People young and old stand waiting for doors to open. Some wear shirts of newer pop-punk bands while others wear clothing that’s reminiscent of old school punk rock. Roadies unload equipment such as amps, guitars, drums and microphones.
Inside, musicians sound check their instruments with short snippets of songs. The venue’s staff members stand outside taking money and ushering people into parking lots. Tonight, The Swellers will take the stage at Trees in Dallas.
The Swellers started out ten years ago in Flint, Michigan. They decided that they wanted to play loud, aggressive and melodic punk rock music. The band has had a few lineup changes but the founding members, brothers Nick and Jonathon Diener, have been the core of the band. The lineup includes bassist Anto Boros and guitarist Ryan Collins. Their first shows were for their fellow high school students and even went to their first gig in their mom’s minivan.
In 2009, Hayley Williams (lead singer of Paramore) found out about their band. Williams liked what she heard and hooked them up with a record deal with Paramore’s label, Fueled By Ramen. The Swellers released their second full-length album, Ups and Downsizing on the label on September 29, 2009. The record received great reviews from old fans and new fans.
Three years later, something just didn’t feel right to the band. The Swellers had found that they weren’t getting the same kind of attention the bigger bands on the label were receiving . They put a lot of work into their third release, Good For Me, and while it still received good reviews and great response from fans, the band did not see the same amount of record sales as they had with the other record. The band made a decision that they were going to leave the label.
“The work that was put into it was the work that we put into it and we didn’t talk to anyone at the label that much during that record,” Nick said. “Meanwhile our fans ate it up, singing all the words and giving good reviews. And we were like okay, we’re doing alright.”
After departing from Fueled By Ramen, they decided that it was time to go back into the studio to work on new material that they would release on their own label, Snowbird Songs. The end work is the five song EP, Running Out of Places To Go.
Nick said that even though the record doesn’t sound that angry, the words are very bitter. He said that in each record their sound changes in a very gradual way. Their sound started out very fast and aggressive and while they haven’t slowed down, they’ve found their groove. The songs on Running Out Of Places To Go are reminiscent to the old The Swellers sound.
“I think it’s a whole new [The] Swellers without straying too far away from what we’ve been doing,” Nick said.
Bitterness seems to be the main theme of the EP according to Nick. However, he said that it has nothing to do with selfishness or greed but instead that the band is always striving to be better.
“Me being 25 years old, I haven’t had much of a life out of high school,” Nick said. “I’ve been in this van, sleeping in this van, sometimes sleeping on people’s floors and getting paid next to nothing. After a while we were just bitter, like why can’t we catch a break, and then we stop and think how cool this has been and how we’ve gotten to travel the world. The record battles with that.”
Doing their EP on their own was a very cathartic experience for the band. Nick said that it made them realize that they don’t need a label in order for them to be successful. However, the DIY work ethic made them realize how much money and work goes into self-releasing. At some point, the band does plan to go back to another label. They want to go into a label but bring in their DIY work ethic and money saving techniques.
“We’ll continue with the do it yourself ethic that we have but bring it into a record label world so that we have a whole team working for us,” Nick said. “But it’s one of those coincidences where we get to go home with some Christmas money or something. That will be our plan for next year and we’ll see what happens.”
Nick says that at first glance, there isn’t much that would separate The Swellers from many other punk bands, but he said that he hopes people see what they’re doing is 100 percent real.
“We’re just regular guys and we mean everything that we say into the microphone and we play all real instruments,” Nick said. “We just hope that people like real music and honest songs because that’s what we’re doing.
