Interview: Louden Swain on New Acoustic Album ‘Splitting the Seams’ [EXCLUSIVE]

Jonah
6 Min Read
Courtesy of Jennifer MacDonald

We have an exciting interview to share with you! We interviewed Louden Swain (Rob Benedict, Billy Moran, Michael Borja, and Stephen Norton) about their brand new acoustic album, Splitting the Seams, which is set to be released on October 26.

This will be the eighth album from the band, and will feature old songs that have been reimagined acoustically, as well as some brand new original ones. They were so gracious to answer some of our questions, and even gave us a good teaser about another new song!

Read the answers below!

Nerds and Beyond: What made you decide to name the new acoustic album Splitting the Seams?  

Courtesy of Natasha Cole

Louden Swain: It’s a lyric in one of the songs previously recorded and on the acoustic version of our upcoming album.

Nerds and Beyond: You debuted a new song, “Too Far Away”, at Once Upon A Canyon Night. Will there be any other original songs on Splitting the Seams?  

Louden Swain:There will be one more original song on the album that we recorded and worked out in the studio which you may have all heard before.  We’ll give you a clue…it’s in a movie written by and starring Rob.

Nerds and Beyond: We know a few of the songs that will be on the new album thanks to Once Upon A Canyon Night. Which of those has been the most fun to re-imagine acoustically so far?

Louden Swain: Rock Song and Overachiever were probably the most fun to re-imagine.  These two songs were originally written and recorded with high energy and a wall of sound.  It was fun for us to put a different approach on both of these tunes.  It was great to have Billy’s parts on both these songs especially, since he wasn’t in the band when we originally recorded them.  We would also put Big One on this list as well.  Overall, we think the fans will be blown away with all the final recorded versions of these tunes.

Courtesy of Natasha Cole

Nerds and Beyond: Were there any songs you wanted on the album, but couldn’t make work for whatever reason?  

Louden Swain: We recorded 15 songs for the new acoustic album and still in the final stages of mixing, mastering and listening to the final versions of the songs.  Right now, it’s too early to tell which will make the album and which songs will be released at a later date.

Nerds and Beyond: What has been the best part of making the album? The most challenging?

Louden Swain: The best part is and always has been the creative aspect of recording, especially on this album.  We pushed ourselves to come up with different approaches to each song and added instrument parts in our songs that excited us.  But we don’t want to give away what those parts are.  Most challenging was the time to get in the studio to record given our busy schedules.

Nerds and Beyond: What specifically inspired you to do an acoustic album?

Louden Swain: I think playing these songs in our StageIt shows and acoustic jams at the conventions before signing autographs was the beginning of the idea to record this album.  But it was the fans’ reactions to these acoustic versions acted a catalyst that really sparked us and inspired us to do this album.  So a big THANK YOU to our fans!!!

Courtesy of Natasha Cole

Nerds and Beyond: How do you think you’ve grown as musicians, compared to when you first released some of the original versions of these songs to now?  

Louden Swain: I think for some of us, after hearing the original recorded versions of these tunes, we wished we’d play a specific part a certain way or sang a vocal a different way when we first recorded them.  Some songs on the upcoming acoustic album we changed the key from the original recording.  The album gave us an opportunity to put those parts in the songs the way we’d always wanted to record and play them.

Nerds and Beyond: What song off the album was originally the hardest to write?  

Louden Swain: I would say it was more difficult to re-imagine the songs than anything else.  The band was really focused on recording different approaches to our songs, whether it would be a melody line, guitar lick, bass part or percussion approach.  We wanted to provide our fans a different listening experience from our previous albums as opposed to exact acoustic versions of our electrified songs.

Courtesy of Natasha Cole

Nerds and Beyond: Last we heard, the album was scheduled for a release in October. Is that still the plan?  

Louden Swain: The plan is still to release the album on October 26th.  So stay tuned.  Visit www.loudenswain.com for any upcoming news related to our upcoming release.

Thank you again to Louden Swain for being so awesome and answering our questions!

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