Queensize music interview with Adam

[Locksley Taylor]

Interview with Adam from here:
http://www.queensizemusic.com/

I dunno if this has already been RAISEd here, but here it is again for anyone who hasn’t read it already.

Swervedriver Release First Album In Nearly A Decade

Date: 3/09/2005
Author: Larry Queen

When England’s Swervedriver released it’s first single in 1990, “Son Of Mustang Ford” (Creation), the band was automatically lumped into the Shoegazing movement coming out of the UK at the time. And, although there’s little doubt that there was some shared vision, Swervedriver was possessed of something that set them apart from the other bands of the day such as Jesus and The Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, or Ride. They had as much in common with the ebb and flow dynamics of, say, Spiritualized’s melange of ethereal blues, gospel, and wash of psychedelic, crunching guitars as they did with the visceral raw power of Iggy and The Stooges, which is something some of their peers didn’t so readily reveal.

The band released four full-length albums throughout the ’90s – Raise, Mezcal Head, Ejector Seat Reservation (which wasn’t released here in the US), and 99th Dream. Along the way they were widely touted as the potential savior of the British music scene, received critical accolades on both sides of the Atlantic, did a tour with the Smashing Pumpkins, and headlined their own tours around the globe. But the band was constantly having troubles. Despite all the critical praise they were eventually dropped from their labels in both Europe and the US. Among other things, the realities of keeping a band together and the expense of being on the road proved to be too much, and they decided to call it quits as 2000 approached

Since then each of the former members of this band has gone on to a variety of things. But, singer/guitarist/principal creative force behind the group, Adam Franklin, has arguably maintained the highest profile with his other projects, Sophia and Toshack Highway. But something has been percolating over the past year that has turned the spotlight back on Swervedriver, if only briefly.

The result was delivered to stores on Monday, March 14, as the group’s fans worldwide were finally given reason to get their swerve on with the release of Juggernaut Rides 89 – 98, the first album the band has produced in nearly a decade – a 33-track anthology of well-worn material, b-sides, rarities, and previously unreleased songs.

QueenSizeMusic.com caught up with Franklin via email to get the lowdown on what could be on the horizon for his former band.

QueenSizeMusic.com: So why release this Swervedriver collection now, and not, say, sooner after the demise of the band? I mean, it’s been eight years since the release of 99th Dream. Are there plans to reform the band?

Adam Franklin: You have to understand that the decision to release or re-release Swervedriver material is totally out of the band’s control apart from a few tracks and the last album. The fact is that Sanctuary struck up a deal to license the songs from Sony as they have done with a number of Creation bands. They didn’t have to contact any band members if they didn’t want to, but they were actually a nice bunch of guys. But also this isn’t the first time that a compilation album has been mooted – Rykodisc were interested in doing something a few years back, which fell through in the end. Also, Cherry Red in England were keen to do something and that actually went ahead for a while until the man at Sony sent everyone a mysterious email saying “project suspended.” I’d like to see all the Swervedriver albums available in record shops everywhere, but there are problems. In the US, Universal (Records) now control A&M releases and they have absolutely no plans to reissue any Swervedriver albums – of course this is the price you pay for selling your corporate soul in the first place so we can’t really complain too much! Strange things do happen though like the fact that Sony Fran

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