THE SWELLERS

 

VLS: Hello guys! So, this is your first time touring in the UK - how's it going so far?

Nick: Yeah, our first time in the UK and our first time in Scotland too -it's good to be here. The shows have been great - we show up and we play music and people watch us and then we leave! We're getting a much warmer reception here much sooner too, although it's our first time over here. In the US we kind of had to build our way up and make a name for ourselves and I think the name that we made for ourselves in the US has come over to the UK, so a few more people know who we are, which is great.

VLS: How did The Swellers find each other?

Nick: My brother, our drummer Jonathan, and I started the band in 2002. We were just basically a little kid high school band and every year we just kept growing and growing and stuff. We started touring and some members came some members left. We got Ryan (Collins, guitar) and Anto (Boros, bass) and now we are going absolutely full force and just touring and making records.

VLS: How did the member changes affect the band?  Were they pretty organic changes?

Nick: It was pretty easy for us actually. It was really scary at first when certain members were saying "I don't want to do this anymore" but we knew that there were people out there who really wanted to do something like we were doing. I gave Ryan a call straight away and he was in the band and then right when our bass player left I gave Anto a call. We got lucky in that we had such great people that we could just call, who weren't really touring in a band at that moment

Anto: For us it kind of happened in the same way...

Ryan: It was like literally the next day we were in, y'know?

Anto: Yeah

Nick: We didn't want to have try-outs or anything and we had toured with these guys before while they were in different bands. We all got along and knew that they were great musicians, so it made sense to at least try and call them up and the fact that it actually worked out was great.

VLS:  What kind of music did you all listen to growing up and what influences you today?

Nick: We all listened to a lot of punk rock in the 90's growing up and I think that's one of the reasons why we all play instruments; the reason we play music today - because of punk rock and the early 90's radio rock like Nirvana and Green Day, bands like that. So yeah, we all are pretty heavily rooted in that kind of music.

Anto: I think nowadays there are so many different types of music that it's kind of different for everybody, y'know? Like, something I like might not be something Nick will like or Ryan will like. It's pretty versatile.

Nick: It brings a lot of the table. It's pretty nice.

VLS:   Where do you take your lyrical inspiration from?

Nick:    Pretty much growing in Michigan is a lot of what made us write our last record. People coming and going and just things changing around you as you're growing up. That's pretty much all we write about. Not much is a fictional story; it's all very real and close to us. We kind of leave it a little open ended so that people can adapt it to their own feelings on the subject. When we have people actually come to us and say "you're lyrics really helped me and inspired me," it feels really great that they can understand what we were saying even if it's not exactly the same for them.

VLS: You signed to Fueled By Ramen before releasing your latest album 'Ups & Downsizing.' You're a pretty unique band on that label, so how did it all come about?

Nick: It was actually a pretty classic case of we sent a bunch of labels our songs and they (Fueled By Ramen) got back to us and said "we like it". Over the next few months we just kept emailing back and forth and they came to see us play live. We went ahead and recorded the record before we signed - we just really wanted to make an album because we had a lot of great songs and a lot of time on our hands! So, we made it and sent it to them and they were really into it. There were a lot of other labels in the mix but Fueled By Ramen just felt the most friendly, they had a really great plan for us and we felt at home with everybody there.

VLS: How did your fans react to the news?

Anto: It was kind of mixed, y'know? Half the kids were all "they sold out" but I mean when they realised that the record was written and recorded before the contract was signed, that kind of shut everybody up about it. I think it's about the music...I can understand that some bands on that label...like you said we're in a different kind of category there, but I mean the music speaks for itself.

Nick:    Once people actually heard the record, after the initial shock of "What? They signed to a pop label?" I think everybody was happy for us.

Anto: I remember when people were ripping on us, it was more of a "they look normal..."

Nick: Yeah, people didn't understand why we weren't wearing flashy colours and stuff. We just looked like a bunch of dudes. That might be one of the reasons that we're not super famous just because we look really normal but we don't really care. We're having fun doing it.

VLS:   Which songs on your record are you personally the proudest of?

Nick:   The song 'Do You Feel Better Yet' was kind of a song I've always wanted to write, like, in that style but I just never knew how to go about it then one day it just clicked really suddenly. That's one of the songs that I really like playing live too. Lyrically, I really like all of them. The song 'Ups and Downsizing' kind of hits closest to home because it's about people leaving Michigan and trying to move on with their lives and that's happened to us and our family a little bit.

Anto:    My favourite to play live would probably be 'The Iron' and 'Dirt', just because they're so fast.

Ryan: I like 'Welcome Back Riders'.

Nick: I think that's Jonathan's favourite song to play live too.

VLS: How important have social networking sites such as MySpace and Twitter been for the promotion of your band?

Nick: Oh, I wish they didn't exist. I wish there was no MySpace, I wish there was no Facebook, I wish there was no free internet downloading, but that's how things are now, so we have to take advantage of it. If this was 1993 we could be a really rich and successful band but the thing is you've got to roll with the punches and play the new game. It's a completely new game from what it used to be. The fact that kids do talk about us on the internet is great, the fact that kids download our record is...we'd love for them to buy our records but downloading our records makes them come to the shows if they like what they hear - which is great. They buy t-shirts, if we have t-shirts at the show, which sometimes we don't, like today but uh...yeah we left our merchandise at the other venue. But yeah, it's definitely been ...it's helped us and hurt us in a lot of ways, but it does the same to every other band so it's not like we have a disadvantage.

Anto: It can be a useful tool because it is free promotion, but there are so many downfalls to it as well. Now I think it's just so saturated that everybody downloads everything...

Nick: And everybody's started a band and recorded it on their MacBook and put it online in their house andwore a stupid shirt and got a stupid haircut and went "Hey, check it out". Called...

Anto: 'The Water Runs...'

Ryan: Don't name any bands dude!

Nick: Nah, I was going to make something up...

Anto: Wait, I had a good thing going... 'The Water Bleeds Red In The Forest Stream Of The Nightfalls Sky Through My Heart Skull!'

VLS:   Lovely! So what other undiscovered bands do you think we should be checking out?

Ryan: Living With Lions.

Nick: I like a band called Heartsounds.

Ryan: A Wilhelm Scream, they're kind of big but if you don't know them check them out.

Nick: Yeah, Wilhelm Scream - very important, Broadway Calls.

Ryan: The Flatliners just put out a new record and they've played here before.

Anto: Actually, my friends are coming through the UK and I think Scotland too, Ten Second Epic. They're great dudes, you should check them out.

VLS: So what's next for The Swellers?

Nick: We go home for three days and we go back on tour in the States, then we go home for three weeks then we got on Warped Tour in the States. Fall is just going to be really busy too, but we haven't planned that out quite yet. Hopefully we'll be coming back to the UK and Europe and just keep going everywhere.

VLS: Thank you guys! Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Anto: Our new record Ups and Downsizing has just been released in the UK and I'll assume around here as well, but if not you can just got to the UK and get it...

Nick: Dude, we're still in the UK...

Anto: Oh, OK...well you should check it out and come to the shows!

 

-- Lucy