"We'd like to give Nottingham a slap! Make everyone get up off their arses - no one’s allowed to stop in and watch Corrie"
If any band in the city deserves the ‘ones to watch’ tag, it’s The Swiines. Scott Bugg, Adi Young, Daniel Taylor and Rory Black have been casting their spiky-pop pearls across the city for the best part of eighteen months, supporting the likes of The Holloways and The Subways, and getting noticed by the likes of BBC 6 Music. So Sarah Morrison caught up with them for a chat about their upcoming new single, growing up with Britpop and giving Nottingham a right proper slap…
Adi, what inspired you to become a musician?
The love of music. I started playing guitar at fifteen or so when Britpop was happening, listening to Ocean Colour Scene and Kula Shaker, and just wanted to be a rock star from then. Everyone went round school acting like they were Liam.
So how did the four of you link up?
From two other bands, The Bets and The Arcane. We all got together for a jam - just to play some music, ‘cos we were still with our other bands. We didn’t want to break them up, but we all just clicked and everything sounded great - so we formed The Swiines.
What can punters expect from a Swiines gig?
An all round guarantee; visuals, music…people just wanna get involved when they see us. It’s about music at the end of the day, innit? We’re not just some typical indie band with jangly guitars It’s more full-on - people have said it’s a proper rock ‘n’ roll sound.
What’s your favourite gig been?
Rock City, when we supported Subways, was definitely the most memorable. That was the biggest. I mean, we had roadies, and could hear the cheering while we were backstage. But we were talking about this the other day - we kinda prefer the smaller gigs.
We’ve had some good ‘uns at the Running Horse, really big energy in there. It’s always great when you get along with the other local bands. Personally, I love a sold-out gig with loads of people from Notts; just turning up at Rock City or Social and it being full. We’ve sold out gigs before, but somewhere big with everyone we know in the crowd would be top.
Describe your songwriting process…
It’s nothing formal really - a lot of improvising, feeding off each other. They usually come from one of Scott’s ideas, we’ll have a bit of a jam and whatever comes out of it usually sounds pretty good.
Who are your heroes?
In recent years, Alex Turner - his lyrics are just phenomenal. Going back, the Gallagher brothers made the 90s for me, it was happy days. And Kurt Cobain - the whole grunge attitude from when we were growing up.
And who are you listening to at the moment?
The last album I bought was by These New Puritans; they’re a bit off the wall and very different. Twisted Wheel as well - we’re supporting them soon, so that’s a massive bonus.
What’s the most rock ‘n’ roll thing The Swiines have ever done?
Stopping cars on the M1 in a massive traffic jam to give people CDs, when we were drunk on the way back from a gig in London. We were all in the bus goading each other. Things started to go wrong after that, but I don’t really remember much else…
You’re all put in charge of Nottingham for the day. What do you do with the city?
Give it a slap! Make everyone get up off their arses - no one’s allowed to stop in and watch Corrie or mong out on iTunes. We’d put a gig on for everyone that the whole city could go to.
Tell us about your new single Stone Faced...
It’s being released in March - we recorded it with Guy Elderfield at Random Recordings, who produced our last EP. He’s a legend, that guy. I think it’s our best work; it was one of those songs that just came together, straight from the off it just snapped into place. It’s got a good solid melody and beat, it sounds quite commercial but underground at the same time. We’re very proud of it. We’ve had really good feedback so far.
Plans for the year?
We’re recording an album that will come out in the autumn, again with Random Recordings. That’s an ongoing thing really, probably near on a years worth of work - we want to take our time with it. We’ve also got a new bass player, Rory, who’s quality. We really want to play festivals, as many as we can; we’ve had positive feedback so hopefully we’ll get to play some. We just want to get the new tunes out really.
Anything else you need us to know?
Go and visit ooizit.com - we were one of their featured artists last month. It’s like a new version of MySpace. We’re selling all our tracks from there, and Amazon and Spotify. And come out and see us play!
Catch The Swiines at the The Central on Friday 19 March.
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