Dance Gavin Dance's Will Swan Still Loves The Tour Life

When you’re a travelling musician who tours a lot, life is kind of a balancing act. A balancing act between the strong financial and nomadic pull of the road, the need to constantly create, the necessity of having some sort of downtime, the demands of maintaining a home life and ties with family and friends, and more. The trade-off between constant touring and the need to be creative and to work on the next batch of new material, is an important one, one that necessitates writing on the road, and one that Will Swan, lead guitarist and co-founding member of American heavy act Dance Gavin Dance, is perpetually conscious of.

“Yeah I do [write on the road],” he states. “It just comes at the weirdest times. Creativity is just something that happens, and then when it happens you just have to make sure you’re available for capture.

“Like for example I just got off tour with my side project Sianvar, and every soundcheck I make sure I get set up really fast. I get my gear set up and going while everyone else is still setting up and I just start jamming and writing, I write a little bit every day at soundcheck and record it on my voicemail, and by the end of the tour I have whole new songs to start working on with Matt [Mingus, Dance Gavin Dance drummer]. It just happens, because it has to happen.”

Indeed, it’s difficult enough when you just play in one band and have to balance all of those elements of music and life, but Swan has many musically related projects on the go beyond Dance Gavin Dance. He plays in at least two other bands, and on top of all that, he founded and runs his own record label Blue Swan Records. He says that it just takes a lot of dedication and a lot of understanding from the people close to him.

“It’s tough,” he admits. “I tour a lot. So the people in my life, like my girlfriend, have to really understand my dedication to what I do. I think they all do, and it just takes a lot of being a nomad, not stopping at home for a lot of the year.

“I like the life a lot. It’s definitely not as glamorous as people think, but it’s great. I love it and I can’t see why I’d want to stop any time soon.”

The road stretches out ahead of Swan and his band about as far as the eye can see in 2019, starting off with a seven-date stop Down Under in late February with brutal progressive metal act Veil Of Maya. With no fewer than eight albums under the Dance Gavin Dance belt now, it makes writing a setlist rather difficult, but Swan is very confident the Aussie fans will be pleased with what they’ve come up with.

“It’s really hard to make a setlist these days, it just gets harder with every album,” he says. “Especially so for Australia since we haven’t been there for so long. I think it’s been a couple of records since we were there. So mixing the new record with some old stuff, it was tough, but I think we’re doing a good mix of our catalogue so that people aren’t left out, fans of different eras.”

And while Veil Of Maya are quite different stylistically to Dance Gavin Dance, he feels that it’s still an excellent pairing, as the two bands have toured together multiple times previously. “Yeah I love those guys,” he enthuses. “They’re a lot heavier than us, but they still have a good sound that works and is a good crossover, our fans still seem to like them a lot. And we love them too, as guys and as a band.

“So it’s been cool, we’ve toured with them in the US, and done a tour with them in Europe. We toured with them last year, it all went really well. They’re great guys and it will be cool to have them with us while we’re experiencing Australia.”