The Swellers are currently out on tour with The Early November. Check out the band’s set list below by clicking “Read More.”
Related Stories:
The Swellers Recording New Demos
The Swellers Announce US Headlining Dates
The Swellers, Such Gold, LWL Canadian Tour
The Swellers will be releasing Vehicle City Blues via SideOneDummy Records next week. Stream the second song on the 7” called “Red Lights” here.
Related Stories:
The Swellers Recording New Demos
The Swellers Announce US Headlining Dates
The Swellers, Such Gold, LWL Canadian Tour
The Swellers recently played an acoustic set at Bearded Lady Records in Michigan. Check out the band playing their song “The Best I Ever Had” below by clicking “Read More.”
THE MONTHLY SUMMARY:
Week I
Week II
Week III
ALBUMS OUT THIS MONTH:
Week I
Week II
Week III
Week IV
INTERVIEWS:
Escape The Fate
Mixtapes
Enter Shikari
LIVES:
Set Your Goals
ROAD BLOGS:
Pianos Become The Teeth
The Maine
This Is Hell
This Providence
Imaginary Cities
CONTRIBUTOR BLOGS:
The Allied Force with Cmar
Jono Diener
STREAMS:
With The Punches // “Don’t Panic”
Create Avoid // “Nothing More”
VIDEO PREMIERES:
RadioDriveBy // “You’re So Last Summer (TBS Cover)”
BEHIND THE BOOTH:
Lowtalker
TRACK-BY-TRACKS:
Foreign Tongues // Foreign Tongues EP
Break Blossom // Last Night Of Your Life
MISCELLANEOUS:
Albums That Met (Or Exceeded) Your Lofty Expectations
SPONSORED SHOWS:
Romance On A Rocketship on June 23rd
Mixtapes|With The Punches on June 25th
With The Punches|Forever Came Calling|State Champs
A lot has changed for The Swellers since Jono Diener last wrote a Contributor Blog for PropertyOfZack, and we are certainly glad to have him back. In his new blog, Jono dives into the image of “misunderstood” musicians and how fans, or artists themselves, can misperceive what they hear around them and how stories of bands being “bad guys” can quickly become over-exaggerated. Jono did a great job with this piece, so read up on his full blog below!
Being in a band is like being in high school all over again. Your world is divided into different lunch tables based on genre of music or the cool kids, the losers, the bullies, the nobodies, and usually you have the goth table for good measure. When you’re traveling you hear A LOT of stories about your fellow musicians and eventually you start to notice certain patterns emerging when it comes to a few select individuals. These are the “bad guys” of music. It’s not different than talk in the hallway before class starts. I used to take everything I heard as gospel instantly, and to be honest I’d spread the word to my peers to keep their distance because it was fun to talk about. Whether or not these people did anything directly to me I was already biased based on their apparent decisions and actions. As time went on I realized I wasn’t solving anything by spreading this gossip, I was just becoming part of the problem and skewing people’s perception based on half-truths. I’d run into these people who potentially even like my band and I’d either keep my distance or keep things short. Over time I began to realize from observing these people like the crocodile hunter himself, they’re not actually BAD people, they’re just incredibly mislead or the situation is misdiagnosed. It might be the hippie in me, but I think there’s a little bit of good in everybody.
The stories become exaggerated over time like a bizarre game of telephone. My favorite stories are usually along the lines of seeing your favorite musician and yelling out to them… but then they COMPLETELY ignore you and walk away. From the storyteller’s standpoint, this was an incredible moment in their life finally seeing their idol and having their dreams shattered. The person goes from idol to asshole instantly after the story. It spreads and spreads until they tell it to me and I just start laughing. I then ask the context of the story, for them to get a little deeper into it. It goes from them being completely ignored to it being a thunderstorm and the singer of their favorite band was running into his tour bus after a show to get out of the rain passing a crowd of people. Most musicians usually have a set time to meet fans after shows at the merch or by the bus when the show is over. If they don’t, that means they just want a break and have some time to themselves. It doesn’t make them a bad person, it makes them a human being. I met someone from one of my favorite bands and he was pretty snide with me and almost made fun of my praise for him and his music. I was turned off instantly and left the show pretty bummed out. I found out a few months later that he was going through a divorce that week and was miserable. Do you have to tell your fans about your personal life? Hell no. People have bad days. I’ve had many bad days on the road. When you play from thirty minutes to an hour every night you get to forget about your problems but when you’re talking to fans and hanging in the crowd you’re just back to being a person again. You can’t always wear a mask or you’ll go insane. Sometimes the situations aren’t simply misunderstood, these people just have so many things wrong with them they get stuck in their metaphorical mask and that’s when problems begin.
The Swellers are currently working in their home studio to record four new demos for their next release. Check out a tweet from the band below by clicking “Read More.”
The Swellers have announced a string of headlining dates in June. Check out the dates below by clicking “Read More.”
The Swellers, Such Gold, Living With Lions, and Major League will be touring Canada this July. Check out the dates below by clicking “Read More.”
The Early November are heading out on tour later this month with The Wonder Years, The Swellers, and Young Statues and PropertyOfZack has teamed up with them to give away ten (10) tour posters. The posters are 18x24”, silk-screened, limited to 200, and designed by Brian Mietz. The contest will end on May 17th, so find out how to enter below!
To win one of ten tour posters from The Early November you must do each of the following things:
Check out the tour routing and ticket links if you have yet to below by clicking “Read More!”
The Swellers performed “The Best I Ever Had” at the 2012 Groezrock Festival a few days ago. Watch the performance below by clicking “Read More.”
THE MONTHLY SUMMARY:
Week I
Week II
Week III
Week IV
ALBUMS OUT THIS MONTH:
Week I
INTERVIEWS:
Go Radio
A Rocket To The Moon
The Swellers
SESSIONS:
This Providence
ROAD BLOGS:
This Providence
The Maine
Sainthood Reps
This Is Hell
Set It Off
CONTRIBUTOR BLOGS:
The Industry With Jesse Cannon
CONTESTS:
The GK Tour Split [Ends on May 2nd]
Paper + Plastick Prize Pack [Ends on May 3rd]
Born & Bred Prize Pack [Ends on 4th]
STREAMS:
1985 // “Million Dollar Smile” + “Say You Do”
VIDEO PREMIERES:
Carridale // “Dragging The Coast”
My Girl Friday // “Love Will Find You”
TRACK-BY-TRACKS:
For The Foxes // The Revolution EP
GALLERY:
Rise Against|A Day To Remember|Title Fight
Say Anything|Kevin Devine|Fake Problems
SPONSORED SHOWS:
With The Punches|Major League|On My Honor [May 4th]
Heroes For Hire|Luca Brasi|Carry Me Home [June 29th-July 21st]
MISCELLANEOUS:
Demo Day: Who Should We Be Listening To?
The Swellers played with The Wonder Years at a show at The Peel in the UK on April 23rd. Check out a video of the band performing their songs “Inside My Head” and “Parkview” from their album Good For Me below by clicking “Read More.”
PropertyOfZack had the chance to speak with our good friend Jono Diener of The Swellers just last week. Jono and I discussed the band’s decision to leave Fueled By Ramen Records, where they see themselves in the current landscape of the scene, excitement for the future, a new 7”, future label situations, and so much more. Make sure to check it all out below!
It was just recently announced that The Swellers had parted ways with Fueled By Ramen after three or four years on the label. When did the discussion start and when did things come to fruition?
Definitely a few months ago. We all started talking about what was best for us in general. I think a big part of it too was that we kind of realized that they would understand because they have these bands that are doing so well. And then a band from a world like ours. A DIY and I guess punk band being bunched with those other bands doesn’t really make any sense for them because of the way they promote. They have a surefire way of doing promotion for those bands. But when you put a band like us in it, it doesn’t really work. So one thing led to another. The little things added up. Not saying that the label is doing poorly. You look at a band like fun. and they’re breaking world records right now for sales. We just wanted to do our own thing and we think we’ll be better off.
It doesn’t seem like you guys have any bad blood with the label or anything. But The Swellers don’t really fit on the label too well. Do you regret it at all? Or do you think it’s helped regardless?
I think it definitely helped. When we signed, the whole point was that we signed to a label that was the best choice at the time. It definitely was. We got some really crazy opportunities out of it. It definitely opened a lot of doors. Literally, like in the song “2009,” we said “I won’t rewrite anything.” I like what happened to us and it got us to this point. But because we did all of that, it’s not that we learned from a mistake, we just learned how the reality of things worked in the major label affiliated world. I think we are where we are today because they chose to sign us in the first place. And that’s a good thing, that’s not a bad thing.
I feel like the landscape of our genre has shifted too since you guys got signed. I feel like pop punk or whatever you want to call it was the last in the forefront and now within the last two years it really has begun again to be the center of attention. Even if it wasn’t a priority for a label like Fueled By Ramen. Are you optimistic about things too? It seems like there are all these great things for other pop punk bands, even if you don’t want to be on a label like No Sleep or Rise or Hopeless. But it seems like there is a large community out there now that wasn’t there when you signed.
Yeah. The comparison a lot of people make is talking about how back in the Drive-Thru Records heyday where there was a whole label of bands that people were stoked on. Regardless of how the label operated, people are like, “Oh man, I have Rx Bandits and The Movie Life.” All those bands. It developed into this huge thing to where they would tour together and do all this cohesive stuff together. With us, we were always in a weird spot. Because we were on a label called Search And Rescue Records. When we were on that, we had Alucard which Ryan in our band was in before. That was the only band we could really tour with. We never had a label that was like, “Hey punk rock fans. We’re putting this out there for you.” We never had that. We never had hype, we never had this big connection with all this other stuff. We were just the weird odd band out all the time, but we just happened to make friends with bands in other scenes and all that. It is bizarre because when we started the band and over the years, all we were thinking about was, “Oh man these Fat Wreck Chords bands. We’re going to be touring with them all of the time. It’s going to be the best.” Then after a while it was like all of the bands we grew up listening to either broke up or don’t really do anything anymore. It kind of moved over into that new pop punk direction. So I think when Four Year got signed to Decaydance. And Set Your Goals got on Epitaph. I think there became a mini signing spree. It was like the Sunset Strip thing back in the day in the eighties. So I think people thought we were part of that, but all of us and our friends bands each got signed with different labels. So it was really interesting seeing where that went. Now you look at a label like Rise, they have like twelve new bands. But they’re all really good bands. I think it’s really cool and I’m just interested to see how things turn out. Like how they are now. Because you can look at a label and the way I look at is if you would go to their warehouse and you could leave with five different bands’ shirts, you’re like, “Okay, that’s really cool that they can do that.” And there’s a lot of labels where there’s this one band you like and then with everyone else you’re like, “That’s alright.” It’s pretty cool. I just hope that it doesn’t isolate people too much. Because whenever a genre gets too big, it’s like a radio song. A song blows up on the radio but then you get so sick of it because you hear it every day. It’s the same as hearing people talk about pop punk all of the time. It’s so cool that’s it’s doing bands like The Wonder Years and bands like Transit and Man Overboard and all of them. But is it going to be this weird bastardized version of what it is and all of these local bands start doing that? And then over time it just gets so obnoxious that it kills itself. And then some new genre destroys that. It’s all cyclical. It happens every few years. Once you realize that and not only adapt but kind of stick to your own thing, so everything is blowing over you, you just keep chugging through. I think that’s kind of what our band did. Every time something kind of got popular, we didn’t do it. So maybe that hurt us in the long run, but we’re just doing what we want. Hopefully people can notice that, you know?
You can watch Nick Diener performing a stripped down version of “The Way Back Home” below by clicking “Read More.”
Daytrader
Twelve Years
Mixtapes
Somewhere In Trinsic
mewithoutYou
Ten Stories
Citizen|Turnover
Split 7"
