EMQ’s With SWEPT TO SEA
EMQ’s With SWEPT TO SEA
Hi everyone! Welcome to another EMQs interview, this time with USA Melodic Metalcore band, Swept To Sea. Huge thanks to Guitarist, Jeno Fox, for taking part.
What is your name, what do you play and can you tell us a little bit about the history of the band?
Jeno Fox, I mainly play guitar but like to dabble in a little bit of everything.
We formed the band right before COVID hit during a super bowl party at my parents’ house over a few drinks. I had been wanting to get back into the music game for a little while and finally made the leap to find like-minded friends who were all in bands in the past. “Tides” is the first collective work we are releasing that for the most part was written during the crazy lockdown times and we can’t wait to get it into everyone’s hands on December 2nd! It’s been a long time coming!
How did you come up with your band name?
That same day we formed the band, we more or less knew that we wanted to commit that day. That being said, we all prepared a list of names we thought would be fitting. Probably about an hour later and a struggle to decide on the perfect name we could all agree on, we finally decided Swept to Sea conveyed the emotions / imagery we wanted to show our audience. The turbulence of the ocean can be seen in our music and being swept to sea really gives a dark feeling that everyone endures at one point or another in life, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a light at the end of that tunnel.
What Country / Region are you from and what is the Metal / Rock scene like there?
We are from the San Francisco Bay Area, California , USA. I would say the Metal scene is challenging in SF particularly, but north of us in Sacramento and south in San Jose the Metal scene is much more alive and kicking. Typically, we will play shows in those areas but occasionally get some good spots going in SF even.
What is your latest release? (Album, EP, Single, Video)
Our latest release is a single / music video: ‘Shards of Your Reflection’. It tells a story about a person (narrator) being haunted by a ghost for some unknown reason, throughout the song / music video the listener starts to understand that the ghost was a woman who was sacrificed in some cult offering and haunts anyone unlucky enough to be staying at the house at that time.
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI5m2Q1C7qs
Facebook: https://fb.watch/foFyJBaqIt/
IGTV: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CiNbPKDvkkK/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EclipseRecords/status/1567528253589438467
Who have been your greatest influences?
I have had so many influences growing up that have led me to writing music from tons of different genres that it is sometimes hard to really nail down who have been the biggest influences. I grew up listening to Van Halen, each of their songs really had a catchy riff or element that is memorable and that is something I definitely always try to write in all our songs, they are very much “riff” heavy. What got me into the heavier music, I can remember seeing 2 music videos that more or less blew my mind at the time. The first was ‘Blooddrunk’ by Children of Bodom, the song is immensely heavy but again has that awesome riffage that Alexi Laiho always brought to the table. The second was a Bullet for My Valentine song, most likely ‘Suffocating Under Words of Sorrow’ which really got me more into the Metalcore side of things.
What first got you into music?
My parents, especially my dad, are always blasting music and partying listening to anything you can imagine. Growing up in a household that was always surrounded by music it was natural that I would want to pick up an instrument one day and see if it was something I truly was passionate about. When I was in middle school, probably 6th or 7th grade my dad got me a cheap acoustic guitar from Target and the rest is history.
If you could collaborate with a current band or musician who would it be?
I think Children of Bodom and Alexi Laiho specifically would have been amazing to do a song with, of course letting him do all the soloing! That band was just so musically talented with him leading the charge I think we could have come up with some really catchy / crushing riffs.
If you could play any festival in the world, which would you choose and why?
Easily would have to be a festival in Europe. To me Wacken has always been where the biggest bands go to play, once you get to a stage like that you are set for life. My favorite bands continue to play that festival and it would be a dream to be on that stage that so many legendary bands have been on.
What’s the weirdest gift you have ever received from a fan?
Not sure if this counts as from a fan, but our vocalist’s friend makes jewelry from teeth. It is more or less exactly what you would imagine, super creepy, super creative, and pretty damn cool for what we were going to use it for in the ‘Shards of Your Reflection’ music video. I am not sure we actually used it in the video for anything super noticeable, but after the shoot I remember finding it back at my place in our little studio/practice space and being just a little unsettled by it.
If you had one message for your fans, what would it be?
Our fans are everything to us, whatever we do it’s almost solely for them. The message I always have for them is usually the same: See you in the pit!
If you could bring one rock star back from the dead, who would it be?
Man that is a tough one. Another really big influence on me growing up was Nirvana, the Grunge style of music was totally different from the generally happy Classic Rock or even Hard Rock that I grew up on. Grunge was much darker feeling and raw. I would bring back Kurt Cobain, he definitely had more songs to share with the world.
What do you enjoy the most about being a musician? And what do you hate?
I love writing and performing. The magic feeling when you write something that gets stuck in your own head is crazy. Being able to then perform that and have people feel what you are feeling at that time is otherworldly as well. What I hate about being a musician currently is that I don’t have the resources to really do it full time, it’s hard to stay in a creative state of mind juggling many different things.
If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?
It feels like I am very new to the real music game, so it’s hard for me to want to change anything in particular. Overall social media is a huge influence in what gets heard and played often, I am personally just not a huge fan of social media and all the marketing needed to make things happen on those fronts so I guess having that be less of an influence would be nice.
Name one of your all-time favourite albums?
Oof that is a hard one. My siblings and I grew up watching scary movies or generally just horror themed stuff. The Queen of the Damned was one that we have seen countless times, but what was even better than the movie was the soundtrack, huge collaboration of artists and lots of writing by Jonathan Davis just made for a perfect storm. Whenever we get together on road trips or anything like that it is one of the few albums we can all agree on, for the fond memories I gotta go with that album off the top of my head.
What’s best? Vinyl, Cassettes, CDs or Downloads?
Definitely Vinyl is as cool as it gets, but I haven’t invested in a good system for that and only have a tiny collection. I am not big on hoarding things too so with that being said probably keeping things in the cloud on various DSP’s is nice until the internet falls apart. Everything is connected to your phone nowadays so might as well keep music there too.
What’s the best gig that you have played to date?
The only true venue we have played at to date (with Swept to Sea) was The Hotel Utah Saloon in SF. Truly historic place to be in that has been well maintained through the ages. Great sound, even better people!
If you weren’t a musician, what else would you be doing?
Probably the same things I do currently. I love solving problems and working through challenges which is why I am in software engineering. Limitless problems to solve and even more challenges to tackle.
Which five people would you invite to a dinner party?
If it’s a dinner party, then I probably want people who are generally just interesting in one way or another. The first person that comes to mind is definitely Elon Musk, he is as interesting as he is crazy, no shortage of interesting topics to cover with him, he might even bring a flamethrower to play with there. I am a huge Star Wars fan, and one of my favourite characters was Obi-Wan, so I would have to hear about stories on set with Ewan McGregor. Next would have to be Neil Degrasse Tyson for his physics knowledge and news on the universe. Fourth person I would have at a dinner party would be Sir David Attenborough, I grew up watching all the nature documentaries he narrated, and I love learning about all things outdoors / animals. He definitely has some wild stories from his youth travelling the world. Lastly, I would not want to go to a single dinner party without my wife by my side, so she would definitely be there too to keep me in line!
What’s next for the band?
We have been dying to tour / play shows all throughout COVID times. Now that we are releasing music, we have been booking shows and getting on slots with the local scene. Right now, we are really focused on doing as many gigs as we can and writing new material in the meantime, we got some exciting songs coming up for our next collective work which will probably be an LP of some sort. Stay tuned!
What Social Media / Website links do you use to get your music out to people?
Tides EP Langing Page: https://ffm.to/swshards
Tides EP Presave/Preorder: https://ffm.to/ststides
Shards of Your Reflection – (Stream it Now):
- Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3KUwwQn
- Apple Music: https://apple.co/3AYWAVA
- Pandora:
- Tidal:
- Deezer:
- Amazon Music: https://amzn.to/3QjdF2d
- YouTube Music:
- Soundcloud:
Time for a very British question now. As an alternative to the humble sandwich, is the correct name for a round piece of bread common in the UK either a Bap, a Barm (or Barm Cake), a Batch, a Bun, a Cob, a Muffin, a Roll, or a Tea Cake?
Really have no idea on this one but a Bun a Cob definitely sounds the coolest so I would have to guess that!
Thank you for your time. Is there anything else that you would like to add?
I just want to say thank you for having me, this interview was a blast! Thank you to Eclipse Records for everything they have done for us, they have gone above and beyond in every way possible! We are excited to start rolling out all our singles in the coming months and release Tides on December 2nd!
Disclaimer: This interview is solely the property of Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this interview, unless you have the strict permission of said party. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
