[Editor’s note: Swerve is a rock band on the rise from Los Angeles featuring Greg Mahdesian (vocals and guitar), Ryan Berti (guitar and vocals), Brandon Duncan (bass and vocals), and Mark Gardner (drums). On June 21, the group released The Darkroom EP, the follow-up to its 2021 debut Ruin Your Day. Below Mahdesian discusses how The Replacements helped shape his and the band’s identity.]
How could I pass up this opportunity to wax lyrical about the Replacements? When we released our debut album, Ruin Your Day, the press seemed to jump all over the Replacements influence in our sound. One article referred to us as a “more sober, collegiate” version of the band, which I took to mean “lamer.” But it’s impossible not to be lamer than the Replacements, the least lame or cringey band of all time.
Obviously, or maybe not if you have no idea who we are, none of us in Swerve were around to experience the Replacements in real-time. For those original fans, there must have been some level of ownership there that my generation can’t claim. However, I’m not sure that experience would have been better. Discovering the band as a semi-mythical, mysterious relic buried under the rubble of thousands of mediocre bands that came after them was both revelatory and made our circle feel like we had a secret that only the right people knew about. Naturally it turned out that a lot- like a lot a lot- more people were plugged into the band and their awesomeness than we recognized, but it felt very special in the moment. Friendships could use Replacements fandom as a cultural signifier. (On a sidenote, the only other band I have ever experienced something like this with is Okkervil River.)
So, with that, Let It Be, huh? Up until the newly re-mixed Tim- and I’ll get into that shortly-, Let It Be was the be-all-end-all for me. If you didn’t fuck with that record, I didn’t fuck with you. I’m a Beatles fanatic raised by a Beatles fanatic, and telling my father, with a sly glint in my eye, that the Beatles Let It Be was the second-best album with that title was a pleasure. Turns out he listened and then loved it, even “Gary’s Got a Boner.” Everything about the record impacted me, from the album cover to the sound, but most especially the writing and the performances by Paul Westerberg and the band. As the more sentimental guy in Swerve, “Unsatisfied” was my entry point. The chime of the 12-string acoustic guitars in the beginning makes me pause every time, and then the second the drums kick in I drift far away. For a wordy guy, I’m a sucker for songs with minimalist lyrics- see our cover of the Stone Roses “I Wanna Be Adored”- and the way Westerberg can wring so many different emotions and characters out of the same few words over several minutes is pure mastery. I hope I can do something so powerful at some point, but even thinking about attempting that is daunting.
Even though I might feel like I can’t live up to that, it became such a part of me that the influence creeps into our songs even when it might not be obvious. We haven’t noticed too many Replacements call-outs on the new EP. However, “Just Pretend,” despite more clearly having some post-punk and 00s vibes to it, used the same amp setup as the band did in Let It Be and even…subtly…stole some chords from “Favorite Thing.” Lyrically, songs like “Alex Chilton” and “Can’t Hardly Wait” are so plainspoken yet poetic in a way few could capture. There’s no completely straightforward narrative and there’s plenty of room for interpretation, but you know what they’re talking about. We try to do the same.
So, I mentioned “Can’t Hardly Wait.” It’s probably the most iconic Replacements song. I’ve listened to countless renditions of it. Their live takes, their demos, and of course the official recording. It’s one of my favorites but was never my absolute favorite of their tracks (gun to my head, it’s “Answering Machine”). Yet, last year, just in time for my birthday, out of nowhere, the Replacements dropped the remixed Tim, including a totally different “Can’t Hardly Wait.” Jesus. I now recommend it as the starting point for people that don’t know the band. It’s like if “Sweet Child of Mine” had absolutely no qualifications to it- no excusing of misogyny, overuse of hairspray, or length. This new iteration is an all-time banger. Just when we think we might be learning and figuring out how to capture their magic, the Replacements somehow manage to rekindle that feeling that we’re discovering something secret and mythical. They’ll never stop blowing my mind.
Greg Mahdesian
Contributor
Greg is lead singer of Los Angeles rock band Swerve
