When it comes to music, Ursa Day has an insatiable appetite.

The Hazel Park, Michigan indie-rock quartet is eager to write, record, and release a growing catalog of new material, including their latest EP, Hyperphagia.

“The big thing that we had as a direction concept-wise for the record was Hyperphagia being a state of hunger. What we learned in the name selection process, and we picked this name quite a while ago, is that it happens to bears right before they go into hibernation,” said Ryan Haley, Ursa Day’s vocalist-guitarist.

“After we came out of Habitat, we were excited by that process … and we were hungry to share more projects with everybody else. That direction, whether it was musically or artistically, was a strong driving force behind a lot of the lyrics and what we can do to pepper the feeling of those lyrics throughout a tune.”

Haley and his bandmates Matt Drew (guitar, engineering, production), Ryan Drew (bass), and Cormac Egan (drums) effortlessly achieve that goal on Hyperphagia. The EP’s profound lyrics, fantasy-versus-reality themes, and mighty blues rock-inspired instrumentation entice listeners with six savory tracks and leave them wanting more.

“We’re all different people, and our musical influences are varied. Ryan has a strong allegiance to the pop bass player; he likes James Jamerson and has a feel similar to those happy, melodic solo-ish basslines. Matt is eclectic and has a wealth of knowledge about the indie scene,” said Haley, who’s influenced by Peter Green, Jeff Beck, and Larry Carlton.

“He mixes well with the influence that I have with the British guitar players and Ryan’s pop influence to put us on more of a unique, alternative-based sound. Cormac is one of the most interesting musicians I have ever met as far as tastes go. When I walk into a rehearsal and ask Cormac what he’s been listening to, he’ll talk to you about movie scores and large, elaborate instrumentation … and then he’ll be playing Metallica double-kick-style drums really well.”

Devouring Hyperphagia

At the start of Hyperphagia, Ursa Day unleashes that fierce sound on the cowboy-themed opener, “El Oso,” or “Bear,” which follows an outlaw running from his troubled past.

Surrounded by frantic electric guitar, bass, and drums, Haley sings, “Old El Oso’s made it stateside / His lover’s there, he’s made his bed / But from the past, the bear, he cannot hide / And now men ride to take his head.”

“I wrote the lyrics around a Western story where El Oso is one of those classic characters who’s done a little bit too wrong to go right, but still trying to do so in that way,” he said. “The first two verses are him trying to close the door on being a bandit, and the double-time section we have at the end, we envisioned it as a gunfight—like your classic O.K.-Corral-kind-of-thing.”

After confronting rivals on “El Oso,” Ursa Day addresses the challenges of professional rejection on “Shout It Aloud.” Backed by feisty electric guitar, bass, and drums, Haley sings, “You say I’m fighting from the / Back of the pack / Oh, I’m all scraped knees and daydreams / Is that so / Some say luck is blind / And I see black / You better take that back / Oh, you better.”

“I think there are a lot of times in any artistic discipline where you expect the no’s that you might get, but it’s difficult to quantify and analyze those no’s and understand why it’s hard to move forward and try to get this gig or whatever it might be,” he said.

“I wrote a lot of that about the unspoken things that as a musician personally—and not as much with Ursa Day as a band—the things that you maybe feel were a misstep, but nobody wants to tell you. You have that desire to change them, but you have to know what they are. You wonder and almost frustrate yourself to think, ‘Well, what did I do wrong?’”

Once they’ve tackled rejection, Ursa Day lends a helping hand to a loved one on “Walk Alone.” Comforted by cathartic electric guitar, bass, and drums, Haley sings, “I just can’t fix my nervous tics / My head’s a mess and still / Somehow you’ve made a happy home / Oh, brick by brick, you’ve built me up / And now, it’s now, it’s time for my hands / To be the ones who stack the stones.”

“The lyrics for ‘Walk Alone’ were probably the hardest ones for me to write on the whole record. They did come a little later because I had struggled for so long with them. They’re inspired from a place of empathy—a couple of years ago my mom was diagnosed with a condition called trigeminal neuralgia,” he said.

“We’ve been learning more about it and how we can support her as her life changes with it. I have tried my very best with that tune to put forth those emotions of learning how to be that empathetic person, especially for someone who you’ve relied on to be there for you so long. You have that compulsion to give back to what you’ve been given from a person you really care about.”

Working Up an Appetite

To whet their musical appetites, Ursa Day started writing “Walk Alone” and the other five tracks for Hyperphagia about a year ago. While some of the EP’s lyrics originated before that, the band shaped their sophomore release musically through demos and rehearsals before going into the studio.

“Some of them, like with ‘El Oso,’ had a crazy demoing process. Matt had a very similar process with ‘Walk Alone.’ He was able to demo that out and brought the music to us like exactly as it is put on the record, but we rerecorded it,” said Haley, whose love of biology inspired the band’s name.

“That in places made things easier, but then songs like ‘Unclear’ and ‘Shout It Aloud,’ we put those together in rehearsals while preparing for gigs during the Habitat period.”

With a batch of songs ready, the band recorded Hyperphagia at their respective home studios, with drums being captured at Egan’s home and “anything coming out of a speaker” being done at Haley’s home.

“The recording process for a tune, and every piece that it took, was about eight to 12 hours in its own little chunks. We did all the drums in one sitting and then we would leave that one and pick it up on guitar and bass,” Haley said.

“Over the course of that year … It also started to come together slowly. That way, too, we were able to work on some of the stuff that we wanted to really hit about the record on stage. It was a slow chewing process before we were finally able to swallow everything and get it done.”

Another part of that process included recording “Shout It Aloud” in two studios—instrumentally at friend Larry Gregory’s home in Owosso, Michigan, and vocally at Assemble Sound in Detroit.

The track also includes a collaboration with Michigan singer-songwriter JonPaul Wallace, who contributes auxiliary vocals to it.

“JonPaul looked at me and said, ‘Do you want to do something a little weird?’ We started doing gang vocals, and I would stand in one part of the room, he would stand at the other, and we both sang, ‘Shout It Aloud’ really loudly,” Haley said.

“That echoes underneath each chorus, so he was my vocal coach plus aux vocals on that one. The whole idea for that was his, and it was a fun process. We were standing on chairs and trying to get all these crazy angles in the room while doing the vocal parts.”

Foraging for the Future

Outside of the studio, Ursa Day continues to share their music at live shows, including June 8 at The Loving Touch in Ferndale, Michigan. They’ll be joined by Michigan Left, Tree Monitors, and LIVING Ai.

“We will be playing almost all of Hyperphagia and bits of our first release, Habitat, as well. We also try to make a point of mixing up some covers for every show, so this time we’re trying out ‘Time’ by Pink Floyd, as well as ‘Razorblade’ from The Strokes,” Haley said.

“Tree Monitors is fronted by my good friend Joey Serra, who I met as a student at the [former] Detroit Institute of Music Education and who played a couple of parts on Habitat. LIVING Ai features Jacob Cornett and Mike Di Sebastian, longtime DIME friends from the songwriting and guitar departments along with our own Cormac Egan on drums. Michigan Left is also an absolute treat—they’re good buds of ours who we’ve shared The Loving Touch stage with before and who have an eclectic sound.”

When they’re not performing at live shows, Ursa Day is working on new material and planning to do a full-length concept album at some point.

“In the last couple of rehearsals, we’ve stumbled on some tunes. Initially, we all agreed and said, ‘Well, let’s wait. Let’s not get off into writing again,’” Haley said.

“But in those last couple of rehearsals, it’s gotten things moving pretty heavily. We’re hoping to take on Everest and give it a shot; we have a lot of cool ideas.”

Show details:

Ursa Day with Michigan Left, Tree Monitors, and LIVING Ai

Saturday, June 8 | Doors 7 p.m.

The Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave. in Ferndale, Michigan

Tickets: $15