Indie bands and labels, let this be a great example of why buying an ad in a magazine is worthwhile. I was flipping through the most recent issue of Under the Radar (Tegan and Sara cover) when I happened upon a full page Transit of Venus full-page ad promoting 4 new releases. Swivel Chairs caught my eye thanks to the description that says “Gorgeous indie-pop with county and new-wave overtones … features guests turns from members of Audible, The Bigger Lovers, Mat Pond PA, Slo-Mo and The Trollyvox”. Ding, ding, ding. Sold. Say no more. I downloaded the CD from eMusic.com (totally worth the monthly subscription, by the way) and while it may seem like a cop-out, I completely agree with the description in the ad. FINALLY, truth in advertising.
Jason Brown and Jeremy Grites make up the core of Swivel Chairs and use special guests to fill out the sound on The Slow Transmission. Jeremy was kind enough to weigh in on track 3 of the CD, “All at Once”.
MP3: “All at Once”
Is track 3 representative of the whole CD?
Actually, the song isn’t represtative of the whole album, or any of our albums. We like a lot of different types of music, and I think it really shows in the songs that come out of the band. Also, since there are 2 distinct songwriters in the group I think that that’s accentuated even more.
What’s the story behind the song – from the lyrical content to the way it was written and recorded?
That song is a pretty personal account of where I was at the time that it was written. I was going through a really bad relationship break-up at the time and felt really overwhelmed. It’s also about dealing with getting older and the stress of things in your life. I literally felt like all of these bad things were happening to me simultaneously and that song just came out. It feels really good to sing that one – like an expulsion of those feelings…
Was there a particular reason you placed this song in the #3 spot on the tracklisting?
The track placement of that song was “planned” so much as it was natural. Jay and I were both college radio DJ’s and have always tried to arrange play-lists and mix-tapes so that they have an ebb and flow and a continuity to them. So, making our own records have always been kind of the same thing. We went through a lot of different track-lists before the final version. It just seemed to be a nice build from tracks 1 to 2 that peaks in “All at once,” and then settles back into the album. Because we are such huge music fans, we tried to put together a track-list that was interesting all the way through…