nipaluna/Hobart Australia founded, ARIA-nominated and internationally-acclaimed rollickers A. Swayze & The Ghosts today share new single & lyric video ‘Tell You All The Time’, a vibrant DEVO-inspired statement of liberation from expectations in favour of connecting with your true self lifted from their recently announced highly anticipated second studio album ‘Let’s Live a Life Better Than This’ (October 25). Chronicling 4 years of growth, ‘Let’s Live a Life Better Than This’ documents a transition from self-destruction to love – the rhythmic record owing its unique melange of influences to a remarkably intense evolution of the band’s sonic world. ‘Let’s Live a Life Better Than This’ will also feature recent singles ‘He Is Dead’ & ‘Cool Cucumber’ and is available to pre-order digitally and on vinyl now HERE. ‘Tell You All The Time’ is out everywhere now – stream/watch HERE.
Beginning its life as a “melodic experiment”, ultimately culminating in an upbeat, dynamic examination of self – a testament to the band’s newfound ethos that “if something sounds good, don’t question it” – ‘Tell You All The Time’ is propelled forward by feverish, spiky guitar, tight drums and lyrics reminding us it’s an act of self-care to turn away from past habits, and move against the grain towards your best self. A. Swayze explains: “‘Tell You All The Time’ is about my experience of learning that I’m far more of an introvert than I claimed. I felt like we were becoming a product, controlled, and I was no longer enjoying the fast booze and drug-fuelled lifestyle we had created. It wasn’t long after that I quit drinking and was forced to recluse while the world shut down. I found some peace and quiet and learned that was what I needed to function and be happy and experience love. Ben was really fixating on the synth bass lines of DEVO. He started bringing that energy into frenetic but rigid guitar lines and one them ended up forming the base of this song, that came together in pretty much an evening”
Written over four years between Naarm/Melbourne and secluded spots across lutruwita/Tasmania and recorded at Sunset Pig Studios, with Swayze tracking the bulk of his vocals in his spare toilet/DIY soundbooth, ‘Let’s Live a Life Better Than This’ – self-produced in a first for the band and mixed by Andy Savours (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Rina Sawayama, Arctic Monkeys) – is the dawning of a new era for A. Swayze & the Ghosts. Densely packed with tight, punchy drums and percussion, Roland and Korg synths and a touch of saxophone, the guitar-led, dance-forward record signifies a zealous transformation, brimming with a renewed energy and intensity, non-traditional rock elements and an unwavering sense of passion and commitment. It marks a departure from their previous “band-in-a-room” approach to writing to now writing in the production process, initially spurred due to their rehearsal space lease ending & having “nowhere to make noise.” This ultimately encouraged a far more experimental approach as the band honed the nuances of each track, thanks to access to a limitless range of DAW sounds and a growing curiosity of genres like techno, electro, hardcore, trap, and black metal, adopting the ethos that “if something sounds good, don’t question it.”
After returning from a touring hiatus – their eventual return marked by 3x sold-out headline shows in support of ‘Cool Cucumber’ this year – the band turned inwards to reflect on their place and found themselves, for the first time, shedding their old ideals to make music free from community expectations, driven by the urgency of liberating from the creative boundaries they had subconsciously drawn for themselves. The 10 tracks on ‘Let’s Live A Life Better Than This’ show a extroverted record that is largely introspective, chronicling shared personal realisations around fear, mental health, trauma, addiction, love, loss and finding a path to liberation & resolution in parallel to an oftentimes challenging journey of growth that Andrew Swayze says was intrinsic to the album’s creation: “To us, the two are intertwined – without one, the other would cease to have existed. We started as a fierce, self-destructive garage-punk band, reeling from their career being derailed by covid, to a thoughtful and artistically liberated group held together by love and respect for one another.”
First making their mark with their “end to end faultless” (The Guardian UK), ARIA & AIR Award-nominated debut album ‘Paid Salvation’ (2020), A. Swayze & The Ghosts – Andrew Swayze (he/him; vocals), Ben von Fürstenburg (he/him; guitar/synth), Zac Blain (he/him; drums) and touring members Kieran Daly (he/him; guitar) and Joe Berry (he/him; bass) – continually push the bounds of what it is to be “punk”, and are heralded for their frenetic live shows marked by the unrivalled charisma of Andrew Swayze, and their highly expressive and consistent creative output. Across their debut self-titled EP (2017) and ‘Paid Salvation’ (2020), A. Swayze & The Ghosts have become critically-acclaimed internationally, including nominations for Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Album (ARIA Awards) and Best Independent Punk Album or EP at (AIR Awards), praise from The Guardian (UK), Mojo, BBC Radio 1, Beats One, Clash Magazine and NME, Feature Album on Double J, Album of the Week on The Music, The AU Review and MTV Australia, recent support via Rolling Stone, The Write Drop, Backseat Mafia, Happy Magazine, Beers & Tears, Double J (add – ‘Cool Cucumber’), Triple R, 2SER, Edge Radio + more, with syncs on the recent remaster of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 & 2 Soundtrack (‘Connect To Consume’). They’ve taken their “unpredictable, risky and unhinged” (triple j) live show to Splendour In The Grass, Falls Festival, The Great Escape (UK) and Bigsound among others, plus support slots with Jet, The Vines, Shame (UK), Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes (UK), Total Control and beyond.
Connect with A. Swayze & The Ghosts:
Instagram| Facebook| X| Bandcamp| Spotify| Apple Music| YouTube
aswayzeandtheghosts.com
