Hey music fans,
It’s been a while—how’s it going?
On our end, it’s extremely hot in South Florida.
But not as hot as the music that Swamp Hag makes!
Plus -1 for the dad joke!
Today we’ve got a special interview with our friends Mary (vocals and guitar) and Will (drums) from Swamp Hag, another great band from Asheville, North Carolina.
Before we get started, remember Harriers of Discord, who are also from Asheville? Well, they released a new single last week. Check it out here!
Without further ado, give it up for Swamp Hag!
The Riff: How did Swamp Hag get started?
Mary: [It was 2018] and Will and I had just started being closer friends and we have played a couple duo shows or it's just us, but I think Will is actually playing guitar and I was singing. I actually have a jazz voice degree and so we just enjoy playing music and we had always talked about starting a band like this. I was just starting to write a lot of songs that semester and then when the first week of our spring semester, we just had the opportunity—someone asked us if we wanted to play or Will heard of a show and we just jammed and said, “Hell yeah, let's do this!”
Will: It was three days’ time from when we first played rock music together; anything louder than an acoustic/jazz combo, to the night of the show. Also, that was the only time we rehearsed. I think we rehearsed a little bit at the house and then played that night.
I think other people have said this to us but I think the biggest thing about this band is that it is a lot more about its energy than what songs we're playing. At a certain point, we weeded through our songs and we're like, “Oh, well, we should play this one and this one, and that one and that one”, and it wasn't really a thought and I don't think that it's—I don't know. It's just about how we push them out of our souls into the crowd, you know?
Mary: Yeah. I think we also started doing a lot of the way that we play because we both love improvised music. So we started as more of a free, improvised band. Our first show was maybe one or two actual songs and then we just improved for the entire thing. We still do that too, that's probably our favorite thing to do together.
The Riff: I want to talk about this idea of spirit and music because there is a big difference between just writing and playing songs versus feeling them and them coming from your soul and the crowd feeling them coming from your soul. Could you try to elucidate that distinction between just normal song playing versus this is spiritual, this is from the heart, this is a real connection?
Will: I think the short answer to that is, no, we probably can't elucidate. It’s kind of like when you're having a conversation and the next thing—you're moving through the conversation relaxed, and then there's just a point when you stop and you don't really want to talk because the spirit isn't in the conversation at that point, because of whatever. Maybe you're sad that day or someone slipped you the bird and put you in a bad mood when you were trying to take a walk through your neighborhood.
Mary and I have both had shows together were we've been trying to play the show and we had been excited about the show and then we play at the show, we're on stage and we're like, “Fuck this—“
Mary: It doesn't feel great.
Will: Yeah. I remember one show we played, it was the last show we played before you left, I think. I'm thinking about the one where we played trio with Will on base.
Mary: Yeah, it was the last jazz show that we did before I left.
Will: We were excited about it, we rehearsed and it was really fun but I think it was because not very many people showed up. So, we just didn't have energy to play it, despite all of the building blocks being in place—exactly what you're talking about, the spirit just wasn't present at that moment.
Mary: Yeah. Also, a lot that goes into it is being able to have energy and read a crowd and have like energy with that. It’s like active listening and I know through having a background in jazz, it's a lot about active listening. My favorite players to play with are people who are actively listening and I that's one of the reasons why I love playing with Will, because I feel like we're able to really listen to each other, to the point where we have good musical chemistry. We've played so much together that we can anticipate and feel where the other person is going to go next and that's a very special thing. I feel like it doesn't happen with every single person you work with but it's maybe something that we should strive more as musicians; musical chemistry and having a lot of active listening towards every single member of your band.
The Riff: Do you think that active listening also applies to the energy from the crowd?
Mary: Yes, hundred percent. It's something you have to work at. It's really hard to be an active listener; I struggle with it all the time. You go to a show and you're listening and you're having a good time, but also your mind wonders something else, you're thinking about somebody standing next to you, or you’re thinking about what you're going to do after the show. Even just getting so wrapped up to the point where you stop listening, and you just feel it--I feel like that’s great too, but it's just a difference.
Will: I can think of a handful of different situations where we've been playing—We’re at this house in Asheville called Margaritaville, at this really great house show. I forget exactly what it was, but something pissed Mary off, in the crowd; I didn't even hear it or notice it. But we had finished a song and it was a loud ending and then the crowd started clapping, then you started screaming into the microphone—
Mary: And just playing so loud—
Will: —and just destroying her guitar. So I just played a really long roll and got louder and louder and louder and everyone was like, “Woo!” and then we just exploded. I was just responding to Mary's screaming and I was just like, “Okay, cool. This is where we're going now” and I didn't even know it's an emotional context in that moment or social or whatever.
It's not like I don't think active listening or listening is even always about completely understanding; it's about a visceral feeling. Our friend Landon, who has played bass with us several times, we would rehearse with him—Mary’s songs are really complicated and if Landon would be say, “Okay, what's the root note to that chord?” She would have to be like, “Dude, she’s like 12 fingers on the fretboard” and be like, “Uh, I think it's, uh—“, and you'd be like, “Shit, okay”. Then we'd play this show that night or whatever, and he would just be searching around, but the thing with Landon is that he's an amazing listener. Afterward, he would always want to apologize for himself, but it was beautiful. Mary and I were like, “Dude, what are you talking about? It was amazing.” Yeah, listening is complicated.
The Riff: I want to talk a little bit about genre and its relevance or for that matter irrelevance. Because it just sounds like you're taking a lot of different elements, you're taking active listening from jazz, for example, you're taking stereotypical instruments from rock music, for example. So, when you guys are making your own music, does it really matter what genre it is? Are you striving to do a specific genre or you're just making music from the heart?
Mary: I feel like we were just making music from the heart. I feel like I was really influenced by a lot of math rock bands and I was super influenced by hella [rock]. When Will and I first started talking about doing a rock band, I was like, “I fucking love hella, I want to write shit like that.” I don't really know what genre we are and it doesn't really matter.
Will: I'm glad you mentioned that because, that being your initial inspiration or initial motivation and then—this one tag sounds anything at all like hella? No, it doesn't at all. Mary and I also took several ethnomusicology courses when we were in school and I think we're also really into some really intense, heddy, weirdo approaches to music and understanding music. But I think a lot of the stuff that I learned from it, isn't weirdo at all. The fact that genre only came into being when music was recorded and when it was then necessary because it was then a product split into different styles or something.
Mary: [They explain] different genres so they could have an easier time of selling it.
Will: Then, you look at the history of R&B, a lot of the music named R&B in the 60s, could have just as easily been sold on the rock or pop charts. Then you go back 10/20 years and then the stuff that would be on R&B is called race music, which keeps it separate from the rest of white culture of music. Now, most pop music, especially in America are based on black American music art forms. So, to me, genre is overwhelmingly a tool of capitalism and selling things, rather than any type of genuine description of feelings.
Mary: Yeah and I feel like as genre, you don’t really—genre is one of those things where you can look back and you can see, you can start to categorize but once you've—I think we had a professor who said once you've labeled something a specific genre, then it's done. Once you can categorize it, then it's dead. If you're going to do innovative things—and not to say you can’t be innovative and define yourself as a specific genre, that is not true at all. But, I think it helps if you want to be innovative, to not try and box yourself into a certain genre.
Will: Right. Because naming things itself is boxing something, to me. I think a lot of people find it liberating to say, “No, this is the thing and this is the tradition I'm working in.” I struggle with that a lot because I'm like, okay, am I a jazz drummer? Or am I a rock drummer? I started off playing rock, but I've been studying this other, older form of style of drumming. But to me, that's just the tradition and that's just the basis of everything that I enjoy. To me, it makes the most sense to study that.
Mary: Yeah and I think it was liberating for us to play a band that wasn't really walked into a genre because, like Will said, I studied jazz and then I studied classical which both now in academia have a really strict, traditional sense of how you teach it and how you need to play it and it was really fun and liberating for us to not have to constrain yourself to that.
This interview was edited for clarity and concision.
Photos courtesy of Swamp Hag.
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