United States
From the perpetually down-on-its-luck, blue collar, rustbelt factory town of Flint, Michigan, comes new Fueled By Ramen signees The Swellers, a punk band that knows a thing or two about making hard, no-nonsense, but infinitely catchy music.
Following in the footsteps of other hard- Flintites who've made their name on the world stage—film provocateur Michael Moore, ’70s hard rock pioneers Grand Funk Railroad, ’80s grindcore/death-metal pioneers Repulsion, and the late rapper M.C. Breed—The Swellers have forged a hard-edged, yet accessible style of punk over the better part of a decade, the last three of which have been spent touring non-stop with the likes of Less Than Jake, Set Your Goals, Four Year Strong, A Wilhelm Scream and Streetlight Manifesto, among numerous others.
Now, with their Fueled By Ramen debut Ups and Downsizing the Flint-area four-piece manages to expound on the rollercoaster of life they’ve experienced on the road and in that perpetual hard-luck area just north of Detroit while expanding the poppy punk sound they've been honing since their mid-teens.
In true punk tradition, Ups and Downsizing is the outraged cry of a band that has seen its world on the precipice. It’s also the sound of a band that sees hope in the most hopeless of situations.
"Our last album My Everest was pretty pessimistic. It kind of had a negative view, it was a bummer but the music was uplifting," explains singer-guitarist Nick Diener, referring to their critically acclaimed first album, released in 2007. “This new one I'd say is expanded musically and lyrically. It’s got a certain ‘looking-up’ kind of feel to it. Here’s where it is now, it’ll just get better, but you’ve got to work for it.”
