IT HAPPENS ALL OF A SUDDEN

Things are happening quickly for Tassie band A. Swayze and the Ghosts, writes Shaun McManus

TASMANIAN garage punk outfit A. Swayze and the Ghosts have made a sudden rise through the Australian music ranks, but with a debut album on the way the best could be yet to come.

It has been already been a bumper year for the Ghosts, having toured with Australian rock royalty and released the first single, Suddenly, from their forthcoming debut full-length album.

It has been a meteoric ascension for the band, who only released their debut single,

Reciprocation, in 2016, and their self-titled first EP late last year.

In June, the Ghosts (Andrew Swayze, Zac Blain, Hendrick Wipprecht and Ben Simms) opened for chart-topping Melbourne rockers Jet at huge shows in Newcastle, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne.

“It was a taste of what we would like to really be doing more often,’’ frontman Swayze told Pulse this week.

“We get to play some incredible venues with some awesome audiences really accepting of our music and our performance.

“We get along with those guys [Jet] really well. They were lovely fellas and really supportive of us and showed us the ropes of playing some of these bigger events.”

A. Swayze and the Ghosts will take that knowledge to Hobart next week as part of another tour of Australia’s east coast to show off their new single.

Suddenly is the first single off their forthcoming debut album, which Swayze expects to be released at the start of next year.

“It’s been a great reaction,’’ he said.

“We’ve had some awesome feedback from the Australian community, and we had a film clip to go with it.

“The song we’ve had written for quite a while. We recorded it down here at Red Planet Studio with our friend, Nick White.

“It’s really good to get it out, the song itself — I think the lyrics are quite potent in it.

“They’re a bit different. They’re a bit stronger, ideologically, than previous releases that we’ve had, which sort of directs what we’ll be working on in the future.”

Swayze said the band’s previous songs had been driven by personal ideas relating back to himself.

“I know that all the lyrics coming up in the next releases

are going to be far more in tune with what’s going on around us, rather than introspective takes on things,” he said.

“It’s exciting for me personally, as a lyricist, to write about the goings-on in the world around me … rather than just thinking about things from my own personal perspective.”

Fans at next week’s Hobart gig can expect the band to bring their renowned raw and energetic live show, which appears to work without meticulous — or any — planning.

“We’ll just do what we do [next week], whatever feels right at the time, and then if people like it, that’s great, and if they don’t that’s also fine,” Swayze said.

He said playing in Tasmania was a completely different experience to playing interstate.

“Playing at home is always awesome — knowing people in the audience is quite a thing for us,” Swayze said.

“We’ve been going to the Brisbane Hotel and various other pubs around Hobart for years, forever, so we’re fairly involved in the community down here.”

For Swayze, that involvement includes regularly attending local gigs.

“There’s plenty of incredible stuff coming out of Hobart,” he said.

The band was recently announced on the line-up for next year’s Party in the Paddock in the state’s North.

They will play at the festival for the first time, and Swayze — who has never even attended as a fan — said it “should be pretty cool”.

A. Swayze and the Ghosts are performing an 18+ gig at the Brisbane Hotel from 8pm on Wednesday.

Tickets are $17.85, available from tickets. oztix.com.au