Swanton Bombs – Interview – February 2010
This two piece guitar’n drums rock band formed by Dominic McGuiness and Brendan Heaney are a pair of young, charming lads who come from Barkingside, Essex. They’ve had a busy 2009; releasing the Mammoth Skull EP, a free downloadable album of the name Smoke Over Swanton, hitting couple of festivals, and touring with blog-favourites GIRLS. All pretty bloody brilliant, but what’s exciting is that the best is still to come, with the release of their debut album proper, Mumbo Jumbo and Murder, on February 15th.
I sit down with the boys, and after an informal little chat (did I mention – such nice guys), I realise an interview is to be conducted.
Rockfeedback: So you’ve played a couple of festivals over the summer, and obviously you are not new to gigging around London. Any preference towards playing a small gig or a big festival?
Dominic McGuiness: “Not really, I don’t have a preference; it’s all as good as the next one. We played at the Lock Tavern (Camden, North London) a couple of nights ago. It was packed, there was no stage, and I was on the floor and all the people were right there so that was cool. It’s equally as terrifying as a huge festival.”
Brendan Heaney: “Because people are so close, if you mess up they’re right there to see your mistake. It’s very nice to have intimacy and that gets lost in a larger stage, also here we didn’t have monitors, just amps blaring and acoustic drums.”
DM: “I think that suits us more.”
RFB: I have to ask, is there any reason for the change of name to a Jeff Hardy move?
DM: “Swanton Bomb, yeah. Because the last one was terrible!”
RFB: Jimmy the Moonlight? (I’m laughing, as are they!)
DM: “Yeah, I mean it was just a private joke between me and my dad, it doesn’t really matter, it’s really boring! Just thought Swanton Bombs sounded cooler.”
RFB: Do you feel it has any representation of your music?
BH: No connotation whatsoever!
RFB: No nostalgia, nothing?
BH: “Absolutely nothing behind it! We had loads of names, Spider Babies...Father Ted, you watched Father Ted? Spider Babies was such a wicked name but a there’s a million of heavy metal punk bands with the same one.”
RFB: You guys have grown a lot since the Mammoth Skull EP and it’s only been in process of a year!
DM: “Yeah, well I think we were thrown in the deep end with the studio, a small studio with a guy I’d worked before with my brother Eugene. We went in there and just used everything, loads of gizmos and toys.”
BH: “Yeah, and the tracks were just completely layered!”
DM: “I mean we didn’t know what we wanted to sound like back then, we had the songs and we just went in and did everything.”
BH: “Plus we’d been sitting on that for ages, like a year before it was released. And then in that week we came up with an albums worth of songs that we just wanted to record. It was kind of annoying because we didn’t know how to gage the time it would take to record and then release it.”
DM: “In the time between Mammoth Skull being finished and then released we had found ourselves with Smoke over Swanton; we didn’t want to wait again so we just chucked it in! Initially they were just demos but we thought they were alright for people to hear.”
BH: “Waiting would have been horrific!”
The boys talk about music with urgency proper of their young selves and imperative for the fast moving business....
RFB: Soon the album Mumbo Jumbo Murder will be out. I’ve noticed you Dominic have released the album Glue on 10” vinyl with Eugene and the Lizards, a band you have with your bro. You guys are doing the same concept with the single ‘Viktoria’ right?
BH: “Yeah, with a code attached to it. So first 500 copies get the code, it’s out February 7th, and that way they get access to the whole album Mumbo Jumbo and Murder.”
RFB: How do you feel about new consumption of music, has the whole digital thing influenced your love of releasing vinyl?
DM: “We’re new to this, we don’t really understand the intricacies of record labels, so we are just happy to have something out there!”
BH: “Yeah, we have no grasp on it. But I do think that no matter how the digital progresses a group of people will always want something to hold, however small that group is. If we can make that possible, with a vinyl and a code that’s a good thing.”
RFB: How do you guys feel you’re going to go forward from here, what do you see?
DM: “Just keep on, keeping on! More gigging, touring, writing, recording, more of it all!”
BH: “A lot more touring hopefully, that should keep us tight and polished so when it comes to the songwriting process it won’t take as long to rehearse it. As soon as those songs do materialise...”
DM: “Because the next album is nearly pretty much written.”
BH: “It won’t take as long, because Mumbo Jumbo Murder took 4 days to record 18 tracks live. So, in a week we can record an album, master it and then play more gigs live. It’s a brilliant way of killing time! Instead of waiting around. We were so frustrated waiting for Mammoth Skull because we weren’t doing anything, just sitting around and that’s how we came up with ‘Smoke Over Swanton’.
DM: “Its only really a coincidence we record live as well, I mean live is really important to us and all our favourite bands are live guys, it’s what we’ve grown up with, you listen and just want to be like them.”
RFB: Right, let’s go for a simple question; highlight of the busy 2009?
DM: “I’ve got two! One was recording with the famous Simon Askew and touring with GIRLS, both magic times.”
BH: “Yeah, I’d second that!”
DM: “Because with Simon it was creative, something was happening that felt really special. Then meeting GIRLS and spending 5 weeks with them, in places we’d never been, travelling in the van.”
BH: “For meeting strangers we got on so well!”
DM: “GIRLS are just a wicked band, wicked guys, wicked venues in wicked countries...”
BH: “It all worked out so well, even when we woke up with a hangover once you were at the venue, day started to repeat itself and it was really cool, thoroughly enjoyed that!”
DM: “Rock bands are great to tour with! Video Nasties were great as well back in January. Rocking out with hair and leather!”
BH: “Hard guitar music, we need more rock bands!”
RFB: Right, wrapping up, what should we expect from the new album?
BH: “If we explained the process it might be helpful...”
DM: “Yeah, well we recorded it in Wood Green North London, a studio called Livingstone, it’s like a converted chapel so the rooms were a good size and we were sat about the same distance as now (1metre or so) everything was live and in four days, and we bloody love it!”
RFB: Well, thanks guys - keep touring, gigging, and partying yeah? Party a lot?
BH: “Yeah, last couple of days have been horrific!”
DM: “One night flash!”
RFB: What’s the vibe, are you pub /pint/gig guys?
DM: ”I’m a pub pint gig.”
BH: “Easily persuaded to go to clubs after some pints though.”
Artists in this article: Swanton Bombs