When the Warped Tour pulled into Long Island PropertyOfZack was able to snag a quick interview with Nick Diener of The Swellers. Nick was an extremely welcoming guy, so it was a pleasure to do the interview. Give it a read to find out info about their time on Warped, his feelings about Fueled By Ramen, and future album plans!
For the record, could you state your name and role in The Swellers?
I’m Nick and I sing and play guitar in The Swellers.
Today’s your last day on Warped Tour. Can you tell us about your time off and on the stage?
It’s been one of the coolest tours we’ve ever done. Just so much hard work, we’re up all day instead of all night like on other tours. Bus life has been really cool with air conditioning and bunks. So it’s cool, but really hard work kind of cancels it out, so it’s not like a luxury cruise or anything. We have tons and tons of friends on the tour. We’ve made a ton of friends. Been hustling our stuff, trying to let people know when we’re playing every day and really getting our name out there. So I feel like this tour is really important for us growing up a little bit as a band. We’re kind of sad it’s done. We’re in the swing of things now and catering is awesome, so I’m gonna miss that, and there’s always free candy hanging around. It’s gonna be sad to go.
There’s been a bunch of tweets about you guys getting screwed over with Four Year Strong playing the same times as you more than a few times. Minus that has the reception been pretty good?
Yeah, it’s been awesome. I’ve actually been surprised that people come see us in particular because there’s so many bands to see all day, so some of the shows have been absolutely phenomenal like Massachusetts, for example, was one of the biggest crowds we could imagine ever playing for at Warped Tour. Some of the shows are at places where we never really play. At places where we played three years ago and haven’t been back since, like San Antonio, Texas, but we had a great crowd there and it just blew my mind. We’ve done some signings, we hang out at our merch tent after we play and kids have been coming by and have been really supportive and really cool. I’m excited to see how that affects our upcoming tour.
Coming to Warped as a kid and now to be able to play it as a band that is quickly getting more and more popular must be pretty unbelievable. Is it hard to wrap your heads around it?
We’ve always been a touring band from like four years ago. We started and never looked back. We just said that we’re never going to be home for more than two months at a time, let’s just go, go, go. But now the tours that we’re doing are actually really good. Like we’re touring with some bigger bands and we’re living. We’re making a living doing this. It’s not a great living, but we’re alive and we have a place to live, and we get to do this. So as long as we’re making enough money to keep doing this we’re really happy, but things seem to be getting better and better in like baby steps and Fueled By Ramen has definitely been a huge help with the record and the tours and everything. More of the same really, but we’re working a lot harder because we have more people working for us. So that’s more people that we need to impress and show that we know what’s up. So it’s definitely a lot of eyes on us and we’re happy to show them that we know what’s up.
Ups And Downsizing was released just about 10 months ago on Fueled By Ramen. Now that the record has had some time to sit in how do you guys think the reaction has been?
It’s been awesome. When the record came out it was pretty much like, “Oh The Swellers, they’re a new band on Fueled By Ramen and they sound like nothing else on the label, and it’s a great record.” But now it’s kind of gone beyond the confines of the label and a lot of people are recognizing it as just a record that’s out there in just the rock, and the punk, and the alternative world, which is really, really cool to me. So the fact that we’re still going on tour and just selling records is really cool to me. A lot of people have a slump, but this is letting us know that people are still actively listening and getting to hear about our band, so we’re really happy about that.
Downsizing was your first record released on Fueled By Ramen, but how has the relationship between you guys been so far?
It’s been really incredible. The reason that we picked them in the first place was because they were with us the longest. They heard our demos and got back to us right away. They were like, “We love, let’s talk.” Basically, when other labels threw offers at us it just didn’t feel right because they came at us so much later in the game and now that we’ve been with Fueled By Ramen they know that we’re a different kind of band. We’ve stuff by ourselves for so many years and we’re not going to take crap from anybody or have anybody tell us what to do. So for the next record, whenever it does come out, I think they’re ready to really work hard for us, because they know we’re ready to really work hard for them.
You did tweet, not too long ago, that the writing process for the next record has been “getting serious”. How far along is the writing process?
Well, that was actually something that the label yelled at me for. I said something about writing a record, it’s awesome, but the truth is, I’m always, always, always writing. So ever since we recorded the last record I was already writing new songs and when the record came out I was writing new songs. But now it’s at the point where that’s really my main focus when I’m home, when I’m playing guitar is to work on some new songs because we don’t want to lose any steam, but it’s still kind of a long way away in terms as conversations go. But in the grand scheme of things it’s coming along quick. We’re probably gonna be in the studio in the next year and put out the next record in the next year. We just want to keep going. The writing process has been really fun so far and we’re just gonna keep trying to outdo the last record and so far I think we have a pretty good shot at doing that.
So you would definitely like to have the new album released by late next year or early 2012?
I’m thinking even earlier than that. We’re gonna go pretty crazy. We’re just gonna go bam, bam, bam, bam. Get a producer and I’d love to do Warped Tour again with a new record, so even in a year from now. So we’ll see how it goes. I don’t want to jump the gun or anything, now that we have a lot of patient people behind us. We might as well wait a little bit to see how it goes.
After today The Swellers have about a month off and then are heading out on what is a dream pop punk tour for many with Fireworks, Man Overboard, and Transit. You guys stoked for this one?
I’m really stoked, man. It was a little intimidating at first because it’s a six-week tour all over the US and Canada and that’s just a long time to be gone doing the same tour. If we’ve ever been out that long it’s usually because we’re jumping from tour to tour. We’re good friends with Fireworks and Man Overboard and Transit are two bands that have had a lot of hype and they’re up-and-coming and kind of are taking off real hard. Then there’s us. So I think it’ll be a really good package and kids are excited to see all the bands play. People are gonna want to check out all the bands.
The Swellers have gone from playing for Paramore in venues up to 4,000 people, but on this tour it’ll be from 200-400 people. Is it odd at all to so drastically switch sizes?
It was at first and then all of a sudden one day it was like second nature. We did the Paramore tour and then we’d have like off days on the Paramore tour and go play like an 100 cap venue and we were like, “Wow, that’s crazy going from that stage to this stage with no monitors and not as many people.”
POZ: Is it nice having that intimate feel though?
Nick: Yeah, the intimate feel of a small venue packed with kids is amazing, but I also feel like I’m starting to get that same intimate feel from like a giant venue with a ton of people because they’re forced to hear my band, you know? Like I play a chord and 4,000 people right in front of those speakers are all checking it out, so I think it’s really cool. Basically, I’m down to play my songs anywhere, any time. As long as I can do that on stage with my band, I’m happy. So that’s my outlook now; if you give me a place to play and some people to play to I’ll be stoked.
After that tour will be seeing any announcements for other tours?
Uh, Europe. I think we’re gonna try. We were in Europe earlier in the spring and it went really, really well for us so we’re gonna try to get there as soon as we can. So I’m hoping we can go to Europe and maybe even some more US stuff, but there’s like The Fest in Gainesville, Florida and the Riot Fest in Chicago and there are a lot of really good bands on all those shows, so we’re gonna see what happens there. And then hopefully in the winter, take some time and maybe make a record because we hate touring in the snow.
Thanks so much for your time, is there anything else you’d like to add?
Thanks for doing the interview and check out our record if you haven’t gotten the change to.
