Swervedriver Celebrate 35th Anniversary Of Debut Album “Raise”

Originally released on Creation Records in 1991, Raise, the debut album by Oxford, UK’s Swervedriver had followed a series of three incendiary four-song EPs that had firmly put the band on the map of the exploding early nineties alternative scene. Having started out in 1984 by founding members Adam Franklin and Jimmy Hartridge as the Iggy & The Stooges inspired Shake Appeal, by the 1990 debut single Son Of Mustang Ford, they had mutated into the expansive, shimmering, guitar-clashing juggernaut that is Swervedriver. English music press tried to box the band into the ‘shoegaze’ scene popular at the time, but Swervedriver never really fitted. Theirs was a sound born out of listening from afar to the underground sounds coming out of America in the 1980s. Sonic Youth, Husker Du, Dinosaur Jr all fed into their psyche and came out the other side with a uniquely British flavour firmly intact. First released the week after Nirvana‘s Nevermind, Raise was recorded in London at The Greenhouse and Falconer Studios and was produced by the band themselves.

Thirty-five years on, Swervedriver are ready to celebrate their iconic debut with Raise At 35, a special performance at the Village Underground in London, UK on October 24^th, where the band will play the album in its entirety, among other songs from their vast back catalogue, you can sign up for pre-sale tickets which go on sale on the 18th February here, tickets go on general sale on the 20th February. The performance will commemorate the start of Swervedriver‘s long career, bringing back into focus the huge influence they continue to have. With their initial run of four albums between ’91 and ’98, and then their return in 2015 with I Wasn’t Born To Lose You and 2019’s Future Ruins, Swervedriver proved themselves to be a band with plenty of gas left in the tank, continuing to make fresh music that easily matched their past creativity. Swervedriver will also be playing a brace of dates in the US in May in Denver, CO and at Wells, NV’s Humboldt Hideaway Festival, you can view the band’s tour dates and purchase tickets here.

“The thing about ‘Raise’ is it has a really good flow. The way the tracks are sequenced, it works perfectly as a live set. It comes in strong with ‘Sci-Flyer’, then you’ve got ‘Son Of Mustang Ford’ and ‘Deep Seat’ in there early on and It’s all over in forty minutes! There’s even a little area before ‘Sandblasted’ that has a great jam that we extend. Then the final song, ‘Lead Me Where You Dare’, we never played that live back in the day, until we decided to do the album in its entirety, and then we had to learn how to play it. It’s definitely a fun album to play from start to finish.” (singer & guitarist Adam Franklin)