Sway Wild was born on a small island in the Salish Sea. Following a two-month sailing voyage through the remote anchorages of British Columbia, acclaimed indie-folk duo Dave McGraw & Mandy Fer, joined by longtime friend Thom Lord, returned to their San Juan Island, Washington home still hungry to explore. The result was nothing short of an artistic epiphany; an evolution of sound that called out loudly for a new name. Sway Wild will release its self-titled debut album worldwide on September 13th.
Sway Wild’s songs navigate the corners of rock, folk, pop, jazz, prog, and funk. At its nucleus, it is music saturated in gratitude for well-lived lives and sympathetic to our shared humanity. McGraw says, “We want to make music that allows people to feel what they need to feel.” Fer and McGraw’s gorgeous harmonies paired with moving lyrics serve to both process and share their jubilation, grief, and frustration with a complex and deeply imperfect society.
Perhaps most remarkable is Fer’s astonishing electric guitar work. Using her beloved Fender Stratocaster for both lead pyrotechnics and chordal rhythms, often at the same time, Fer challenges the listener to comprehend how she manages to extract so much feeling from six strings and an amplifier. With this album, laden with Fer’s potent solos, she has decisively placed herself within the vanguard of female guitarists claiming their rightful place in an artistic pantheon that has historically been dominated by men. McGraw and Lord, who met as wildlife biologists studying endangered California condors in the Grand Canyon, provide unwavering support for Fer’s formidable musicianship.
Sway Wild was recorded in Portland, Oregon at The Hallowed Halls, a historic Carnegie Library, by engineer Justin Phelps (Cake, Galactic, Bob Weir), whose expertise at the helm is tangible in the warmth and presence of the finished product. An impressive cadre of the band’s friends and heroes brings the songs to their full, frenzied potential. Birds of Chicago and Sean Hayes provide guest vocals, members of MarchFourth add the irresistible energy of a full horn section, and cellists Skip VonKuske (Portland Cello Project) and Anna Fritz, along with Anna Tivel on violin, contribute the brooding dynamism of bowed strings.
For Fer and McGraw, the sailing expedition served as a kind of sabbatical from seven years of heavy international touring, sharing stages with the likes of Iron & Wine, Gregory Alan Isakov, and Mandolin Orange. The days on the boat were filled reading books in quiet green coves, watching humpback whales and black bears for hours on end, and talking over simple dinners of freshly baked bread and fish caught from a creaky plastic rowboat. Inspired by their journey, the three former bandmates returned to their pastoral island and took to playing music in Fer and McGraw’s living room, with no aspirations other than to enjoy the process of creation.
In the ensuing months, Fer and McGraw departed from their well-established acoustic approach in almost shocking fashion, each returning to the instruments on which they began their respective musical trajectories as teenagers. With Fer refocused on electric guitar, McGraw behind a drum kit for the first time in over a decade, and Lord on electric bass, the trio allowed themselves to rediscover everything they loved about making music. This soon gave birth to a creative torrent of new songs, and the trio emerged as a fully formed band, organically and unexpectedly, with a sound transformed. With a fresh sense of purpose, the new material was honed on tours across the U.S. and in Europe, performing alongside band favorites Lake Street Dive, Charlie Hunter Trio and others.
Glide is thrilled to premiere the official video for “Chimney Fire” – a high energy soulful composition showcasing Fer’s biting guitar skills. Like The Wood Brothers and Lake Street Dive, Sway Wild hones a universal likeability where uptempo anthems and melodic precision prevail. The Pacific Northwest has a new afternoon hour festival set favorite.
Glide had the chance to chat with Fer about the video and the recent happenings of Sway Wild…
Can you talk about the video being premiered for “Chimney Fire” – how did that video come to be and what is the creative inspiration behind the song itself?
This video for “Chimney Fire” is an exploration of some of the wildly artistic and creative spaces throughout the San Juan Islands (where we live up in the Pacific Northwest, just a few miles away from the Canadian border). The footage itself was shot in one long 15 hour day of racing around the island with our videographer and highlighting some of our favorite outstanding vistas/forests/mountains/seaside hangs, and doing our best to get goofy, improvise, and have fun while the camera was rolling. So much of our music is inspired by our sense of place living in the San Juan Islands, and we were excited to be able to share our island home with our listeners. The song itself was inspired after some of our neighbor friends had a chimney fire (friends were ok, house wasn’t)….I was spending some time writing in their art studio on their farm after their house had been damaged, and the song became a greater metaphor for making it through a tough time and coming out stronger on the other side.
Talk about the guitar playing on “Chimney Fire” – it’s very fiery and intertwined – not a run of the mill guitar line by any means. Where did you hone your chops and were you amazed at the results?
When I approach the guitar I guess I make a specific point to express and communicate in ways that I feel I haven’t been done before, constantly pushing myself to grow and expand. I’m always looking for fresh voicings, harmonies, tunings, and grooves…and I’m kind of a nerd. I really love to practice and I’m always trying to progress as a player. There’s always more!
The horns really make and help define the album – how did you decide to go with a more brassy sound and why MarchFourth?
Some of the songs on this album were really calling for a horn section to add to the more rockin’ and funky vibes of the tunes. Some of the horn players from MarchFourth have almost taken up residence at Hallowed Halls Studio in Portland, OR and we were excited to have crossed paths with them. They’re super talented players and great guys. The day that the horns came into the studio to record was easily the most exciting day of tracking; it felt like a dream to hear them lift these tunes up in a way we had never experienced before.
There is a lot of Lake Street Dive in your sound, but obviously, your sound is open to interpretation. Who do you feel like you most sound like outside your folk beginnings?
This honestly is a hard question to answer being that there is so much crossover between genres in our new material…also being that we’re so close to the material, we’re probably not the best ones to ask. To us, I think it just sounds like Sway Wild…it moves between rock, worldbeat, prog, folk, pop, and funk… I guess if you threw Led Zeppelin, Ani Difranco, The Wood Brothers, Margaret Glaspy, Ernest Ranglin, and John Scofield in a blender a flavor like Sway Wild would emerge.
How did your folk beginnings lead you to what is now Sway Wild? Do you feel it was a natural progression? How long has Sway Wild been a project in motion for and what your goals for it beyond this album?
This music is actually more of a return to the type of music we were exploring before we were playing the more folky stuff as Dave McGraw & Mandy Fer. The name itself – Sway Wild – represents the path to discovering our truest essence of self, which is exactly what this band has allowed us to do. Dave and I had been wanting to dig in a bit more, and explore the idea of playing in a more experimental/rock group together, and when longtime friend Thom Lord showed up on the island with his bass, Dave got back on the drums for the first time in 15 years, and the three of us got together and did exactly that…and soon enough, Sway Wild was born. The three of us have been playing together as SwayWild for about a year now and have been touring heavily throughout the States and in Europe. We’re having more fun than we’ve had in years and we think our audiences can feel it.
What have been some of your most memorable gigs to date and why?
Opening for Lake Street Dive in our old hometown of Flagstaff, Arizona last year was pretty outstanding, as well as sharing the stage with Iron & Wine in Anchorage, Alaska. Another random memory of a gig that’s coming to mind was when we played at a hot springs in Montana many, many years ago. They set us up inside a plastic dome to keep us warm, but it fogged up so much that we couldn’t even see the audience of over 200 people bathing in the enormous hot spring pool below. We heard the cheers after every song so we knew they were still there. Strangest gig ever.
Top photo by Laura Totten
