In some ways that's good, because it keeps you hot to trot. There's never been two albums where we've actually had that steady situation. In hindsight I realised that with all of the Swervedriver albums, there's always been some sort of shift whether it's been the line up of the band, or the label we were with, it feels like there's always been something that's changed. “All those changes made everything feel quite fresh.
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Then all this stuff emerged that was really great, like Duel and Last Train To Satansville and Duress, so suddenly we were on a new path and it was quite invigorating.
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I think maybe people thought that Adi was the real rocker in the band, so we wanted to have some heavy tunes on there. But when it actually came to it, we felt like because those guys had left we needed to reestablish our sound. “It's funny, because I remember having a conversation with Damon Albarn down The Underworld one night around a similar time – just as Blur were about to do Modern Life Is Rubbish – and I told him 'We're going to reinvent ourselves.' That was the word back in the day – 'reinvent yourself'. “Before Adi had left, at the end of doing Raise, me and Jim had a conversation with him about what we would do with our next album and if we would ‘reinvent ourselves,’” says Franklin. However, with news of the abrupt line-up re-shuffle spreading, the band were aware they had something to prove, and were wary of pushing Mezcal Head too far from what had come before. I think it expanded our sound in many ways.” It completely changed everything creatively, because suddenly I was playing bass with Jez on the drums and it was like a new rhythm section.
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We didn't manage to find a bass player in time, so me and Jimmy figured we could do it. His drumming style was quite different to Graham's – he's much more a ‘Keith Moon falling down stairs’ drum style. “We put word out to try and find a drummer and came across Jez Hindmarsh. “It was completely liberating, actually,” says Franklin. With the new line up came a new creative freedom which allowed the band’s sound to grow, making good on Raise’s robust promise and expanding in every direction. 'Pretty good’ turned out to be an understatement.