The cover of Swift’s 2005 release The Novelist
Richard Swift was never a household name, but the multi-instrumentalist/producer/songwriter left an indelible mark on the modern-rock space before his untimely passing on July 3 at age 41. As a producer, Swift worked with some of the biggest names in the indie and jamband worlds during the first part of the 21st century, helming Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats’ 2015 self-titled breakthrough and 2018’s Tearing At The Seams, Guster’s 2015 psych-rock LP Evermotion, lauded Damien Jurado LPs like 2010’s Saint Bartlett, 2012’s Maraqopa, 2014’s Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son and 2016’s Visions of Us on the Land, and Marco Benevento’s 2014 album with his trio, which Benevento went so far as to name Swift. Perhaps most notably, he also produced and played drums on Foxygen’s 2013 crossover We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic, helping the art-rock duo get signed and zooming in on a kaleidoscopic sound that has since become his signature style.
“I’ll always remember his genius, his ridiculous sense of humor and how much of a legend he was. He will be missed,” Benevento told Relix. “The times I’ve had with him will never be forgotten and will always be inspiring.”
In a separate but equal world, Swift was a noted singer-songwriter and solo artist, releasing a string of indie-pop and lo-fi recordings that influenced a generation of future tastemakers. (The members of Foxygen famously approached Swift and gave him their CD after one of his gigs at New York City’s Mercury Lounge.) He also had a parallel career as a side-man for headliner-size indie icons, playing bass with The Black Keys from 2014-15 and serving as The Shins’ keyboardist and percussionist from 2011-16. After bonding with Black Keys singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach and touring keyboardist Leon Michels, Swift also helped put together the psych-rock garage outfit The Arcs.
“Today the world lost one of the most talented musicians I know,” Dan Auerbach wrote on Instagram of his Arcs bandmate. “I will miss you my friend.”
Swift spoke with Relix and Jambands.com about his lightning-quick production approach and work with Auerbach back in 2015, shortly before the release of their LP Yours, Dreamily. During the conversation, Swift also touched on his work with Guster, his proudest Foxygen accomplishments and why, as a Deadhead, he decided to sit out Fare Thee Well.
“To the ether that now carries you, Richard: I’ve never met anyone like you and you changed the way i think about music forever and ever,” Ryan Miller of Guster said, reflecting on Swift’s passing. “What an immense loss, for all of us. I love you and I miss you and I wish you peace, old buddy. You were a singular burst. I’m heartbroken.”
Let’s start by going back to how you and Dan first met. Do you remember your initial encounter?
He was co-producing a record for Valerie June, and the guy he was producing it with hired me to play drums on the record. A lot of people don’t know I played drums. We just started recording it. We’ve been friends for years now.
I love [playing in The Arcs] because I’m playing drums. It’s just something that I don’t get to do. With The Shins, I’m playing keyboards and guitars and stuff. And even though I do play drums on some of those recordings, with this, I’m playing drums and singing lines. It’s a lot of fun. It’s rare, I feel, in life and in general or with whatever world you have, and especially in the musical world, to find your peers.
In addition to working with Dan and many different projects, you toured as the bassist for The Black Keys. How familiar were you with their music before you joined the touring lineup? And how did you feel your musical connection with Dan changed when you started touring the world together on stage at some of these big arenas and festivals?
I really loved playing with The Black Keys. I loved playing bass with Pat. In between these tours, we just kept going back to Nashville, going back to Dan’s place and recording as much as possible. On a friendship level, it’s been great being able to tour with those guys and hanging out having late nights together. For the most part, Dan and I go back to one of our hotel rooms and watch stupid TV shows. We have conversations and listen to music at night. It’s been good, actually. I’m very grateful to be able to tour and make a living as a musician, but touring can also be very exhausting after a point. It’s the same with The Shins. When we’re offstage we hang out, turning each other on to new music, to old music.
In terms of the sessions that led to the formation of The Arcs, Dan and Leon have both mentioned that the songs started out of some informal jam sessions, and once you realized that you stumbled into something special you started some more formal songwriting sessions. Do you remember a specific point when you realized you were on the verge of launching a new project?
At first we were jamming and I was like, “This is gonna be for Dan’s solo record or something” or “Maybe Leon, Dan and I will put out some weird Captain Beefheart cover 45.” We thought we were gonna make this weirder music, and then Dan would do his solo record. All of a sudden, we were writing all these songs together and it turned into this Arcs thing. It’s hard to explain; when we get together, it’s just so easy for us to write stuff. We’re at the point right now where we’ve got to stop writing songs, because we think, “How are we gonna finish all this.” Obviously, it’s a lot of fun being in the studio. Leon’s great in the studio, Dan’s great in the studio. It’s a very natural place for me to be. So, yeah, it started out really, really loose. We didn’t really intend to be a band, but we just kind of accidentally became one, which is awesome. It’s rare to do that. I’m in my mid-to-late thirties, I’ve made a lot of records, I’ve been in other bands. It was just a very happy accident.
Speaking of a lot of records you made, your discography is so interesting because you’ve played in some bands who would be perceived as more traditional indie-rock bands, and then there are these other very experimental records. Where do you see the overlap of between the more experimental music and the more pop-leading independent music that you are currently working on?
I think that Dan and Leon and I equally want to make experimental kind of music, but sometimes experimental is pop music. You can make the weirdest sounds all day long and then sometimes we just wanna sing it by its chorus or write some good lyrics for a verse. We all equally add to the weirdness in The Arcs’ records. We’re almost finished with our second record. And that’s just a couple days of flying to Nashville, or going to Queens, or meeting at my place, or just kind of fucking around in the studio. I definitely love pushing the boundaries as much as we can.
Everything’s based on a live performance. Every single song. It starts with three, four, five of us in the studio together performing a song, performing a verse and the chorus, a middle eight. It’s pretty traditional, actually. And then we just stay up really late at night kind of hashing out and stretching things and cutting things out and adding strange noises, all that kind of stuff.
You mentioned the quickness of the recording, which is something of a hallmark of your recording approach.
Yeah. I like spending maybe a day. If a band comes to me and they’ve got ten to twelve songs, the sessions are going to take ten to twelve days. The longest time I’ve ever spent on a record was with Guster [for 2015’s Evermotion ], and we spent like a month on their record. And that was a long time. We ended up actually taking days off because we were like, “This is ridiculous.” I think the Foxygen record we did took like eight days. And then some stuff is really quick, like Lonnie Holley. I’ve recorded 40, 50 tracks with Lonnie so far, and maybe we’ve done like a week’s worth of actual work. The Tijuana Panthers, when they come in, those guys know their songs really well. They just come in and we record it really quick. We’re done with their records within two or three days. It all varies. I feel like when I work with bands, it goes really quick.
The Foxygen album not only opened up a number of doors for you as a producer, but also has come to define what many people consider your sound. As the story goes, they approached you with a demo after one of your shows. How much did you push their sound in a certain direction?
I just feel very fortunate to have worked with such great artists recently. More than anything, I’m actually more proud that I really, really pushed [record labels like] Secretly Canadian or Jagjaguar. I’m really happy that I actually helped discover that band and pushed that band to a label. I played drums on their record, and I’m also proud that I could actually pull off those drums because their arrangements that were so complicated and I normally don’t drum that way. I just recorded [Jonathan] Rado’s second solo album as well, which turned out really fuckin’ great. I’m really excited about it. I guess people do expect that sound, but it’s half and half. I engineered and mixed that record and played drums and a bunch of instruments. But also, Sam [France] and Rado are special little boys, and that’s definitely their sound. It’s not like every band that works with Radiohead’s producer can come in and sound like Radiohead. There’s obviously chemistry or something that goes on between those guys. There’s also that silent member. I think the producer ends up being some sounds. Like Pure Bathing Culture, I just heard their new record which I love. Pure Bathing Culture, the record and EP that we made together, I was very, very, very hands-on with that. They worked with a different producer, which is a really good idea for them, but they sound completely different. It still sounds like Pure Bathing Culture, but there’s something that’s different because I’m not engineering and fixing it, kind of overseeing the project.
Are you going to play drums with The Arcs live this year?
Yeah, it’s Homer Steinweiss and I playing drums, double drumming. On the new stuff, I’m playing drums all the time—on the second LP and the new EP, I did all the drums. On the first record, I think I played drums on like 80 percent of it—I played on like everything but three songs. So, live, Homer and I are doing double drums and then I’m switching from drums to keyboards, maybe playing guitar, I don’t know. To be honest, we’re just figuring out what stuff we’re gonna do live. We shot that video yesterday, and I was on drums all day and it felt great, man. Drums are my favorite instrument to play, and [it’s great] to be able to be in a band where I co-write the songs and sing the background vocals. I help produce, but then I get to play drums live? That’s too easy. I’m really, really over the moon about it.
The Grateful Dead were an early reference point for The Arcs. What are your roots in that world?
Well, we definitely love the Grateful Dead, and I love some Allman Brothers. They have been a huge touchstone for us for years. Dan and I, very, very many times, offstage, are just like, figuring out the chords of “Candyman.” We’re constantly not just listening to the Dead but physically playing Grateful Dead songs. I think Dan’s first or second concert was the Grateful Dead. I lived just outside Eugene, Oregon, so the Grateful Dead is part of my culture. I’ve had friends who have gotten married into the Grateful Dead family, so that band is really important to us.
I never saw them live, and I didn’t want to go to these last concerts [Fare Thee Well] just because Jer Bear wasn’t there. I wish I could have seen him. There’s plenty and plenty of inspirational shit on YouTube, and there’s ways you can still kind of experience them. I still love their records, too. American Beauty is personally one of my favorite records. I enjoy them as much as I can. I love Leonard Cohen, and I’ve had plenty of chances to see him, and I would just rather not see him. I’d rather keep his early records in mind.
