'I Didn't Know What Pendulum Sounded Like': Rob Swire On Pendulum's First Album In 15 Years, 'Inertia'

When Perth's Pendulum hit No. 3 on the Aussie charts with the release of their Immersion album in 2010, few could have expected it would be a 15-year wait for a follow-up.

However, that's the story that followed the group who began life in WA, but quickly found themselves based in the UK. Finding widespread fame in the English music scene, the group were still beloved fixtures of the Australian public, with albums like Hold Your Colour and In Silico boasting myriad singles and cementing them as local legends.

In early 2012, however, Pendulum announced a hiatus, with founding members Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen instead focusing on the newly-founded Knife Party. Itself another successful project in the world of electronic music, fans began to rule out hope of future Pendulum activities until 2015, when it was announced that the outfit would reunite for the Ultra Music Festival in Miami, Florida.

Talk of new material circulated, but it wasn't until 2020 that a proper comeback began to take place, with the release of new singles Nothing For Free and Driver.

Fast-forward another five years and Pendulum have today released Inertia, their first full-length record in 15 years, and one that collects their previous material from the past five years along with a batch of fresh compositions.

However, as Swire explains, the group's original hiatus was initially planned to be the end of their story, largely owing to an inability to find a way to top what they were doing at the time.

"I think at that point, I couldn't imagine a better iteration of it," he admits. "I really didn't know where to take it.

"I had kind of a love/hate thing where I was really proud of Immersion and what we'd done with that album, but then I remember seeing footage of us at Glastonbury and being like, 'Man, if I wasn't part of this, I don't think I'd like it.' 

"So part of going away was like, 'I don't know what I don't like about it,'" he continues. "I just needed some time away from it. That plus the Knife Party thing, plus the EDM thing exploding and then it kind of died as quickly as it came on. But it was just really a thing where I needed to put it on ice just to figure out what I wanted to do with it."

That discovery of what it was that Swire wanted Pendulum to be didn't come quickly. "It's taken until now," he adds with a laugh. "Like, six months ago, maybe."

Of course, while there had been talk of new music even before the hiatus and after the reunion, Swire admits that making new material never quite felt right. While the Ultra Music Festival set was something the band wanted to do as "something special" for promoter Adam Russakoff, it was the nudging to make more music by management which didn't quite sit right with Pendulum.

"I just don't think we were ready to look at that," Swire recalls. "Personally, I didn't know what Pendulum sounded like. I couldn't hear it. Now, if I've got a Pendulum track due tomorrow, I know what it sounds like, and at that time I just didn't know. 

"I don't really necessarily remember the sort of 'vision' that we had, I couldn't answer 'What does a Pendulum track sound like,' and obviously you can't bring it back like it was, so I was a bit lost."

At the time, Swire also found himself in an unenviable position of being somewhat forced to think of new music for Pendulum while he was still working as part of Knife Party, ultimately resulting in a situation of what was expected being different to what the current focus was.

"There was a lot of concern at first where I thought, 'Okay, I'm kind of done with that sort of classic Pendulum sound, but I know everyone else might not be,'" he explains. "'So how do I bring this back in a way that doesn't piss everyone off?'"

Swire recalls how there are plenty of bands he has liked who have found themselves making the sort of music they wanted to, even if it meant alienating the audience who had flocked to them for an initial sound. 

"I didn't want to be one of those bands where I do my own thing, everyone hates it, and I think, 'Ah, the whole thing's fucked,'" he says.

"I didn't want that to happen, but I think as we've continued down this path, I've figured out exactly what sound we want to come back with. I know now what Pendulum sounds like; whenever it starts getting too drum and bass or too metal, I'm uncomfortable, but just in the middle is exactly where I want to be."

In late 2010, Swire had initially hinted at Pendulum's fourth album, stating a desire to "speed shit up and add violent punk guitar" into the mix, though conceded just months later no new album would arrive for a while.

Talk of a new record arrived again in 2013, and following the end of their hiatus, Swire said in 2017 that he wanted to make a new album, citing a boredom with the EDM scene.

By 2020, the group's official return with new music also brought with it comments that a new album was likely not on the cards, with the band instead wanting to focus on standalone singles and EPs.

"The reason for that is partly because there’s a lot less pressure than putting an entire album together and putting it out there, and partly because I don’t think people listen to fucking albums anymore," Swire said at the time.

"That was what we were hearing from every fucking label," Swire explains when asked about those comments. "That was what every person in the music industry was saying; 'Fuck albums, they're done. Release singles, and then somehow can we have a cohesive element at the end of that, please?'

"I think what changed my mind is that I still like listening to albums and that's where I thought, 'Well, if I want to make them, then that's good enough.' We've still done the single releases and then now we're trying to wrap it up into an album, even though it's taken a while. 

"I still think there's space for albums," he muses. "In the industry, still the biggest movements by any artist, anything that sort of propels an artist into another space, is always likely an album. You don't really see one song doing that for an artist as much, apart from maybe Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter or something."

Since the release of their initial singles in 2020, more standalone releases have arrived, alongside their Elemental and Anima EPs in 2021 and 2023, respectively. 

While one could suggest that this drip-feed of releases was simply Pendulum wanting to dip their toes back in the water after this period of time, Swire explains it was simply due to the uncertainty of what the group's future looked like.

"Initially it was very much us trying to find who the fuck Pendulum was," he explains. "Driver and Nothing For Free and all those earlier sort of tracks that we came back with, that's solely us being like, 'Who the fuck is Pendulum? Is this Pendulum?' and putting it out there and saying, 'Okay, well that works. No one hates it, and that's good.'

"I think that just gave us the sort of confidence and the freedom to do whatever the fuck we want, which is always where I feel most happy."

The resulting album that arrives at the end of these past years of musical creation is the 16-track Inertia, a record that featured numerous guests, including the likes of Wargasm, Bullet For My Valentine, Joey Valance & Brae, Scarlxrd, and more. It's diverse and enthralling, but ultimately a record which manages to tread that line between Swire's own love of blending drum and bass and metal.

"The heavier tracks like Driver or Napalm are usually just because we're like, 'Oh fuck, we need something to open a show with,' and you can't open a show with some big fucking ballad about some bullshit," he explains. "But we have fun making them. 

"The whole process was cathartic, solely in that it sort of gave us a direction. If I was to put together another record now, I know exactly what I'd do, which is nice. 

"It's always uncomfortable when people are expecting something and I'm thinking, 'I don't know what the fuck to do.' It's funny, you're wearing the label 'Pendulum' and you can't remember what it is or what'll work. So I'm glad we're out of that slump."

Those expectations can be a crushing experience for any artist, with the uncertainty of presenting new music that may or may not live up to what fans had hoped for. For Swire, it involved him revisiting that very feeling that left him unsure about Pendulum's future all those years ago.

"I think you just have to listen to it as much as you can from the position of a fan," he explains. "'Do I like this? Would I like this if I wasn't in Pendulum? If I liked Pendulum, what would I think?'

"We got rid of a whole bunch of stuff that was either too fucking heavy – not in a good way – or too poppy or too whatever. We just tried to find a balance that we were happy with."

While the general thread that has followed through Pendulum's existence since their comeback has largely revolved around the question of 'Who is Pendulum?', how does Inertia answer that question?

"I think we're the same as we've always been, but historically we were restraining ourselves from making tracks like Halo and Cannibal and the rest of them," he explains. "When you heard Self vs Self, our collaboration with In Flames on Immersion, that was sort of us experimenting.

"That was us saying, 'Well, I guess this is okay because the rest of the album's full of drum and bass, so we can get away with one song being with a sort of metal band.' But really that's all I want to do, blending that sort of thing together."

With the question of 'Who is Pendulum?' finally answered, does this mean that we'll be getting new music with greater regularity, or will we have to wait another 15 years for Pendulum to drop album No. 5 in 2040?

"I'd love to do a full album next year and actually approach it as an album," Swire says. "I think this album does work as an album, but I'd love the sort of process that we used to do where we just look ourselves away for six to eight months and just come out with something. 

"It's just my favourite way of balancing everything."