Swim Party lit up the Luce Loft for an evening in front of their unique stage backdrop. They performed a couple new tracks while discussing their upcoming album release, ties to the Whistle Stop and a massive bee attack.
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Swim Party @ Luce Loft - Photo by Carly Ealey
Swim Party is Alex Devereaux, Perto Halkowycz and Eric Tremblay.
Sezio: You guys used to be a four piece, right?
Alex: Yeah, initially a girl named Nadia played violin with us, but she was offered a Full Bright scholarship. With that first EP we had a specific direction in mind, but had to change things up a bit and evolve as a three piece.
Petro: Things got a bit heavier when Nadia left, loosing the violin. We had to fill that space with a different noise, or maybe grit?
Alex: I discovered distortion on bass...
Petro, Eric, Alex - Photo by Carly Ealey
Sezio: Tell us about your new album.
Alex: Took us almost a year to record it, well not quite. The songs were outlined and we experimented over them for a while, tracking it ourselves.
Petro: Once we kind of got it together, we went to Black Box Studios, and did drums, bass and some guitars. And then we took it to Eric's friend's space and recorded guitars mostly, over a long weekend with sleeping bags, pizza and dvd's.
Eric: He has this isolated little room in Oceanside, on the brink of Fallbrook. There's nothing really around it.
Swim Party brought a stripped down set up to the loft and previewed a couple tracks off the new album. Here are some mp3's for streaming or download, recorded exclusively for sezio.org, and a few words on each from Alex.
"Broke Ships Sink"
We've always loved this song, but it's a tricky song live since there's a few looped guitar parts. We really wanted to play it for the Luce Loft interview and Petro came up with the idea of breaking down the song into some essential parts: Chord Progressions, Vocals, & "feel." The result ended up being a "slow-core" version of the song that we feel really good about.
"The Kids are a Drag"
The Kids are a Drag was an easy choice due to the interesting dynamics that we figured would translate really well for a "live" recording. After seeing pictures of the loft though, we decided to make everything a little more broken down than our normal live shows. It was fun challenging ourselves to translate songs that we've written and played a certain way for so long. The intimate nature of the loft setting, plus getting the opportunity to decorate the loft ourselves really made the whole experience unforgettable.
What occupies your time outside of music?
Petro: I work in a lab, which is why I call my studio Science, cause thats how I paid for it. I am enzymologist. I work with enzymes for a pharmaceutical company, not on animals. Basically Cancer and Diabetes research. Outside of that, I play soccer religiously.
Eric: I am a graduate student at UCSD, I study camera lenses. Mostly compact lenses, not the high quality big ones...
Zack: So you are making my iPhone camera better..?
Eric: Exactly.
Alex: I do graphic design for a living. I worked for seven years at a skateboard company, and the last year and a half I have been working on my own. It's been pretty challenging, but it gives me the time to focus on a lot of the backend stuff for Swim Party.
Swim Party's CD release is Friday, July 25th @ The Whistle Stop
Writer will be opening & joining them for a track or two... To visit Swim Party's myspace page, click here. View the photo gallery for more images.