Allison Crutchfield, Kyle Gilbride, and Jeff Bolt were just getting started when Swearin’ first called it quits. But then they said fuck all that and made something new. When Swearin’ broke up in 2015, they left a lot more broken hearts in their wake than just those of their central members (the band’s initial split coincided with the dissolution of a romantic relationship between singer/guitarists Allison Crutchfield and Kyle Gilbride). The Philadelphia group’s fuzzy, basement-bred take on pop-punk—situated somewhere between Cub, Pixies, Helium, and The Thermals, with a little Mascis-fried guitar tossed in for good measure meant quite a bit to many people, and few of them were ready to give it up so fast.
Luckily, neither was the band. After taking some time and space for themselves—which, for Crutchfield, meant a move to Los Angeles, touring as a member of her sister Katie’s similarly beloved band Waxahatchee, and putting out a solo record under her given name; for Gilbride, engineering/producing for acts such as All Dogs and Girlpool—Swearin’ have decided to get the gang back together, reuniting with original drummer Jeff Bolt, and bringing on a new touring bassist, All Dogs’ Amanda Bartley, who is now an official member of the group. Their new record, Fall into the Sun, finds the band more confident than ever, and just the slightest bit tidier, too—though nobody’s going to mistake their rough-hewn, homemade sound for Carly Rae Jepsen just yet (or ever, if they’re true to the ethos outlined on the following pages).
Swearin’ chat between two shows in Portland (both opening for another band that people were stoked to see back together: Jawbreaker) to get up to speed on all their new doings.
Allison Crutchfield: said that It gave me a lot more confidence. When Swearin’ stopped doing things, I immediately decided to focus on solo stuff, without giving much thought to how that would be different. When you’re the center of something, though, everyone’s looking to you for answers, everyone’s asking you questions, you’re making the production choices… It was really exciting for me, even though I like collaborating a lot.
But it was also really anxiety-inducing. That made me excited to do Swearin’ again, just for the pure “oh, yes, I don’t have to do everything by myself!” factor. We’re a team that makes decisions together.
I think the distance, for each of us, was also good. In the first iteration of the band, we were touring together all the time, living together, and everything was very intertwined. Not doing that for a while, all of that’s sort of been untangled. Now we’re adults who don’t spend all of our time together, and we actually have new things to share when we see each other.
Jeff Bolt added At the end of the first version [of the band], Kyle and Allison were still dating, and three-fourths of us were living together, so it was a lot to handle. Having a new bass player, who’s bringing a new energy to it. Amanda’s made it more positive for the rest of us, but also having her in the band has made us want to be on our best behavior so we don’t scare her away, even though she’s an old friend!
Whether it was intentional or not, we just kind of picked up where we left off, and we were both thinking about the time and space between.This album sounds the slightest bit crisper than previous efforts. This record was actually recorded the exact same way as our other records: at home, with Kyle engineering and co-producing. If anything, I think the difference is just that it’s been five years since we’ve done a record, and Kyle has gotten better at recording.
