Swayback

By their own admission, with some minor goading from yours truly, local rock outfit Swayback do profess to be somewhat 'bogan'. The truth of the matter is they clearly cite their influences as being Uriah Heep, Slade, The Who, Byrds, The Small Faces and, well, you get the picture.

As they say, "If it's old, sweaty, boozy and rock, we love it!!!" And that certainly sums up the band's ethos when it comes to delivering some of the best in-your-face, blues-drenched, riff-swilling rock'n'roll this side of the '70s. Their inspirations may be old, but their effect on audiences is both fresh and fun and the boys are set re-release their debut album, 'The Quest For Rock And Roll', this time on ex-Melbourne label Half A Cow.

"It's just been relocated to Sydney," informs guitarist/vocalist, Brenton Manser, "it's Nic Dalton's label. He saw some of our shows in Melbourne and he took some interest."

"The fact that Nic's picked us up is a great recommendation," continues bassist/vocalist, Duane De Gruchy, "knowing that someone from 'the industry' had come along to your live show and has appreciated it enough to want to be involved with you in the future. I mean, he didn't do that based on now and then because he had a great time at the gig, he was there looking towards the future."

Dalton has played in countless bands ranging from Godstar to Ratcat to The Lemonheads and, by joining his Half A Cow stable, Swayback now share the same banner with the likes of Smudge, Sidewinder and Godstar.

"We saw this guy lurking around the back for the first few songs and then he was right up near the front," tells De Gruchy of their initial brush with Dalton. "We didn't know who he was and we just thought he was a punter. After he saw us play he started sprouting, 'You guys are The Flaming Groovies, you're the past of rock and roll!' and all about this stuff that's already been...Which was great because that's what we wanted to hear. He was sprouting about a period of rock'n'roll that valued fun, like Status Quo," he further enthuses. "That's one thing that's been a real revelation and that's our myspace site and the people who've hooked up to us on that. We've got people who are 14 years old and those who are 60.

"We've sold an awful lot of CDs through our live shows," explains De Gruchy of the decision to reissue 'The Re-Quest For Rock And Roll', "therefore, it was pretty simple, really. It was because we'd sold out. After we got signed to the label Nic wanted to do something with us and he just thought that we hadn't given that album a full run because we'd only just started grazing Melbourne and we had yet to go to Sydney."

Since then Swayback have repeated the trip to Melbourne no less than ten times, continually building up a solid interstate fanbase.

"And our live show is a different beast altogether and hopefully we managed to get some of that put down in the studio," allows Manser, "which is then more about the song-crafting, I suppose, because it is hard to channel that live energy when you haven't got that contact with a crowd. But on the other hand, we do use the studio to hone our songs because they're often still a work in progress. On stage however, for us things never go to shit," he further considers. "For sure if we're stuffing up somewhere then that's part of the show and it's a bit of a laugh, you know? That's the good thing about this band; somehow it seems to maintain a good vibe no matter how good or bad we're playing. But for the audience it has to be a good show from start to finish because audiences are pretty tough on you if you play a dud song, I know that from my own attention span."

Steve Jones

Swayback re-launch 'The Re-Quest For Rock And Roll' at the Grace Emily Hotel on Sat 9 September. Out now through Half A Cow. Records.