Joel Schwelling’s got it locked down on that sun-faded Americana vibe. Whether it’s a hard-hitting rock song as on his 2019 album The Getting Up, or the more gentle “Greenwood Drive,” Schwelling captures a sense of reserved detachment. On “Greenwood Drive,” Schwelling throws in some jangle rock to his nostalgic view of growing up, and its aftermath.
“I write songs (mostly in the Americana/singer-songwriter/alt-country realm), arrange them, produce them, record them and mix them” Schwelling writes. “I’ve been doing it so long that the various elements of the process have become indistinguishable from the other, one no less or more important than the other.”
For Schwelling, songwriting is truly a some of many, may parts.
“The writing may change in the recording process, the mix may change the lyric, a random production element in the mix may change the whole direction of the song. It’s a holistic endeavor, one element hinging on the other so that at the end, the song is nothing more than the sum of hundreds, maybe thousands of little decisions along the way. But all through the process I’m asking myself ‘Is this resonating?’ Is it resonating with me, will it resonate with others? The best songs that I write do both and that’s all I can ask of a song. And in the end I have the joy of creating something out of thin air that didn’t exist before.”