TOOLS OF THE TRADE

One-time carpenter Richard Swift is a singer-songwriter of an older school. While graduating to bigger labels and budgets is great, more money won't deter him from making music his own way, he tells Jim Carroll

RICHARD Swift is proof that the music business still has room for mavericks. The Minnesota native is a singing-songwriting throwback to a more tuneful golden age, and his music has flickers and flourishes of Broadway and Tin Pan Alley, Gershwin and Nilsson, names and styles which have never gone out of fashion in some parts.

Swift's first two albums (Walking Without Effort and The Novelist, both on the Secretly Canadian label) look and sound like dusty record store gems. Yet beneath the vaudeville cloaks, all that crackling static, wobbly pianos and jaunty trumpets, there are sturdy pop melodies galore. That's Swift's secret weapon and probably the reason Polydor offered him a bigger record deal.

Yet Swift is none too bothered about this new state of affairs. As he says during the conversation, he's just as ready to go back to his other trade as a carpenter if it all falls apart: "I've no problem going back to slinging a hammer and making records in my spare time. I was happy doing that."

It's plain to hear from Swift's new album, Dressed Up for the Letdown, that he's been up and he's been down many, many times before. One song in particular, Artist & Repertoire, looks at the knockbacks Swift experienced when he was wandering around Los Angeles touting his music to various labels.

"It was a hard time and it was definitely a learning experience," says Swift. "I know a lot of people who could have written that song. It's not just about the music industry's A&R, it's about everyone's evaluation of you and who you are. It's about everyone's repertoire for your life."

Many songs on the album explore similar themes of dashed dreams. "I hope I'm setting up people for what's in store with that title. One part of the title comes from my experiences with the music business, but those kind of disappointments which come from having some kind of hope are not necessarily limited to the music industry."

Swift's own backstory begins on a Minnesota farm where, in between cutting grass for his rabbits and gathering firewood, he got turned onto REM, Frank Zappa, James Brown and Marvin Gaye. Soon he was playing music.

"It was usually in these strange backwoods churches where they would be 20 or 30 people there. I'd play keyboards and kick drums at the same time and play these strange sounds which you could only get away with in the woods far from civilisation."

A move to Oregon led to Swift hooking up with many different acts as a jobbing keyboard player. He toured with gospel bands and recorded with pop bands.

"I never enjoyed being in a band; it was always a way to pay the bills," he says.

Around about 2001, Swift decided it was time to make some music of his own.

"I'd made a living from these strange projects that had also kept me hidden from view. I recorded under dozens of names so no one could ever realise it was me. It was cool to cut my teeth on stuff like that because it meant I had figured it all out by the time I started recording my own music."

He ended up in Orange County, California. "My only music business contacts were in Los Angeles, so it was an experiment. I went with my gut. I knew I could put a good band together in Los Angeles and I could get some decent gigs."

These days, Swift is back in Oregon living on a plot of land in a small town called Cottage Springs, where he intends to build a house and a studio later this year. ("Yes, it's time for me to put my tool belt back on.") It won't be a fancy studio because Swift doesn't require bells and whistles to make a record. "The way I make records hasn't changed and I don't really see it changing. I'm not going to be calling up Jon Brion or going down to LA to spent hundreds of thousands of dollars. I basically get to make the records I want to make."

It's also a fall-back should he find himself without Polydor's dollars in the future.

"The worst-case scenario? Polydor dumps me and I have to go back to the way I was before. Sure, I had tough years trying to pay the rent, but I was content. I can do this thing on any sort of level. I'm going to keep making records and finding ways of getting them out. There's a slew of labels who would be happy to put out my records, like Secretly Canadian, and there will always be labels like that around."

Right now, though, it's all brightness and light in Swift's world. "I've seen a lot of people sign to shit deals and my gut tells me this isn't the case here. I don't make quick decisions. I had loads of opportunities in Los Angeles to sign shitty publishing deals and record contracts, and I didn't do it because I didn't want to sell my soul for such low, low money. Now, I'm in a situation where I get to continue on doing what I am doing with a bigger team behind me."

Dressed Up for the Letdown is out now on Polydor. Richard Swift plays Dublin's Crawdaddy on March 13th