PropertyOfZack had the chance to interview Jono Diener from The Swellers not too long ago, and it turned into an absolutely fantastic conversation. Jono and I discussed how fans are reacting to Good To Me, the band’s healthy relationship with their label, Fueled By Ramen, future touring, b-sides, and more. Read up for one of our best interviews in quite some time!

Good For Me doesn’t officially come out until tomorrow, but a stream for it went up live just about a week ago. How has the initial reaction from fans been?
It’s been awesome. It’s actually super weird because I was on a cruise all last week and I didn’t have internet or anything. I actually paid $6; that was the equivalent of me going on a computer, loading twitter, and saying oh wow, the facebook stream is already up. I had no idea. So I started reading like 20 comments and then the computer froze. That alone was $8 so I decided not to go online anymore. But once I got home I got a bunch of text messages from my friends. I think we kind of achieved what we wanted to do with the initial reaction where people were like, “Oh this is cool.” Obviously there’s a lot of people that are like the die hard fast skate punk fans and they were like, “Ah the whole things not fast, blah blah blah”, but the reality of it is we’re not that band anymore. We really don’t care that much, we just wanted to make a good album. Like that’s all we wanted. I’m sure there will be a question about it later, but the most punk songs on the record, we took off because they didn’t fit the flow of the record. So, people are going to hear those songs in like a year from now, and that will kind of re-spark that momentum we’re trying to have. We’re trying to get on Warped Tour and do stuff like that, and maybe next April we’ll have a new release out. So anyone who’s all worried about like, “Aw man The Swellers suck they sold out”, which makes no sense because we never bought in in the first place. So yeah the reaction has been awesome. It’s very refreshing seeing what people are saying.

The first song released off of the record was “The Best I Ever Had.” Did you guys play that on the last tour?
Yeah. We knew that was going to be the song we’d have the video for, like the first single for the record. And we actually shot the video the day before the Take Action Tour because we were home for like only 2 days, which is pretty intense. That’s actually our favorite song to play live now. Kids were already singing it, and once the video went up and everything it kind of pushed it full force and we started playing it already.

The 2011 Take Action Tour finished up a few weeks ago. Can you just talk about the tour?
The whole tour was just really relaxed, I think that’s the best word for it. Everyone was really good friends like two days into it. Silverstein, Bayside, Texas In July, and Polar Bear Club, like all of us had this mutual understanding that we had all been doing this for a while. Like Silverstein and Texas In July are obviously different kinds of music than us, Bayside, and Polar Bear Club, but we all coexisted in this really awesome and friendly way. The bigger bands would let us go on their buses whenever we wanted. They would come hang out in the little dressing room things we would have. We kind of just built these friendships, even with all the crew guys to, where you know you’re going to run into these guys for the rest of your lives and they are all awesome people. So it’s been great.

Those must have been some of the biggest stages you guys have played besides being on tour with Paramore and Less Than Jake in the past. Is it great to kind of go from big stages like this to smaller ones on the Fireworks tour and back again?
Yeah its definitely different because we did all those UK tours in between since we did the Fireworks tour, so going back to big stages again was like, “Yes I remember what this feels like” you know? The only bummer is if there’s a barricade like 5 feet from the stage, you don’t feel that connected to the kids. In all of our good places on the Take Action Tour, we would get people going nuts, you know like circle pits and crowd surfing, stuff like that. So that kind of eliminated the whole awkward barrier feel. That’s why I’m so excited for the next tour coming up, because it’s going to be even smaller than the Fireworks tour. It’s going to be like us 2 inches away from everybody, and people are hopefully going to go nuts and that will be real cool.

The cycle for Ups And Downsizing is obviously over, but has the initial reaction for Good For Me been better than the reaction for Ups And Downsizing?
Yeah I think so. The thing we keep forgetting about is people really had no idea who we were when Ups And Downsizing came out. Like obviously our core fan base and some people who read Absolute Punk and that’s about it. But the last two years with Paramore and Less Than Jake tours, overseas tours, like all this stuff happened and we totally forgot about that since the release. The pre order, we already did way more than the first one. People like our band, and they got it, instead of people hearing it the first time and wondering “What the hell is this?” SO it was actually really nice because the foundation was already built this time and it made it way better for us.

It was your second record on Fueled By Ramen Records. How has it been working with them?
It’s been good. They really were very laid back when it comes to stuff, but in the right way. We talked to them and we were like we want to record at the Blasting Room because Bill wants to do the record, and they were like “Well are you sure you want to do that or should we explore other options?” We were like, “Have you heard Rise Against’s record, remember when that sold 500,000 copies?” They were like, “Yeah that’s a good point okay cool.” So things like that. And as far as songwriting stuff goes, a lot of people think that labels control all of that stuff, but we literally wrote all the songs on our own. We would send them to Bill to give him some ideas, then he would send them back and we would rework the songs. As far as the label goes, they would be like, “We think this is the big song for the record. We really want to push this song.” As far as little things like that, coming up with weird ideas for us to promote. They’ve been super cool with everything and they know how we work. Like I am a very no BS dude and I will call people instantly if something is weird. Like let’s say there is a weird price on the web store or something like that, I am instantly in their face, but I think they appreciate it because a lot of bands can be lazy when it comes to that stuff. But we want the people to listen to us to be happy and that’s all we care about so I think they definitely understand that now. It’s a very good relationship, so we’re really happy with them.

Fueled By Ramen is a fantastic label with bands that are really dominating their own corners of the scene like Paramore and A Rocket To The Moon, but it might not look like the right fit to many people just because bands like The Wonder Years or Man Overboard are on more “pop-punk” friendly labels. Has it ever been a little weird being on a label that doesn’t necessarily promote that kind of music to the same extent?
Well another way to look at it too is All Time Low was the only recent Hopeless pop-punk band, and like forever it was totally random bands getting big. So I think Wonder Years and Yellow Card kind of restarted that, so in a sense Hopeless was never really that kind of label for a long time. Man Overboard and Transit signed to Rise, which is all like Attack! Attack! bands. Back in the day they used to have these kinds of bands. They’re kind of all, not necessarily following in the footsteps, but they’re doing what we did where they signed to the label that they think is best for them. And regardless of the bands on it, they know they can do stuff well. The best way to look at it is, you look at a small band on a label and watch how they grow. You never look at the bigger bands because it wasn’t the label that made them it was everything else. So what we did with Fueled By Ramen was, we were like okay let’s look at their track record. Remember when no one knew who Paramore was and they signed, and then the second record they sold a million copies? As opposed to Label X has this band that’s been around for ten years they must be doing well. But no they didn’t have them before, you know? When it comes to Fueled By Ramen and the whole punk thing, like back in the day they had bands like The Impossibles, The Stereo, Homegrown did an EP with them, they used to be a punk and ska label 15 years ago, so we knew that they had the foundation. Adam has been there forever, Eric, the street team guy, some of his favorite bands are like Good Riddance and Propaghandhi. These dudes totally get it, and that’s the best part of it because you would assume like people that work at a label are like “Oh we only know stuff about Paramore and A Rocket To The Moon”, but in reality it’s like these people come from a vast network of music growing up. We mesh really well with that kind of stuff. The only initial weird thing was the cross promotion where people would be like okay we’re going to put this bands link on your page, and then we realize our link is on all of their pages too, and that’s awesome. So like “The Best I Ever Had” video, if you go on Paramore’s sound clip for their new song or Panic! At The Disco’s new video, our banner is under that and our video plays instantly right after that, so we almost have like 400,000 plays already and it’s been like a few weeks. So all the initial “Oh we’re punk! That’s stupid!” just wore off really fast and we’re like wow. We want to be the band that like can, not change the kids lives, but be that gateway band to where like people hear us and say, “I’ve never heard this before, that’s crazy” and they kind of go deeper and go, “Wow all of their friends are awesome bands too, we should listen to them.” Then they go deeper and start looking into more punk bands. I kind of hope for this when we do tours where there are bands that don’t logistically make sense with us. When new kids get into us, that’s so much cooler than people who already like punk rock. I’d always prefer someone who was impressed with us and we changed their mind on music. Where they’re like “I don’t even like that type of music, but I like you guys so I’ll buy your CD.” In essence we want to be a band who can play, one day, for thousands and thousands of people on a regular basis. Being in a pop punk band, once you start that fast drum beat it sort of shows this is my demographic and that’s all I’m ever going to play for. And then those bands end up being 45 years old and it’s super depressing. It’s like man where did our fan base go? It’s because everyone grows up, it’s not just you it’s the people who listen to your music. So we just want to do this whole timeless thing and we think Fueled By Ramen has that edge with bands where they can raise a band like Paramore or Panic! At The Disco or Gym Class Heroes, and that’s exactly what we want to do. We want to feel like our own band, to us we aren’t Fueled By Ramen presents The Swellers, we are The Swellers who are also on Fueled By Ramen.

Is it also a little nerve-wracking at the same time to be on such a big label even though its roster isn’t large?
There is that pressure a little bit, you don’t want to let people down by any means. The way we look at in retrospect, Ups And Downsizing was our first real label release. You look at Paramore’s All We Know Is Falling and it did okay, and then the next record is what blew them up. With us, the label knows we’ve been around for 9 years, but at the same time we technically just started on the real side of things. I think they’re letting us have a little lead way, they want us to do the build thing the right way instead of boom, you’re on the radio. And then people go I bought the single on iTunes and I have no idea who the hell it is. And that’s what so many bands did and that’s why they failed so fast. So I think with this record we’re finally saying to everyone, at this point if you don’t know us, come on dude listen to us. We think the songs are good enough to where like people who aren’t into the genre, or us, can instantly get into it. Even if people are initially like “Oh I’m too punk for that”, we don’t care anymore. I’m a jaded 35 year old brain inside a 22 year old’s body, so we wrote a song we think is cool “Better Things”. We took a risk putting it on the 10 song record. Hopefully a song like that can be a lead up to potentially be on the radio, or potentially a big single. We’ve never had a big song like that, and that is our kind of attempt at that, like see how that goes. And Fueled By Ramen was like this is that song. John Janick instantly said that the second we walked into his office one day, he was like “I like this song a lot, you need to make sure it’s a big song on the record.” He was also the guy who thought Paramore was good and signed them. So we have a huge trust in judgment when it comes to stuff like that. Things like that are what’s taking the pressure off like selling as much as the other bands. Talking about demographics is stupid, but you have to do it. The number one selling demographic is teenage girls and a lot of bands kind of gear toward that, and we totally don’t. Like “Oh that dude has weird tattered clothes and weird facial hair, why would I listen to that?” Or like, “I am a young Christian boy and here’s my song.” So it’s like, we love the devil and who cares, we write good songs, so that’s what we’re going for (laughs).

And you guys have 2 record release shows coming up with some great bands. How stoked are you to play those shows in your hometown?
It’s going to be awesome. It’s actually funny because for a long time we were saying our release show was going to be in Flint and going to be awesome, but then we did a show there a few months ago and we keep forgetting that everybody moved out of Flint. Like all of our friends, the people that love us live in different places. So we were like okay. So the Motion City Soundtrack show we did in Pontiac a year ago, that was one of our better shows we’ve done. It was nuts. Then this last show we did in Flint, kids were going crazy for that too, so we decided to do two shows in a row and we don’t care if people don’t come. So the first day we’re doing the whole new record and some of the other main songs we have and the next day we’re doing the whole spectrum of our band since the first EP. That’s pretty much like the old school Swellers show. Even the bands on the show, the Cheap Girls they used to be in a band called The Van Ermans and they were around 9 years ago when we started. We used to play with them and this band Asking For An Enemy and all these bands that we were friends with in high school. Now its like, wow we all grew up but we’re still in bands. So we’re doing a show together and playing, it’s sort of like a retrospective show. Hopefully the two shows are different enough to where people want to come to both. I’m more nervous because we’ve never headlined in the Detroit area ever and the second thing is, I was gone for a week last week with no internet and I’m usually the promotion guy so in the back of my head I’m like, “Man I don’t even know if people know these exist.” So I’ve been on facebook and hopefully it’ll be pretty cool.

 
You guys have a Co Headliner with Fake Problems and Daytrader, should we expect a lot of new songs in that set list?
I think we’re going to be pretty smart about it. I personally don’t like when bands play 8 new songs when their record comes out. It’s like, why? One reason we’re going to do a good amount of new songs is because the record had time to sit in people’s heads. A week before the record came out it was streaming, and then a month later is when the tour starts. It’s going to be pretty cool because I think the kids will actually know the songs by then. So it won’t be awkward and they’ll know the songs. We’re kind of going for a little bit of everything on that tour. We haven’t done a headlining tour since we did stuff with Living With Lions two years ago and that was just weird places. This tour is going to be another weird place tour. We’ve never played in New Hampshire and we have no idea if people are even coming to that show, but whatever it’ll be fun.

Following that you guys are doing an Asian tour with Paramore. What should we expect for touring in the fall?
There’s actually going to be a big tour that’s getting announced and it’s a full US run. Then we’re going to Australia to do Sound Wave Revolution before or after that tour, I forget which one, and then we’re doing UK and Europe tour. We’re pretty much trying to do everything again one more time. Why would you tour every other month the exact same places? So we’re doing the whole world in between everything. So I think that fall tour we’re doing after doing this little tour, that will kind of be the whole country and hopefully people are cool with that.
POZ: Is that one on bigger stages?
Jono: Yeah that’s going to be Take Action size. It’s going to be pretty cool.

So the plan is tour, tour, tour, and then maybe in the spring release those B-sides on a record?
Yep, and then we’re obviously going to continue touring. I don’t know exactly where we’ll be going but it will be everywhere.