Interview by Jason Schreurs
Yeah, yeah, we know the term “emo-hardcore” is antiquated as fuck now, but in the late ’90s a San Diego band called Swing Kids led the charge in serrated, screamy and obnoxious, stylish hardcore. Only releasing one 7″ record and a split 10″ EP with Spanakorzo (anyone remember them?), vocalist Justin Pearson later released all nine Swing Kids songs as the Discography collection on his own label, Three One G Records. Now a member of Retox, The Locust, Head Wound City and probably five other bands bubbling out of the SoCal underbelly, Pearson took some time to look back at a band whose effects on the hardcore scene have been rippling in artistic self-expression and the desire to do something, anything different. Unfortunately, Swing Kids had an early derailment in 1997, leaving this one Classic Platter in their wreckage.
When I first got the Swing Kids album during the late-’90s emo-hardcore scene, the whole album seemed different than other stuff at the time. You guys were trying to bring in some different elements and aesthetics. Can you tell me a little about how the band started and how that album came about?
Sure. It’s funny; terms like “emo” leave such a bad taste in my mouth. It’s just seems so tacky. And for us it was never really a conscious effort; it was more a reaction. There were bands like Unbroken, who were definitely more straightforward hardcore, but they had this kind of weird swagger or style that was not macho. Your typical hardcore band was very macho and more on this aggressive…. I’m not even sure “aggressive” is the right word. But Swing Kids was sort of a reaction to all of that. It was to make something a little more gender neutral, and something that was a little more… I don’t really want to say “thought out,” because that just sounds like I’m being an asshole, but it was just something that was a little bit more inclusive. I felt like with a lot of hardcore bands, you couldn’t be into crust punk, you couldn’t be into riot grrl stuff, and you couldn’t be into a lot of these different things. So for Swing Kids, and for a lot of bands that were from San Diego, it was a subconscious reaction to the rest of what hardcore was perceived as. And I think we were also taking cues from a lot of DC stuff that was happening at the time, like Nation of Ulysses and things like that. Or even bands like Born Against.
Did you feel like Swing Kids were insulated in what you were doing, or were there other bands around you, maybe in San Diego, that were doing similar stuff?
I think both. But it definitely felt like everyone in San Diego at the time was on this tip to combat these weird ethics and standards that hardcore had. And even back then, because prior to Swing Kids three of us were in Struggle, and that was on Ebullition Records, and even though that was less macho, it still had this sort of elitist feel to it. You couldn’t do certain things. You couldn’t act or look a certain way. It was very limiting for weird reasons that I thought were unjustified. I feel like we were reacting to all kinds of things. And it wasn’t like we were saying, “Fuck you, guys. We’re drawing a line in the sand here.” It was that we were trying to make an effort to be different and be down for anything. If you were to look at our record collections, they were so eclectic and all over the place. Honestly, any innovative musician draws from places that aren’t obvious, that aren’t just part of the same community, and they draw from different elements to make things change.
What was the reaction to the band at the time, when the album first came out?
Oh, no one cared about us until we broke up.
Isn’t that how it always goes?
I guess, yeah. I mean, people liked it. But it was different then. A lot of the bands of that style, or from that community, they were always smaller and it wasn’t easy. But that was fine, because at least with Swing Kids we went into it with low expectations. When we ended up splitting up because everyone was moving out of town, we thought, “Okay, cool. That was that,” and then people caught onto it later, which is still great and fine. But at the time we were naive and unqualified to do a lot of things we were trying to do, so it was strange. In retrospect, I appreciate what we did. It’s cool. I just wish it was a little more defined.
Do you think part of the reason the band split up was that uncertainty over where to go next?
No, I think the band split up because up until that point everyone’s bands were really brief. You were in a band for a couple of years, tops, then you split up. A lot of it had to do with the fact that everyone at the time was in high school and college, and moving, and trying to figure out what to do. With Swing Kids, we had to stop when [drummer] Jose [Palafox] went to Berkeley for school, and we weren’t going to get another drummer, so we just said, “Okay, let’s do other things.” And eventually he came back and we did more shows and sporadically did a couple of other things, but for the most part we weren’t defeated or anything and, again, we had low expectations. We didn’t really set out to be a certain level of successful; we just wanted to play music and have a fucked-up attitude and be provoking in some sense.
What are your thoughts on the fact that a band that only put out one album is being held in such reverence almost 20 years later now.
Yeah [laughs], it’s totally weird. At the same time, you look at bands like Neanderthal; it’s these people from a certain band and they used to do this other project and it was cool or whatever. And there was a sort of mysticism around us as well, I suppose. And the strange thing to me is not that Swing Kids became popular or better know after we were gone, which is the thing that seems to happen more often than not, but it was how many times people have said, “Oh, this band really affected me and changed my life, or helped me,” and that’s crazy, because that’s not what we expected. And it’s really flattering and really, really nice to hear that kind of stuff. And that’s really the best outcome for the time and energy we put into the band. That’s a big compliment and that’s great. I mean, I get it. I had bands that I grew up with that really changed my life, but it’s weird to think that I was in a band that was part of that to someone else.
Do you still keep in touch with the Swing Kids guys?
Yeah, of course. I mean, [guitarist] Eric Allen passed away, but everyone else, yeah. I talked to Jose yesterday, actually. And then I see [bassist] John Brady in San Diego occasionally. And [guitarist] Jimmy LaVelle, who was in the band for awhile, too, I talked to him last week. He’s up in Los Angeles.
Would you say that Swing Kids are the band you’ve been in that people ask you about the most?
No, I get asked about The Locust more than anything. Which makes sense, since I’ve been in that frickin’ band for almost 19 years.
Swing Kids‘ Discography was released in 1998 on Three One G Records.
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