Swords taking off with Black Balloon

A THREE-piece electro-indie band with West Clare ties are cutting through the music industry. Swords took first prize in the Bulmers Berry Who’s Hiding In The Undergrowth? competition last year and have returned this year with their newly launched EP, Black Balloon.

The band members are Kilrush drummer Ian Frawley, lead vocalist and lyricist Diane Anglim, who also plays the keyboards and synthesisers and whose father hails from Kilmihil, and bass and electric guitarist Jarlath Canning from Carlow.
The band are based in Dublin but have toured extensively around the country, coming to Clare on a number of occasions. They will tour later this year and will play some of this summer’s festivals.
Speaking to The Clare Champion, Ian outlines how the band came together. “We formed in 2010. Diane was looking for a drummer and I got word of that, so we met up and started rehearsing. We intended to play some covers to get going and then we just ended up writing our own material. She had stuff she wanted to work on and I agreed. There were just the two of us at that stage, so we had just piano, drums and vocals.
“But we always wanted to get a guitarist or a base guitarist, whichever suited, so we put some demo CDs together. The demo was engineered by Micheál Sheil of the band We Town Criers. So we had We Town Criers helping us out and then Jarlath got in touch. We started writing more songs and through the whole of 2011 we played 40 or 50 gigs around Ireland, working away as hard as we could writing songs,” he says.
Having put together a large repertoire, Swords set about contacting producers to see if they would consider getting on board. One producer the band were really keen to meet was Karl Odlum, who had been involved with The Frames and produced Ham Sandwich’s latest album. When the band heard back from him, they were delighted.
“He said he liked our electronic sound and the fact that we don’t have guitars, except for the bass guitar, and that was different to what he was used to. He is into sound, particularly new sound and synthesisers, so we met up with him and we found we had a lot of the same interests musically, Ian says.
“He took us on and started coming to our practices and helping us pick the songs.”
With Karl’s help producing the songs, Swords came up with four songs, which feature on Black Balloon. It was an intense musical experience, according to Ian, as the group moved to a cottage in County Wicklow for a couple of weeks, with no television and immersed themselves in the music. They then mixed the tracks at Karl’s house in Dublin.
“We had our EP launch in the Grand Social in Dublin in early February. It was a full house and we are currently in the process of booking a tour. We are playing at the Vantastival Festival in County Louth in May and we’re playing the launch party of that on Saturday in Dublin.
“We’ve played in Clare as well. We’ve previously played in Moyasta with Mark James for his EP launch and we played back in The Galleon last September. We are planning to get back for gigs in Kilrush, Kilkee and Lahinch between May and September,” Ian reveals.
Swords have a distinctive, hybrid sound, somewhere between electronic and independent alternative rock but with an upbeat feel.
“I think possibly what makes us stand out the most is Diane’s vocals and her lyrics. They are really interesting and the fact that she uses really new synth sounds, played in rock music fashion. It’s not really a dance format to the songs, it’s more of a rock format.
“We would be influenced by the more independent rock style like Radiohead, Elbow and the Flaming Lips. We are also influenced by the more dance side of things like Crystal Castles and Passion Pit. Diane also likes catchy hooks and she likes people to be able to remember the singing. A lot of her melodies sound nice but her vocals can be caustic in what they are describing,” he explains.
Breaking into the Irish popular music scene is not easy but Swords were recently interviewed on national radio and are getting regular spins on Dan Hegarty’s radio show on 2FM.
“You have to work really hard to get out there. We’re lucky, we’ve been on Newstalk, Phantom Radio and Dan Hegarty has been playing us. We take it bit by bit and we are happy with how the EP is going. We are happy that stations are playing it. The next little project is getting a video together, booking that tour and then recording an album so we’ll look forward to that,” Ian concludes.