“Possessed”: How Swans’ Michael Gira explains his maximum effort performances
Swans, much to the credit of the band’s frontman and only constant member, Michael Gira, have consistently ranked among the most aggressively unclassifiable entities in the world of vaguely guitar-based music over the past 40 years.
You could try your best to square them up as no wave or post-punk or post-rock, or whatever the catch-all “experimental” tag of the day might be, but the only real thread that has carried through the Swans experience is an unmistakable intensity—sometimes in the form of a tsunami of clattering noise, other times in a single, slow, gentle tone. Whatever manner in which the beast appeared, listeners either tend to run away in fright or plug in for the long haul, pushing their headphones in closer to their skulls to increase the mesmerisation.
If you’ve seen Swans live, even in the group’s revolving line-up of recent years, you’ll also know that Michael Gira, now in his early 70s, is still physically incapable of “going through the motions”. While certainly a tad less ferocious than the Swans of, say, the early 1980s, the more mature and dynamic Swans of the post-reunion era (2010-present) are no less dedicated to exorcising their demons on stage.
In comparison with a lot of the too-cool-for-school bands occupying the extremely broad “indie rock” ecosystem in the 21st century, the energy in Swans’ performances routinely stuns newcomers and reinforces the faith of longtime followers. From Gira’s perspective, though, there is no other way of doing things.
“This is my life’s work, for better or worse,” Gira told Outsideleft Music earlier this year, “and it’s what I was put on Earth to do, so I – and the musicians I’m with onstage – give it everything.”
That being said, Gira doesn’t think he and his bandmates deserve any special commendation for their approach, as they’re merely carrying on a tradition established by the best musicians that have come before them.
“I don’t think that level of commitment to performance is that exceptional, really,” he said. “Look at James Brown, for God’s sake, or Diamanda Galas, or Fela Kuti, or Nina Simone, even Black Flag in the early days, even Bruce Springsteen. It’s your job. You owe it to yourself and the audience to completely embody and be possessed by the music. If not, it’s a fake and a sham. That’s what it’s all about, total ecstasy through sound.”
Gira, who also owns and operates the avant-garde record label Young God, would probably clench his fists at being called a “great marketer”, but he does have a knack for poetically describing the nuts and bolts of the Swans experience in a way that shouldn’t really be possible.
“The guitars sustain endlessly and angels appear and hover above and inside the sound,” he explained to Outsideleft. “At the best of times the individual instruments disappear and what remains is only the sustained chords and the overtones. It changes reality. We’re swallowed by the sound. It’s a sentient entity we’ve summoned that consumes us. It feels great!”
In terms of his own personal mindset while on stage, Gira unsurprisingly goes with something along the lines of the out-of-body phenomenon, just described in far more visually amusing metaphor.
“Often, I have no idea who or what I am, and I feel a sort of superhuman strength, something like a divine force surging through me and propelling me,” Gira said, “But afterwards, particularly as I age, I’m a discarded rag soaked in some disagreeable and stinking liquid, festering in the gutter. People spit down at me when they walk by and I thank them for it!”
