musicians in the world, but two of them! And then from a different genre as well – so I think it was an open-minded nod from another genre.

“[Jay-Z saying that indie can push rap forwards] was amazing. I couldn’t believe it – I’m such a huge fan, I remember thinking a lot about hip hop and R’n’B when producing this last record, and really trying to get as much of that to work without sounding forced, and I don’t think it comes across but the fact remains.”

Hanging with the Knowles sisters and the Hova aside, there’s nothing starry about Grizzly Bear. There’s no pretence or loftiness despite Taylor’s classical training and Chris Bear and Daniel Rossen’s jazz backgrounds, and they come across as genuine friends. Their lyrics are weighty but vague, allowing fans to posit their own meanings onto them, with their meandering descriptions of social situations recalling advice that Annie Clark, who supports magnificently tonight in her St Vincent guise, was apparently once given by one of the aforementioned Dessner brothers – to write about the less obvious, tangential parts of a personal situation.

Live, there’s a congregational feel to their sound that provokes visceral reactions in fans, and, as Chris explains, occasionally the band as well.

“Some of the songs in particular come from a very personal place, and I have been caught off guard thinking about it more than usual. This kid threw this little note on stage before a show the other day, and asked us to play ‘While You Wait For The Others’, and he had had a loss in the family in a similar way to a loss I experienced in my family, and we dedicated this song to him.

“I remember playing through it and thinking about his situation and having been there myself, I was really choked up. It was really tough not to lose it a little bit - that was really hard.

“I feel that what keeps playing the set interesting and fun for me every night is actually remembering where the songs come from - that’s the only way to keep the music sounding musically from the heart, is to think about where it came from or where you might wanna take it. That’s in your head, you know? These sort of inspirational cues.”