From Vendetta #18 (Fall 2002)
Swervedriver :::::: Never Lose That Feeling
Interview by Ben Vendetta Photos by Suzy Erickson Swervedriver was one of THE definitive bands of the ‘90s, creating four hazy, hypnotic, and pulverizing rock ‘n’ roll masterpieces: Raise (1991), Mezcal Head (1993), Ejector Seat Reservation (1995), and 99th Dream (1998). While the group hasn’t recorded anything since 99th Dream, lead vocalist/guitarist Adam Franklin swears that they haven’t officially broken up. Franklin has kept busy with a side project called Toshack Highway and has released two records under that name. I recently phoned Adam to reminisce about the Swervedriver glory days and to see what’s in store for the future.
Ben Vendetta (B): I really like your new EP. It reminds me of what Swervedriver songs might sound like if it was just you and an acoustic. Adam Franklin (A): It was definitely quite a different thing from the previous Toshack Highway album, which was a total departure, but with this one it was more of the songy things and that is almost like Swervedriver demos in a way. B: Was that last LP you did with Toshack Highway meant to be a more experimental thing, just to do something different from Swervedriver? A: At that point, it was like… I don’t know. I just bought a couple of keyboards and I was tinkering around and I was thinking, “How will this fit in with Swervedriver,” but they obviously didn’t sound like Swervedriver songs. I bet I could have given the rest of the guys demo recordings and Jimmy, the guitar player, could have said maybe we’ll get a keyboard player in and Steve, the bass player, would have probably said that Swervedriver is meant to be a four-piece and a keyboard wouldn’t fit in! In the end, it was like suddenly this opportunity opened anyway with the label we were signed to, who said, “do it as a side project.” Once it was decided that it was going to be a different thing, it opened up more opportunities because it didn’t have to have drums on it or guitars or whatever, so it became more experimental than it would have been. By the time I got around to doing this EP that came out on Space Baby, I was writing guitar songs again. I guess you could say I had a brief flirtation with keyboards! B: Does Swervedriver still exist, or are you through now? A: Well… nobody ever says that it’s finished. There has been talk of doing things on and off from time to time for the last couple of years, but in effect, we haven’t done anything for a good while really. The last gigs we did were at the end of ’98 I think. I still see some of the guys from time to time and we sort of think maybe it would be good to do it, unfinished business and all that stuff, but at the same time, if we’re going to do it we should do it wholeheartedly rather than halfheartedly, and whether we’d actually throw ourselves into doing the whole thing with touring and promoting our record… it’s still on hold. We say it’s on hold, but nothing has really happened. B: Are you planning on doing a new album? I know the new songs on the EP were done on four-track. Are you planning on developing any of those songs? A: Well, yeah. I seem to have a backload of songs now. This was literally four-track stuff. People were hearing it and Michelle at Space Baby heard it and thought it was great and wanted to release it. I was like, it’s four tracks, but people were saying who cares, people don’t even think about it in those technical terms, they just hear the songs. We put it out as it was, really. I think some of those songs, if not all of those four, maybe three of the four; I’d like to do them with a band in a studio. I’d like to use the guys who toured the Toshack Highway album. At the moment, I’m thinking that it would be good to do a full-length album of some of these songs I’ve got mucking about. B: It was interesting hearing “The Hitcher” redone, probably not unlike the way it was when you demoed it before giving it to the band. A: Actually, it wasn’t really. I think that song, “The Hitcher,” is really old. It might even go back to before Swervedriver, with me and Jimmy playing around with this riff. It might even have been sort of tacked on at the end of “Son Of Mustang Ford” originally or something like that. “The Hitcher” was kind of this lost song for Swervedriver in a way, even though a lot of people know the song. In the end, it only appeared on the A&M “Last Train To Satansville” EP thing. We all thought that at some point “The Hitcher” could have been a single or a big song and it could have been on the next album, but then somehow it got edged out. I always remembered it and I started playing around with the melody and I developed this acoustic guitar picking style, which is something that I had always done. The first guitar I had ever played was an acoustic as opposed to an electric. I always used to try to do picking stuff but I could never really do it. In the interim when Swervedriver hadn’t been doing anything and the Toshack Highway album had been done, I started playing around more and tinkering on the acoustic guitar and I thought it would be quite cool to redevelop that song and actually redo “The Hitcher,” and the next thing it was like we had done this demo and we thought it sounded pretty cool. B: I like the title “Everyday, Rock ‘n’ Roll Is Saving My Life.” It’s such a true statement for so many people. A: Yeah. You see people traveling to work with their walkmen. They’d probably be banging their heads against the all if they couldn’t have their headphones on. B: I’m guessing that you must be a big Chocolate Watchband fan since you have a song called “She Weaves A Tender Trap.” Are you a big fan of the ‘60s garage sound? A: Yeah. My brother was really into that. He had a huge record collection. He was in the room next door in the house that we grew up in and I’d just hear these magic sounds coming out and I’d be like, what the fuck is this! He was into all that late ‘60s freakbeat and psychedelia and he’d buy all these bootlegs like this one of the Electric Prunes playing in Denmark in the late ‘60s and they’d be going off at the end of the songs whereas on the records it would fade out. Live, they’re just playing out and going crazy. B: The bands that Swervedriver were compared to when you started out didn’t seem to be coming from such a heavy place as you guys did. You guys had that Hendrix, Stooges, garage sound going on. A: I think we were more of a rock band. There was a little bit of psychedelia in there too. Once you’ve heard something go a bit crazy, you always have to have that element in there. There’s a tremendous freedom in that kind of a sound, the sound of a band going off on one a little bit. Even if you’re just recording a voice and a guitar, I think it’s good to have a few things in the background, ambient sounds. A lot of it isn’t about songs, it’s about sounds and crazy little things coming out. A lot of the Swervedriver recordings do have a tremendous amount of overdubs on them, but a lot of it is crazy things going on, like “Last Train To Satansville” at the end there is a motorbike revving up and all this subliminal stuff going on in the background. I think it’s always good if you hear something and you listen to it a second time and you go, hey, what’s that? The third time you hear something else. B: Mezcal Head was such a huge record. I loved the debut, but Mezcal Head was the record that really sold you guys to me. Then seeing you guys live. I think my favorite album these days though is Ejector Seat Reservation. It’s sad that it never received the proper promotion because Creation dropped you before anything could happen. Those songs were so excellent. A: I probably would say that’s kind of my favorite album of the four. We were trying to do something a bit different. I think we felt… I think Mezcal Head was almost like the first album distilled in a way and recorded better. It was a development from the first album. On the third album we wanted it to sound a bit trashier. I think some of the songs came from more poppy influences. The demos sounded like pop songs and we were thinking how is this going to fit in? But as soon as it became four of us playing in the same room, suddenly it took on something else. There are some quite out there songs, really. “I Am Superman” has strange arrangements. There’s a lot going on there, like sound effects between the songs. It’s a good album. I like it. B: I don’t know how many American magazines you see, but Magnet did this whole huge special on shoegazing with Ride on the cover. I was surprised that they didn’t really mention you guys at all since you were lumped in with that scene and you had a bigger impact in America than some of those groups. A: Definitely more than some of those groups. I think at the time when we came out, there was kind of… it wasn’t like a scene, but the main thing was we came from Oxford where Ride came from and Mark from Ride gave our demo tape to Alan McGee, so immediately Creation had these new bands from Oxford. We were quite different from those groups though. I think a lot of those groups did have a similar kind of sound that we touched upon certainly, but we always had one foot more in the grungy camp I suppose. B: Also, the imagery you had, like with the car references, it was definitely more, not necessarily American, but you were tapping more into classic rock ‘n’ roll imagery. A: We’ve got to straighten it out because it’s still the same. I’ve been going through all these tapes of songs that the band recorded for various albums and writing these new tunes, I’m tapping into the same thing. Ultimately, it kind of fits your path in a way. At the time it seems like there are fads going on and maybe you’re fitting in with something or maybe you’re not fitting into something else, but with time it becomes… I don’t think people really change that much from what they do. In some ways, I’m driving in the same lane as it were, but just in a different, more stripped down way I suppose. B: Did Swervedriver just lose steam when Zero Hour went out of business? A: That was kind of it. 99th Dream came out on Zero Hour and then we did a bit of touring in the US and Australia. The last thing we did was in Australia, touring with this band Powderfinger who were quite a big band in Australia. We had never heard of them, but they really wanted us to support them, but we were wondering how we could afford to get out there. It ended up with them pretty much paying us to get out there. It was fun, but we didn’t feel like we were really going forward. We were going sideways and we felt we needed some time out to rethink what we were doing. We decided to take six months off and it was around that time that Zero Hour set about me doing this keyboardy thing as a sideproject and I was like, cool we’ll do that and then we’ll reconvene as Swervedriver. Halfway through the recording of the Toshack Highway album we got the news that Zero Hour was no more. My first though was how the fuck are we going to finish off this Toshack Highway album. But in the end, we finished it off and then a year went by and we still hadn’t got back together. Then there were offers for touring Toshack Highway and I thought that would be fun and I got a new band and did that. Then more time goes by and that was kind of it really. We definitely need to take some time out and decide what we’re going to do next. I think the last album was kind of patchy anyway, really. I don’t think the atmosphere when we recorded it was that great. I think every now and then you stand back and think, what’s the next move? I guess in the end we never made the next move. We kept standing back. B: Are the other guys playing music at all now, or are they back to doing non rock ‘n’ roll things? A: Steve got married and his wife played in bands and she writes songs. They’ve been doing her stuff. They’ve got a home recording thing. Jimmy does tapes and home recording things with guitars. Nobody’s really gigging apart from me. B: It seems like England could really use a great British rock ‘n’ roll band again. These days the British press is more interested in bands like the Hives and the White Stripes and the Strokes because there’s not much going on in England. A: People have said this. When bands name their favorite albums and bands, Swervedriver have been mentioned a few times. People are like, the time is right. I think every now and then we think that too. You’ve got Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. B: It seems like there aren’t very many young British rock ‘n’ roll groups that are really good at the moment. All of my favorite current UK artists like Spiritualized, Charlatans, Oasis, and Primal Scream are all over 30! Are you listening to any thing new that I might not be aware of? A: I don’t really know to be honest. I see bands names now, but I don’t really know what’s going on. There was a band called Electric Soft Parade who I saw on TV and that was pretty good. There wasn’t anything particularly remarkable about them though. There was this Australian group called The Vines on TV the other night. They’re another one of these bands that’s playing punk rock in a way. That was good. I like bits and pieces of stuff like Badly Drawn Boy, but not really. I like a couple of his songs. B: When you listen to stuff at home, is it still mainly ‘60s stuff, then? A: I guess it’s something you always come back to really. To be honest, I haven’t really had anything to listen to in my room for a while. I just moved house and I just have a guitar and a radio. You get pretty passive with a radio and just listen to what’s on, really. Clinic have some fine moments as well. It’s just odd things you pick up. I don’t really know what’s in the charts in England anymore. I’ve lost track of what the NME is championing these days. For me, personally, I prefer the general longevity of the American scene. Over here it’s always the flavor of the month kind of thing. If you play acoustic guitar, it suddenly becomes the new acoustic movement! I was playing a few acoustic gigs. I imagine if I went out and played an acoustic gig in London it would have been like, he’s trying to get into the new acoustic movement! Then the Strokes came along and they wiped out the new acoustic movement. B: Dylan was on an acoustic in 1963. There’s nothing new about that! I liked the way you sort of redid “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” on “It’s All Happening Now.” Was that intended to be a tribute of sorts to Dylan? A: More the Chocolate Watchband, really. It’s a great song. I never really got into Dylan that much, but I loved the version that The Chocolate Watchband did and I loved the 13th Floor Elevators version and I loved Them’s version. It’s an amazing song. I think with “It’s All Happening Now” it was kind of lame. I think we were rehearsing in our old studio. The actual playing room was downstairs and you could sit around upstairs. I was playing downstairs with that riff and some of the guys came down and they said that’s great! I said, well it’s not really me; it’s the Chocolate Watchband. But they said, let’s develop it. I guess I didn’t really develop the words. Basically, it’s like three lines from each verse and then it goes off into something else. It’s not surprising really that Dylan’s people heard it and said, sorry you can’t use that. B: Do you have any thoughts about putting together a Swervedriver rarities collection with British B-sides and stuff like that? A: There has been talk about that again. The tracks are owned by various people. A lot of the B-sides would be Creation. There is a CD circulating with all the B-sides. The B-sides album is a really good collection. We could deal with pretty good EP tracks and things that weren’t on the albums. There’s about an album and a half worth of stuff like that and there are a few unrecorded tracks. The most expensive single track that we ever recorded didn’t even get released. It was called “Neon Lights.” It was for the Ejector Seat album. It’s basically a cross between Kraftwork’s “Neon Lights” with “Rumble” by Link Wray with the same sort of chords. Later on, I’m singing bits of “Signed D.C.” by Love, but it had strings on it. It’s like 11 minutes long! B: You should do a cover of “Signed D.C.” That’s such an amazing song. I always thought that you sung a bit like Arthur on some of your quieter songs like “Last Day On Earth.” I could imagine Arthur singing that. A: I think Love had some amazing moments, really. Stunning in places. There actually is a version we did of “Signed D.C.” on a little four-track a long time a go. Me and Steve, the bass player for Swervedriver, did a little radio thing when 99th Dream came out and we went to radio stations doing songs and we did it then a few times as well. B: So basically now, you’re happy working on your solo stuff, but if Swervedriver happened again, that would be nice. A: I’d really like to do something again. You can quote me on that. I don’t know what will happen, really. I think it would be good to do it just because it would be a crack. The idea of getting on stage and doing a Swervedriver gig gets you excited, but at the same time I don’t know if that would be an ongoing thing, really. For me it’s like…I don’t know, it’s like what you say about the mellower songs. It’s the oldest one in the book. You get to 30 and you start playing the acoustic guitar and winding it down and mellowing it out. I’ve really enjoyed doing some of the acoustic shows. People have said that they’d be more than just acoustic shows because there’s an ambiance only on the guitar literally. I’ve got to develop that into a band thing, really, and get some of the guys that played like the drummer and keyboard player that played on the Toshack Highway and actually have it as a more guitar thing so it’s still got the rock ‘n’ roll thing, but it’s moving from like White Light, White Heat to the Velvet Underground’s third album. B: These days, the third album is probably my favorite. A: I think that came out like that because of their pedals getting stolen. I think the early T. Rex is acoustic because he couldn’t afford a drum kit and en electric guitar. The acoustic thing I was doing was really economical because I wanted to get out and play. B: When do you plan on coming to the US again? A: I’m trying to get something in motion. There’s a release that we’re talking about doing, a split release with a Canadian band called Sianspheric. I’m not sure if I’m going to carry on with the name. It actually got quite confusing. I had the Everyday Rock ‘n’ Roll is Saving My Life EP out, but when I was going out, I was billed as Adam Franklin of Swervedriver so some people weren’t aware of what Toshack Highway was. People were coming up to the CD stall to see if there was any Adam Franklin product. The new release probably won’t be out till the fall. I’d like to go out as a three-piece maybe. Guitar, bass, and drums or maybe guitar, keyboards, and drums. At this point, I think with a full-length album we’d be back to a band, like a guitar, bass, drums type of thing, with songs as opposed to the ambient instrumentals on the orange Toshack Highway album. www.toshackhighway.com