Lucky to be Here – A Conversation with Dave Swillum of Broadwing
“I just didn’t give up… I almost didn’t do my own music anymore. At 28 I almost just stopped entirely”
Interview with Dave Swillum of Broadwing
Written by Justin Grevencamp @atonal_asides
How does it feel now that you’re here? At this point the album is out, you’ve been playing shows nearly every weekend, a lot of big things are coming your way, what is that even like?
I’m probably still processing a lot of it man, It’s been a really wild year for us. I think we’ve never had any expectations of ourselves or what it’s supposed to be. We’ve just said that we all want to try to make it (the music), the best that we have the ability to make it, and then just react to whatever happens.
We had no expectations of how it would go. This year’s just been a lot of firsts, and a lot of Wow, this is really cool. We’re really lucky to be here and really happy. Like I just didn’t give up… I almost didn’t do my own music anymore. At 28 I almost just stopped entirely.
Wow… Honestly, that’s surprising. Elaborate on that a bit.
I was getting sick of grinding and kind of… I kind of got sucked into that thought of You can’t be too old in the music industry. So I’m already f*****. I just need to stop and work on other people’s music.
That’s hard for me to imagine, seeing you here now.
Being here right now, a lot of really crazy first times in my whole music career. We’re not even big, just a lot of cool stuff where it’s like; dude, I did not think that would happen. In a few months a lot of things have happened, it’s been a little overwhelming. A lot of processing, a lot of gratitude, and excitement.
One thing, dude, we’re stoked, we’re having so much fun, but at the same time… thinking… What’s going on?
Taking a turn for just a moment I wanted to ask you something since you’re a part of the Pop-Punk scene
Yeah?
Pop-Punk has seen its fair share of ups and downs. Honestly, in my eyes mostly downs, since about 2016
I can see that.
A lot of people considered the genre dead and buried at that point. 2020 rolls around, Covid happens, and out comes Travis Barker doing some side quests, and attempting to reinvent the genre. A new wave of popularity for Pop-Punk started by 2022, it almost seemed like it was dead again. Where do you think the genre is at right now? Because it seems like it’s really gaining ground.
There’s a huge crew that came in during 2020 and there are so many that are doing really well right now and it’s really cool to see. 408 and Magnolia Park both kind of came from TikTok together. You have The Home Team, which isn’t my vibe, but they’re doing really well. Broadside… Lolitslea… I’m trying to think, there were so many.
I feel like, and maybe this is because I like Pop and Rap, so I didn’t get pissed off about what MGK and Travis did back then. I genuinely think it was really cool. Whether or not you like the albums that came with that wave or not, I like them. I don’t think of them as traditional Pop-Punk, I think of it (as) a blend.
Even if you don’t like that, (it was extremely valuable) the amount of people that picked up a guitar again, the younger generation got a taste for it, and dude, the amount of people that I’ve seen at our shows (because of it), I just wouldn’t have expected all that. Like, I needed to focus on getting some all-ages shows, or that a lot of parents are bringing their kids. They’re 10 or 12, and they love Pop-Punk. It’s really cool to see.
But I think, as a genre now, good, I’m very interested. I’m seeing the huge revert back to nostalgia. I’m seeing younger artists who sound like it (classic Pop-Punk), look like it, and they’re in their early twenties. I think it will go through another move again. Seems like every 5 or 6 years Pop-Punk has to change, or it dips, or becomes a whole other thing. That’ll be interesting to see as well.
A thought insert from Justin: What if that change isn’t in 5 or 6 years? Since 2020 we’ve been trending towards a more intimate direction. Kids who were in their bedrooms, straightening their hair, drawing checkers on their new white Vans, listening to ‘Homesick’ by A Day To Remember, while trying to get a few more weeks of life out of their favorite studded belt, grew up. They experienced their own problems and brought an incredibly different version of Pop-Punk, one that is worlds away from the Chunk! No, Captain Chunk lyric “Hey dudes are you ready to?”
Man, you’re really on to something there. I honestly think that ‘something’ is right now. We’ve been done with dick jokes, “I hate this town”, and lines about “my friends” for a long time.
Going back to Tickets to My Downfall for a minute.
Dude, I love that record, I still love that record.
Honestly, even though I’m a Pop-Punk head, I listened to that over and over again. I’m not a fan of his whatsoever and it didn’t matter. There was so much intimacy in the lyrics. Which is exactly where I’m headed with this.
Yeah?
When people write, as soon as it’s put on paper, the thoughts almost take on a new realness. They’re staring right at you. And man, your lyrics can be… pretty heavy.
For sure.
How does it feel, to have people who don’t even know you, get this inside look into your life or things you’ve been through?
Yeah, definitely terrifying. Also at the same time very freeing and healing. There’s been more people that have listened to my stuff (music) now than when I originally wrote it. I wasn’t ever used to writing something that was, really, really intimate, and then having another person analyze it.
It’s (the lyrics) pretty far removed from who I was, so there’s been a lot of, like, situations where I didn’t anticipate someone would judge it like this.
There’s been some other stuff that’s happened dude. There has been family that never paid attention to my stuff before. But now they see me, doing better, and some of them have reached out, and been like Dude are you good. Some of these lyrics are, like, not good. Are you okay?. And that’s great, but weird at the same time.
Scary, freeing, and healing at the same time.
Absolutely.
I’m sure there are a lot of people that analyze them, who like you said, don’t know who I am. They don’t know my background, but it’s very interesting to get somebody’s interpretation of it.
How often does that happen on social media?
Happens a lot on social media. I try to reply to all the comments but that can be hard, but I read every single one. I like to keep up with the people who are keeping up with us. We all appreciate it so much. I like chatting with them, but also, it helps me understand what people think. When we write it, I have no idea what they’ll think. I’m just writing whatever I think makes sense, and depicting what I was doing at the time.
That sounds like it can be a slippery slope, does that ever change the way you go about writing your music?
There are many times where people will hear a lyric, or see a music video. They’re so confident that they say, This is what this song is about.
So one thing for me is I purposely try to write things in a way where the music can be what someone wants it to be at that moment. I’ve always used music to get myself through things in my life. I try to be really specific and vulnerable about things that have happened, why I’m writing the song, but I also try to keep it ambiguous at the same time. That way whatever situation somebody is dealing with can apply to it. Even if that isn’t exactly what the song is about, I’d like them to be able to use it.
Have you ever experienced anything like that at one of your shows, where someone has shared anything like that with you?
Absolutely. When I’m singing the lyrics on stage in front of people and people are singing back, some will come up to me after and say, it means this to me, or I was dealing with this thing and the song got me through that time, or this song really helped me.
It ends up helping me in return. To know that there are people out there that feel the same, it’s super freeing and super rewarding.
For me personally, and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve listened to the album. They serve as a reminder, and it’s a cliche word, but I think they’re… kind of special, dude.
Thank you man.
The lyrics paint a picture for me, that you have been through a lot, but you don’t take any of it for granted.
Oh, 100%. I’m here, it’s fucking awesome. I mean… What else could I want? I’m grateful, having fun. It’s interesting to see this album, a lot of it is written as coming-to-age, going from 20s to 30s, that sort of thing. Not in number or age necessarily, but just the way life kind of happened in that amount of time. It felt like a teleportation from a lot of things. Significant events, things that are not a joke, a lot of, like, sobering up and realizing, serious things can really happen.
I feel like that statement resonates with your song ‘Bad’’****. It starts out with that hook. I’ve been doing bad, doing bad things to feel good.
Yeah man, that is two very different memories of my life in one song. One being, there were probably two or three years, like late 2020 to 2023. I was working full-time, doing music at night and weekends, some audio stuff – all while working on a business with my wife. I basically was trying to powerhouse through it. If I just work all of the time, maybe I can get to where I want faster. It turns out working all the time is really bad for you.
Yeah, burnout can be dangerous.
I’m notoriously a very overactive person. I’ll burn myself out a bit, and then go on a small vacation, just disappear for, like, a week. But this, this was the worst burnout I’ve ever had, to a point where I couldn’t feel anything. Not good or bad. The best thing could have happened, I felt nothing. Then I had a family member pass, and I felt nothing. When that happened, I was just afraid, it was terrifying. This is what I’ve heard people talk about in lyrics or stories, but I had never felt it before. I thought I had, but I didn’t.
So I just got into these habits of picking up shit food and takeout. Eating it while I was working. Drinking energy drinks, alcohol, smoking cigarettes, and weed. Just everything that could be considered some type of bad thing and, I say that, when I don’t think those are all bad things, but it’s not good when you rely on that. That’s what I was doing.
I was using all of these things, not because I’m enjoying them. All of these things are just making it so that I exist, and survive through this time period. There were multiple times where I’d wonder why am I drinking tonight. I legitimately don’t want this, or why did I get this takeout that I hate?
So these things became vices instead of me doing things in moderation and truly enjoying them. It’s like, we aren’t a sober band, we really don’t give a shit, and aren’t out here to judge. But I was using them in a way I found was not good, I was in burnout, just to keep myself going. And the other part of bad was, like, a memory that I don’t think I’ve ever opened up about.
It landed at a time where I was already not doing well, and it kind of just sent me out. My wife wanted to go to school, in a vet program that is very competitive, and very expensive. And I’m thinking if this is what you want, we’re going to make this happen.
We had sold our place at that time, which we worked really hard for, because the only way to get into the school is if she moved to a different part of the country, in that part of the country there really weren’t any jobs, so I couldn’t move with her.
I had gotten to this spot where I was the only person bringing in any income, I was not with my partner, and I was in this room. In a house that was cluttered. Stuff everywhere. Then I lost my job, and I had gotten an injury that I really should’ve gone to the hospital for. I had no insurance, and I couldn’t. So I just healed it.
Man, I can’t imagine being away from my wife, and an injury on top of it, that’s extremely tough.
I had this fridge in my room that I kept filled with craft beer. It’s supposed to be a fun thing. With being away from my wife, who was already stressed because she was in school, I couldn’t be there to help her. I felt so bad about sharing the things I was dealing with. I couldn’t help her how I wanted to, so I didn’t want to make things worse by sharing. I got isolated, very stressed, and then I was just sitting in a small room with the door shut. Just drinking.
Two different memories, combined into one song.
I don’t want to keep you for too much longer so I’ve got one more for you. ‘Mosh pit’ is incredible, and it’s powerful. It has this breakdown that comes out of left field.
Thanks man.
How did this song come to be, and what is it like playing it live?
A lot of people didn’t expect that one on our record and it was really cool how it all came together. A lot of the way we wrote the record was on Discord. We have a channel for the band. We all live, probably, an hour and a half to two hours away from each other. Whatever we were working on we’d just drop it into Discord. I had been working on some of the lyrics, but not too deep into the process. Zach had this folder for like guitar riffs that he was making. One of them was what we use a lot during Mosh Pit, in the verses, that clean guitar part.
I put it into Logic and started bringing in 808s. Some of the 808s I was making them very distorted and… and angry, against this really clean and almost soothing guitar. That really drove the rest of the lyrics and direction of the song. To this day he says I did not write that for you to turn it into a Trap, Emo Rap, Metal core, Rock thing. It was not what he originally thought that would ever be used for.
Performing it is a whole different thing.
What do you mean?
It is almost impossible. It’s the hardest song that we have to perform live, 100%. There’s, like, no room for breath in it. It’s all the highest octave, and then it goes into screams. It’s the most demanding song on my lungs, for the entire duration. I didn’t know that until we got into the studio, we wrote it and did the demo on the computer. We never tried performing it live while we wrote it, all the way to when we brought it into the studio. At no point was there any thought of, where do I breathe? I really do have to focus physically, uh, like not physically dying while I’m performing it. After the breakdown section, Zach and I will not look good. But still, playing it live is very fun. It’s a song with a lot of aggression, clearly, for me. So I get out a lot of bad memories in a really great way.
Thank you for taking the time to do this, it was a lot of fun. Do you have any words of wisdom for people who are doubting jumping into music?
I appreciate you reaching out. This was a lot of fun.
I would say at the bare minimum, on a non-stressful level, I probably couldn’t have made it out of high school if I didn’t play the drums. I would come home, and instead of doing something bad, to deal with a bad situation, I would just play the drums for hours. You get to have fun with friends, you get a community, you get a way to help get through things. It’s worth it no matter what. And never think that you’re too old for it. I thought that, and I almost didn’t get to do the thing that I am right now. If you’re already doing it, stick it out, don’t do it to blow up. Do it because it’s the only thing you picture yourself doing.
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