Music / Bears in Trees

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Bears in Trees are a band from Croydon, London, formed in 2014. The band consists of Iain Gillespie (vocalist, bassist, lyricist, they/them), Nicholas 'Nick' Peters (guitarist, lyricist, he/him), Callum Litchfield (vocalist, keys, ukulele, he/him) and George Berry (drummer, producer, he/him). They refuse to adhere to genre labels, instead preferring to refer to themselves as a 'dirtbag boyband'. Their music tends to be very personal, often drawing from stories from lyricists Nick and Iain's lives. There also tends to be a large focus on platonic relationships.

Bears in Trees was formed after the dissolution of Callum, Iain and Nick's previous 'thrash indie' band The November Criminals. After cycling through a number of potential names, including 'Royal Jellyfish' and 'George Berry's No... The Musical', a band name generator gave them the name 'Bears in Submarines'. They found the name ridiculous and began riffing on it, eventually settling on Bears in Trees as a suitable name. At first they called their genre 'hardcore ukulele punk', "because it successfully annoyed both hardcore music elitists and punk music elitists".

Their first release was Let's Sleep On It in 2015. This, and other singles released in this era, have since been taken off of Spotify as of 2020, but remain on Bandcamp and Soundcloud. They released an EP named Ugh! What Time Is It? which contained early versions of songs whose finalised versions would make it onto their first album, Just Five More Minutes (2017). They then followed this with single Fly Out To Alaska and an album of short interludes named Bits n' Pieces in 2018. The band refers to each group of related releases as an era, and the Sleep Cycle era was comprised of these releases. Their EP I See Blue (2019) and a single followed this era. 

In 2020 the band released a single a month between January and May and September and December as the UK went into lockdown, starting with 'Ramblings of a Lunatic' - their biggest song to date. They compiled the first 5 songs into an EP titled I Want To Feel Chaotic. During lockdown the band were signed to Boston label Counter Intuitive Records. Under Counter Intuitive they released EP Keep Me Safe from the remaining 4 singles released in 2020, two-song EP Flower Through Concrete (2021), their debut studio album and everybody else smiled back (2021), single Precipitation (2022) and EP Every Moonbeam Every Feverdream (2022). They collaborated with fellow UK artist NOAHFINNCE to release No Point Pretending (2023). 

In June 2023, the band rejected a major label deal they had received as a result of its exploitative nature. Their subsequent singles that year — Cassiopeia, Apathy is Boring and Bart's Bike were released independently, and comprised the How To Stay Shining era. In 2024, the band released what they referred to as their second debut studio album, named How To Build an Ocean: Instructions. In 2025, single Left, Right, Goodnight! was released which kickstarted the Success is Unlikely era.

The band also posts short videos to TikTok and Instagram reels, consisting mainly of humorous skits, covers and explanations of their own music and lyrics. They post longer videos to their YouTube - long, scripted comedy videos such as their Bears in Trees TV series and vlog content such as their Bears in Trees Cinematic Universe (BiTCU) series, for example. They also typically livestream weekly on their Twitch channel, doing all sorts of different activities from playing video games to taking cover requests to baking. They've done two subathons on said Twitch channel — a 12-hour one in April 2024, and a 6-hour one in October 2025, with the latter being a charity livestream to raise money for Doctors Without Borders.

Discography

• Let's Sleep On It (2015, album only available on Bandcamp and Soundcloud) 
•  Ugh! What Time Is It? (2016, EP containing early versions of songs from Just Five More Minutes. Only available on Soundcloud.)
• Nick’s Wild Night In (single, only available on Bandcamp)
• A Song About The Weather (single, only available on Bandcamp)
•  Just Five More Minutes (2017, album)
•  Bits n' Pieces (2018, album of interludes)
•  Fly Out To Alaska  (2018, single)
•  Sitting Pretty (2019, single)
•  I See Blue (2019, EP)
• Nights Like These (80's Mix) (2019, remix of a song from I See Blue)
•  I Want To Feel Chaotic (2020, EP)
•  Keep Me Safe (2020, EP)
•  Flower Through Concrete (2021, double A side single)
•  and everybody else smiled back (2021, album)
•  Precipitation (2022, single)
•  Every Moonbeam Every Feverdream (2022, EP)
•  No Point Pretending (Song For Tour) (2023, single released as a collaboration with NOAHFINNCE)
• before you got here (2023, paid album of reworked older songs. No longer available for purchase.)  
•  Cassiopeia (2023, single)
•  Apathy is Boring (2023, single)
•  Bart's Bike (2023, single)
•  How To Build An Ocean: Instructions (2024, album)
• We Don't Believe What's On TV (2025, cover of Twenty One Pilots)
• Incredible Speed (2025, single released as part of Counter Intuitive Records' 10 year anniversary collection)
• Success is Unlikely (2025, EP)
• Success is Monumental (2026, EP)

Tropes in Trees:

• Age-Progression Song: 'The Musical' is this, detailing Nick's thought processes at 18, "one year later" and "hitting 20".
• Album Title Drop: Each Bears in Trees EP is named after a lyric in a song that encapsulates the feel of the EP as a whole. I See Blue comes from 'Life's A Beach', I Want To Feel Chaotic from 'Permanence', Keep Me Safe from 'Ibuprofen' and 'Laugh/Cry', Flower Through Concrete from 'Evergreen', and Every Moonbeam Every Feverdream from 'Doing This Again!'
• Alternate Album Cover: Let's Sleep On It has two different covers, the older of which is on Soundcloud. The newer can be seen on Bandcamp.
• All Gays Love Theatre: Bears in Trees are a pretty queer band, and all of them enjoy musical theatre. They've mentioned👁 Image
  that a lot of their music is inspired by musical theatre, especially the EP Every Moonbeam Every Feverdream. Nick has also mentioned👁 Image
  that 'No Love, No Heartbreak'. was directly inspired by 'Sextet Montage' from tick, tick... BOOM!.
• all lowercase letters: Nick runs all the band's social media, and he tends to format all post captions like this.
• Anti-Love Song: 'Hot Chocolate' was revealed in a park on Valentine's Day 2024, and came out on streaming services the day after - but instead of being a love song, it's the complete opposite; perhaps the band's most angry-sounding song. Lampshaded by the band themself on TikTok👁 Image
  , and by Iain calling it "the most anti-Valentine's Day song ever" in a livestream.👁 Image
  
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: According to this TikTok👁 Image
  , if you gatekeep Bears in Trees Callum will botch another back alley kidney transplant, Nick will dump radioactive waste into the Great Barrier Reef, Iain will set fire to a local library and George's tummy will hurt.
• Audience Participation Song: Several of these.
  • 'Fly Out To Alaska' has a call-and-response part just before the third verse.
  • The band choreographed a dance routine for 'Hot Chocolate' - they perform it on stage at the end of the song and encourage the audience to participate.
  • When performing 'Ramblings of a Lunatic' live, Iain will often hold their microphone out into the audience and allow them to scream the lyrics with them.
• Based on a True Story: Nick and Iain tend to write lyrics from their lived experience, making most Bears in Trees songs an example of this trope.
  • 'Seaside', as an example, was written about 👁 Image
    a series of house parties at Iain's house that the band members attended, in which Iain's neighbours started trying to crawl under the garden fence to break into the party, and people started throwing pieces of the fence onto a campfire being built in the garden. 'Heaven Sent is a Coffee Cup' and 'Klimt Painting' are also written about different parts of that same night.
  • The music video for 'I Wanna Feel Calm' also says this at the start, but it's more Very Loosely Based on a True Story, as the only part that actually happened is that they came second-to-last in a battle of the bands.
• Bigger Than Jesus: In a TikTok👁 Image
   they joked that they should make a video saying their band will be this.
• Bookends:
  • In Let's Sleep on It, the first song 'Away With The Best Of The Rest Of The Year' starts with a spoken "You have eight new messages," whilst the final song 'Koalas' ends with "Messages deleted."
  • 'Cut Corners on Short Walks' and 'Klimt Painting' also serve as thematic bookends to and everybody else smiled back, being at the start and the end of the album. 'Cut Corners' is louder, more anthemic, whilst 'Klimt Painting' is quieter, but both encapsulate the feeling of the album as a whole. Iain, who wrote the lyrics for both songs, puts it this way:👁 Image
    

• Boy Band: Their self-identified genre is 'dirtbag boyband'. Not all four members are boys — Iain is non-binary — but they have stated👁 Image
  that they mean 'boyband' in essence, not gender.
• Brits Love Tea: One video on their YouTube channel has Iain try to make a cup of tea before they all finish singing 'Bart's Bike'.
• Call-Back: Bears in Trees songs often mention older releases. A notable examples is 'Laugh/Cry', whose bridge is comprised of lyrics from older songs (including one by The November Criminals!).
• Chest Burster: In the music video for 'I'm Doing Push Ups' a shaved Elmo plushie bursts out of Iain's chest in a direct parody of the scene in Alien.
• Colour-Coded Emotions:
  • 'Array of Light' describes feeling like there are only two emotional states - 'forcibly yellow' (i.e. forced happiness) or a 'default grey' (i.e. feeling low or depressed).
  • I See Blue's 'Life's A Beach' associates dissociation and feelings of numbness with 'seeing grey', and the overwhelming bursts of sadness that sometimes follows these periods of numbness with 'seeing blue'.
  Everything happens so much!
  I see in grey, I see in grey,
  I see blue.
• Coming of Age: Because Iain and Nick write about their lived experience, their music tends to grow alongside them and therefore many of their releases could be seen as this. Let's Sleep On It through to Just Five More Minutes tackle adolescence, I See Blue to and everybody else smiled back describe their experiences in university and everything after that discusses emerging adulthood.
• Concept Video: Many Bears in Trees music videos fit this. 
  • The music video for 'Things That Look Like Mistakes' has the band die from an electric shock after spilling wine on a power outlet, and then be brought back to life by a friendly ghost showing them one of their own rehearsals.
  • The music video for 'Little Cellist' is a notable example. It doesn't even feature the band, instead being about a man finding a flash drive that plays videos of his own memories of a relationship with a woman.
  • 'I Wanna Feel Calm' is a silly take on the time the band actually came second to last in Callum and George's college battle of the bands. In the video, the band competes against a myriad of other bands, each portrayed by the band members in different costumes. Some examples include DJ L8 Nite Kitten, portrayed by Callum in a bright pink winking cat head, the emo band Cue Disappointment and the ukulele-wielding, knee slapping Blueberry + The Ukes. Bears in Trees climb to joint 1st in the leaderboard and decide that they have to do something "hitherto unseen" in order to actually win the competition. They take to the stage, and George unplugs something by his drum kit. The scene bursts into colour to reveal Bears in Trees centre stage, performing a K-pop-esque dance. The judges (played by Callum, and Iain in a wig) are not impressed in the slightest and move the band down into second to last place. The music video ends with Bears in Trees looking downtrodden at their loss.
• Continuity Nod: In one scene of the music video for 'I'm Doing Push Ups', Nick's dead body lies next to his skateboard, and is dragged offstage. This moment is recreated in the music video for 'No Love, No Heartbreak'.
• Cover Drop: The cover art for 'Left, Right, Goodnight!' showcases a sofa on fire in the middle of the sea, in reference to the first verse of the song: "You set fire to the sofa I was sleeping on / With one simple sentence, you stopped my life in its tracks / Became ash, a fraction of myself, lost at sea for years".
• Cover Version: Bears in Trees covered 'We Don't Believe What's On TV' by Twenty One Pilots, as part of Rock Sound's tribute album of Blurryface. They have also previously posted full length covers and mashups of songs to their YouTube, and post shorter covers on TikTok and Instagram.
• Crossover: They've only collaborated with another artist for one song: 'No Point Pretending', with NOAHFINNCE, but in one TikTok Iain and Callum sang a portion of Paramore's 'Ain't It Fun' with Hunter Allen of Chase Petra.
• Crisis of Faith: Given that three members of Bears in Trees were raised Catholic and attended a Catholic secondary school, including the two lyricists, some of their songs are written about or influenced by religious trauma. An example is 'Sun Machine'. Nick puts it this way:
  "Down the road from my flat in university was a Christian youth centre that a close friend of mine did open mic nights at sometimes. One of their members used to hand out free tea outside of my flat during exam season. It was all lovely. I grew up Catholic, went to Catholic school, did the whole rigamarole – but the only time I’ve ever wanted to feel close to God was with that community. I could never really quite throw myself over the edge and really believe though. Sun Machine is about that."
• Deliberately Monochrome: Several music videos are an example of this.
  • 'Permanence's music video is shot entirely in black and white.
  • 'Apathy is Boring' starts out in black and white before regaining colour towards the end of the video, making it an example of Monochrome to Color.
  • 'I Wanna Feel Calm' is another example of Monochrome to Color, starting in black and white before switching to colour at the end as Bears in Trees take to the stage to perform their K-pop-esque dance number.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Let's Sleep On It was released back when Bears in Trees still referred to themselves as a 'hardcore ukulele punk band', and features quite a lot of screaming from Iain. No songs since then really feature these kinds of harsh vocals.
• Everyone Went to School Together: Iain and Callum met in primary school at the ages of 5 and 6; they met Nick in secondary school at age 11; Callum switched schools for college and met George at age 16.
• Face on the Cover: The covers of Bart's Bike, Nights Like These (80's Mix), I See Blue, Fly Out To Alaska, Just Five More Minutes and the newer cover of Let's Sleep On It are examples of this trope.
• Fading into the Next Song: 'We Don't Speak Anymore' transitions seamlessly into 'I Don't Wanna Be Angry'. 
• Fake-Out Fade-Out: 'Track 4+1' fades out before entering into the final verse.
• Friend to Bugs: Bears in Trees lyrics, especially in songs with lyrics by Iain, often mention bugs, worms, snails and the like. Iain even had a pet snail named Dash when they were younger — but Dash did run away, as mentioned in 'The Sandbox One'.
  I've been looking at the flowers on my desk
  Thinking they will wilt someday
  Thinking about my pet snail,
  And how even they ran away.
• Genre-Busting: The band doesn't like to restrict themselves to one set genre, instead making up their own genre of 'dirtbag boyband'.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: They try not to swear whilst livestreaming, which leads to Nick doing a lot of 'flipping' and 'fudging'.
• Gratuitous French: 'I Have A Headache' is entirely in French aside from the final line. Iain has commented that they don't think their pronunciation in this song is particularly good.
• Grief Song: I Want To Feel Chaotic has themes of grief throughout.
  • 'Ramblings of a Lunatic' was the first song Iain managed to write after the death of a close friend. It discusses the writer's block they experienced in the wake of their friend's death, as a result of a refusal to allow themself to confront their own grief. It also discusses the fear that all of your friends will die one by one.
  • 'Reverberate' is about their friend's funeral, and the joy and companionship they found in their other friends.
• Happy Rain: 'Precipitation' is a joyous song about getting caught in the rain and finding the beauty in little things.
• Iconic Outfit: Callum has worn one particular outfit quite a few times - a red hoodie with a light blue denim jacket over the top over khaki trousers. In early-mid 2021 he also often sported a rainbow bandana and dungarees, and had his hair tied into spacebuns
• Indecipherable Lyrics: Is it "grazes on each elbow" or "bruises on each elbow" in 'Fresh Concrete'? Guess we'll never know! The lyrics listed on Bandcamp say the former, but Callum sings something in between the two.
• Jump Scare: In livestreams Iain will often suddenly shout something or make a sudden loud noise for comedic effect. Bears in Trees livestreams are best watched without headphones on!
• Instrumentals: Let's Sleep On It's 'We'll Get 'Em Next Time' and 'Always Falling' are piano versions of 'Good Hustle, Kids' and 'Gravity' respectively, and Just Five More Minutes has 'Better Days and Better Headaches' (a piano cover of 'The Musical') and 'Give 'em One of These' (a piano cover of '4am'). Bits n' Pieces has the instrumental interlude 'AlphaBeatical'. 
• Kaleidoscope Hair: Nick changes his hair colour pretty frequently. Nowadays he tends to just bleach sections of it and dye it shades of red and orange, but he's had all sorts of hair colours in the past, including 'botched green hair' as referred to in 'I Can't See Anything I Don't Like About You'. There's even a couple of pictures from the early days of the band where he had purple hair.
  I was a natural blonde for three whole years
  Hydrogen peroxide stained all I touched
  All I touched, all I touched, all I touched, all I touched
  Turned to gold while my brain turned off
  — Nothing Cures Melancholy Like Looking At Maps
• It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: Plenty of things in the 12-hour subathon they livestreamed in April 2024 apply to this. One example of note is the 'spicy snack' reward for gifting 5 subs — Callum bought a huge bag of chillies for £1 for this, not realising how many people would gift 5 subs throughout the stream. Given that they were largely unaccustomed to that level of spice in one go, suffering ensued.
• Limited Lyrics Song: 'Don't Drink Coffee' only has two lines.

  "Don't drink coffee before bed
  Please don't call me ever again"

• Literary Allusion Title: Their two studio albums both have titles taken from books that Nick and Iain enjoy. and everybody else smiled back is a paraphrased quote from Donna Tartt's The Secret History, whilst How To Build an Ocean: Instructions was taken from Olga Tokarczuk's Flights.
• Location Song: The band is very fond of their hometown of Croydon, and several songs reference the place. 'Henry Says', in particular, is a love letter to the place.

  "I have no power on my phone
  Yet no fear I will not get home
  The bus will point to Croydon, or I'll
  Just cross the road, until it does"

• Lyrical Cold Open: They've done this many times. Examples include 'Vampires', 'I Don't Know', 'We're Just The Same', 'Fly Out To Alaska', 'Life's A Beach', 'Cobwebs', 'Seaside', 'Laugh/Cry', 'Cut Corners on Short Walks', 'Baggy Hoodies', 'Mossy Cobblestone', 'Little Cellist', 'Kind Love', 'I Can't See Anything I Don't Like About You' and 'Tai Chi With My Dad'.
• Lyrical Dissonance: Bears in Trees tend to employ quite a lot of this. As George joked on a livestream once,👁 Image
   sad lyrics set to happy music is the "Bears in Trees brand".
  • 'Mossy Cobblestone' has Iain and Callum cheerfully singing Nick's lyrics about crashing his car as soon as he learns to drive it.
  • 'Nothing Cures Melancholy Like Looking At Maps' is very upbeat, but describes Nick's childhood, including his family's experiences with racism and having bricks thrown through their window.
• Non-Appearing Title: They have quite a few of these, owing to their propensity for using an Overly Long Name, but there's plenty of other examples too. Some examples include:
  • 'Vampires': The song actually mentions werewolves, not vampires.
  • 'Track 4+1': The name is a Self-Referential Track Placement instead.
  • 'Good Hustle, Kids': The name refers👁 Image
    to something Nick used to say in rehearsals.
  • 'Koalas': Named after Iain's favourite animal.
  • 'Always Sunny In South London': Named after It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It's a Sarcastic Title; it's usually cloudy or raining in South London.
  • 'Things That Look Like Mistakes': The name is a quote from Frances Ha.
• Miniscule Rocking: Bits n' Pieces is an entire collection of interlude tracks inspired by the likes of dodie's👁 Image
  'I Have A Hole In My Tooth (And My Dentists Are Shut' and the interludes on Paramore's self-titled album. All the songs in Bits n Pieces are under 2 minutes long (aside from 'Alone in the Basement', which is 2 minutes and 2 seconds), with the shortest track 'We're Just The Same' not even counting as a play on Spotify with its length of just 19 seconds. 'Mossy Cobblestone', from and everybody else smiled back is also only a minute and 47 seconds long.
• My Nayme Is: Iain's name frequently gets spelt wrong in interviews. Many spell their name as 'Ian', and one interview even spelt their surname as 'Fillespie'.
• Overly Long Name: Being enjoyers of Fall Out Boy, Nick and Iain are fans of a long song name. Callum and George are less fond of them, but a couple long names made it into the discography anyway, including:
  • 'Away With The Best Of The Rest Of The Year'
  • 'Flower Power! (The Leading Cause of Gum Disease)'
  • 'I Can't See Anything I Don't Like About You'
  • 'Nothing Cures Melancholy Like Looking At Maps'
• Parody: The BiTTV Cribs👁 Image
   video on their YouTube is a parody of MTV Cribs.
• Performance Video: The music video for 'We Don't Speak Anymore' consists of Callum standing in the middle singing the song whilst the other band members perform it in the background in slow motion. 
• Precision F-Strike: How To Build An Ocean: Instructions has only two instances of swearing throughout the album — "Could everybody just shut the fuck up for a second?" in 'Your Favourite Coat', and Iain saying "Oh you're recording? Fuck!" in the Studio Chatter at the start of 'Henry Says'.
• Recording Studio Scene: The video for 'Sitting Pretty' has CCTV footage of the band enthusiastically lip syncing and dancing to the song in their studio.
• Running Gag: Their livestreams have a few.
  • Whenever one of the members was absent from a livestream, they would joke that said member had left the band. Iain mentioned that they stopped doing this after one of their friends took it seriously.
  • Similar to the gag about members missing from livestreams leaving the band, they often joke that a missing member was arrested for doping. This originated in 2024's Summer Olympics livestream, where Callum was missing and Nick joked that he had been arrested for doping.
• Self-Referential Track Placement: 'Track 4+1' on Let's Sleep On It is the fifth track on the album.
• Shipper on Deck: Whilst George was away, Callum, Iain and Nick turned him into a Sim in The Sims 4 and spent almost the entire second livestream trying to set Sim-George up with an NPC named Gavin.
• Shout-Out: Bears in Trees songs often contain references to other songs and media.
  • A notable example is Iain's favourite band, The Front Bottoms - plenty of songs they've written the lyrics for have references to TFB or to their songs, and several songs Nick wrote the lyrics for have TFB references in them too. Nick mentioned on Tumblr👁 Image
    that if any of their lyrics sound like TFB references, it's probably intentional.
    • 'Not Santa Monica' is named after 'Santa Monica' by The Front Bottoms.
    • 'The 411' contains the line "And I keep replaying in my head what Brian says / And how I'm walking these streets like a skeleton". The Brian mentioned is Brian Sella, vocalist for TFB, and the line that follows is a reference to their song 'Skeleton'.
    • A line in 'Sitting Pretty' ("They'll cut your soles as you walk, as you run, as you crawl") references TFB's 'Flashlight'.
    • The song 'Laugh/Cry' could be a reference to TFB's 'Laugh Til I Cry'.
  • 'I Can't See Anything I Don't Like About You' is about "existing in a graveyard of your own hyperfixations", and its chorus features a number of characters Nick has related to. The title is a quote from Joel, from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
    "I am Wirt with the cassette
    I am Joel, post-memory reset
    I am Clementine with hazel eyes
    And botched green hair in disrepair
    I am Ramona's evil exes
    I am all of her best interests
    I am everyone and everything all of the time, oh god I'll be"
• Signature Instrument: The vast majority of Bears in Trees songs feature ukulele. Many songs on their albums also feature trumpet, played by the elusive 'Trumpet Joe'.
• Silly Love Songs: Bears in Trees has several of these, many of which can be interpreted in both a platonic and romantic way.
  • 'Heaven Sent is a Coffee Cup' - This example is probably the most straightforwardly romantic song Bears in Trees have ever written.Nick explains👁 Image
     that he wrote it about meeting his partner.
  • 'Cassiopeia' - The band stated on Twitter👁 Image
     that this song is 'for platonic soulmates'.
  • 'I Wanna Feel Calm' - A song about healing from burnout through connecting with loved ones.
• Singer Name Drop: The spoken intro to 'Left, Right, Goodnight!':

• Sixth Ranger: Who plays all the trumpet on Bears in Trees albums? It's none other than 'Trumpet Joe'! An old friend of the band's from secondary school, Trumpet Joe has played trumpet on every single Bears in Trees album, from Let's Sleep On It through to How To Build An Ocean: Instructions, and has played some shows with the band in the past. On newer releases he's simply credited as Trumpet Joe.
• ​Spoken Word in Music: 'Little Cellist' has Iain speaking the verses, and Callum sings the choruses.
• Studio Chatter:
  • As 'Henry Says' fades out, you can hear Callum say "Something like that, innit?" about three seconds before the end. The band put the stems for the song on their Patreon, where the vocals were isolated and the fade out was removed - it's much easier to hear here. 'Henry Says' also starts with studio chatter, with Iain saying "Oh, you're recording? Fuck!"
  • There's several examples from Bits n' Pieces - 'Inside Out' starts with Iain saying "The real Slady- shim- Slady?" before they start playing, and 'Push Ups (Two)' starts with them saying "Fire in the Callum's house. Let's get this. You get me, JME."
• Stop and Go: In 'I'm Doing Push Ups', the sound cuts out briefly after Iain sings the line, "We talk about it in the gaps, in the silence".
• Surprisingly Gentle Song: In an album full of upbeat songs like How To Build An Ocean: Instructions, 'All You Get Is Confetti' and 'We Don't Speak Anymore' are much gentler. They're both heartbreaking as well.
• Surreal Music Video: The music video for 'I'm Doing Push Ups' is probably their most surreal. Features interesting scenes such as Callum shaving a plushie of Elmo from Sesame Street, Iain birthing said shaved Elmo plushie out of their chest (a parody of the Chest Burster scene from Alien), Callum enthusiastically eating corn on the cob cooked in a cafetiere, George in a curly white wig posing as a librarian, Iain getting very frustrated at some Ikea furniture, and Nick being inexplicably dead. All in the same video.
• Textless Album Cover: The covers of Left, Right, Goodnight!, Bart's Bike, Just Five More Minutes and the single releases of Little Cellist, Great Heights and I'm Doing Push Ups are examples of this. 
• The Glasses Come Off: Callum (who has worn glasses since 2009👁 Image
  ) got laser eye surgery in September 2025, much to the horror of Bears in Trees' heavily neurodivergent and change-averse fanbase.
• The Power of Friendship: Friendship and platonic relationships are a major theme in Bears in Trees Songs.
  "It gets better in such small doses
  Curb every neurosis, you'll barely notice
  There's a drug we can give you for that, my friend
  But first, stay for tea, it did wonders for me"
  — It Gets Better
• The Quiet One: George rarely speaks on stage - Iain, Callum and Nick tend to talk a lot more often.
• Two First Names: Nick's full name is comprised of three first names - Nicholas James Peters.
• Vocal Range Exceeded: When doing karaoke on subathons, they tend to pick songs wildly out of their vocal ranges for comedic effect - in 2024, Iain picked 'Party in the USA' and tried to sing it in its original key.
• Vocal Tag Team: Iain and Callum are both vocalists. The majority of songs are split equally between them, but some are predominantly one or the other.

  Iain: Together we can figure it out,
  Callum: Together we can figure it out,
  Both: Together we can figure it out, out!
  — I Am Cold

• Who Would Want to Watch Us?: The intro to 'Left, Right, Goodnight!', where it's enthusiastically announced that they have "a record of zero wins and one thousand losses, the defeatable Bears in Trees!".
• Writer's Block: In the Ramblings of a Lunatic explanation video, Iain describes the song as being about a writer's block that they experienced after the death of a close friend.
• X-Ray Sparks: After spilling wine on an outlet in the 'Things That Look Like Mistakes' music video, everyone is electrocuted. It exposes bear skeletons for all but George, who has some sort of strange teddy bear instead.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Iain's reaction to coming last in a round of Dress to Impress on stream.

  Iain: You're kidding me. You're kidding me.
  Nick: Wow. There's been some rigging here.
  Iain: You're joking. You're j- WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?