Ria Janapati
We are here at the Mission Ballroom, October 27th, [2025]. You are Jared of the Black Lips-

Jared Swilley
Jared, and you are?

Ria
I am Ria, Music Director of KCSU; I’ve got some questions.

Jared
Cool.

Ria
First one being: You’ve been doing this music thing for a hot minute now, are there things about being on the road specifically that change for you excitement level wise?

Jared
Oh sure, yeah. There’s a different, like, excitement level. I’ve been touring since I was 16. We drove- the first like US tour we ever did was pretty miserable, but it was still the funnest thing; like, by my standards today, it would be pretty miserable, but I remember seeing the desert for the first time, and that’s like, that excitement- I can remember the excitement I felt, like, the first time I saw a cactus. But like, now, you know, I slept on a pretty drive today because I’ve seen a lot of that stuff. So that changes. I still love being on stage and stuff. But yeah, I mean, just like, anything you do forever, things get boring.

Ria
Are there any cities that you visited a first time and you, like, couldn’t wait to go back? Or maybe the opposite, you were really excited, but it wasn’t your fav.

Jared
Oh, I won’t mention any cities I didn’t like, because I figure it’s best not to say negative things about people or places. But there’s… like, yeah, a lot of cities. I mean, talk about [the] excitement of being someplace. I remember the feeling of the first time we went to Europe to play; I couldn’t believe it, like, because it was, it felt really cool. And I wanted to go back to all those cities, and I have been back to pretty much all of them. Or, like, you know, like Tokyo, like going there, I was like, “I have to come back here. It’s awesome.” So most, most places I would like, I, you know, there’s, there’s very few places I’d be like, “I never want to go there again.” So, yeah, I like most places.

Ria
I’ve seen that you guys have come to be known for pulling some antics during live shows, especially more in the DIY spaces. Has there been anything you’ve really wanted to do during a live show that would just be like a fun little act that no one saw coming?

Jared
There is one that we’ve been talking about doing… because we’ve done, like, all sorts of crazy stuff, and we’re, like, older now, so I’m not trying to, like, make anyone upset anymore, like, do anything crazy. But like, have you ever seen the Wizard of Oz?

Ria
Absolutely.

Jared
So you know, like, when the Munchkins, like those guys come out as, like, the lollipop… the old guys? We want to- I guess I’m spilling the beans here, but it’ll surprise people when we do it. But like, we kind of, like… We have this song that’s about eating candy on our new record, and we want to just like, stop in the middle, hopefully, at a really huge show, like something like this [Mission Ballroom], or at a big festival, and, like, drop our instruments and go into the lollipop guild dance and then just start playing again. That’s kind of like what we want to do.

Ria
Nice. A little surprise, a little dance break.

Jared
Yeah

Ria
Yeah, awesome. You just have to get the choreography down.

Jared
Yeah.

Ria
And then your newest album, Season of the Peach, I noticed it takes on a lot of different genre influences. There’s some rockabilly sound, there’s some 60s stuff, some folk stuff going on, just all over the place. So when you’re taking inspiration to create something new like that, where do you find yourself looking?

Jared
I’m always looking in the past, and that’s just for me. Fortunately, in this band, like all five members [contribute equally], right? So that’s why it can kind of seem like it’s all over the place, like musically. But, I mean, I only listen to, like, very old music, so that’s kind of really what I’m pulling from; I listen to, like, old country and doo-wop and rockabilly and blues and stuff like that, so that’s usually… I’m just trying to recreate stuff in a kind of, like, not as good way as the stuff I really like.

Ria
Back on your 2020 album, there’s a song called “Angola Rodeo”, and that song really interested me in the storytelling of it. It seemed like a bit of a silly take on, like, real life events. So-

Jared
Yeah

Ria
When you’re going about doing that. Where do you draw the line between like, not taking yourself too seriously?

Jared
Well, you want to like, not like… or at least with me, I want to be like, if I’m talking about something very serious, and that’s a very serious thing… Do you know the story of, like, the Angola rodeo?

Ria
Yeah, it’s a prison rodeo.

Jared
Yeah, prison rodeo, and we actually went to it. I’d always wanted to go, and we went, and it’s like, you know, it’s pretty controversial. I happen to be in favor of it, just because it’s like, if you’re doing life in prison, or if you’re on death row, like, it’s the best day of your life when you get to do… They actually do it for like, a few months of the year. But you know, you don’t want to be too preachy or too sappy, so you got to have your tongue firmly in cheek. My theory has always been, if you have, like, a really sad subject matter, make it a very poppy sounding song. And if you have really happy sounding stuff, it should be like, darker. That’s kind of like how I like to do things.

Ria
Yeah, just flip them on their head.

Jared
And it’s still, like… The lyrics are still like, kind of serious; but it’s like a fun kind of sounding song. But you know, the Angola Prison is, like, one of the darkest places in the United States. It’s pretty rough there.

Ria
I just thought that was really interesting, because on a first listen, if you’re not really paying attention, it’ll just be like, “Oh, this is a fun little tune-

Jared
There is, like, a big, like, stark contrast when you go to that rodeo, because you are in this just incredibly dark place. You drive in and you see death row, and you see the fields they’re all working in, but then you go in there, and it’s like, a really happy environment; like the prisoners… It’s like, all guys on best behavior, but they’ve been working; like, they sell their arts and crafts that day. Their families are allowed to come in. They can actually have like, conjugal visits with their family in there. So it’s like, it’s super dark, but super heartwarming at the same time. The rodeo is incredibly violent, but all of them, like, want to be doing it, and they seem to be having a good time. It’s just like, it’s a very, it’s an intense, like, sensory overload, place to be, just like with the happy and sad aspects of the like the whole thing

Ria
On that same album, there’s a cover of a pretty lesser-known Velvet Underground track; how do you go about selecting a song like that, or deciding to include it on an album?

Jared
I think Oakley had always wanted to, because that song was never released. There’s a Velvet Underground documentary where you can, there’s only, like, 30 seconds of them kind of playing that, so you hear a little bit of the verse and a little bit of the chorus, and they never recorded it, so it was really just going to disappear, and Oakley had always said he wanted to hear the end of that song. So we just basically- It’s kind of like, sort of a cover, and we had, we actually got permission from John Cale to do it and finish it. So that was… that was pretty neat. But, you know, I would never want to do, like, a totally traditional, you know, I wouldn’t cover, like, I don’t know, “Louie Louie”, or, like, some popular… That’s, like, my touchstone for, like, a popular song. But, you know, you know, I’m saying it would have to be something, like that, an interesting way to do a cover.

Ria
Yeah, I didn’t even realize it was a cover at first. I was-

Jared
Yeah. I mean, it’s like, it’s technically, it’s kind of, it’s like, not fully a cover. It’s kind of, I like to say, We co-wrote it with them.

Ria
Yeah, it was an extrapolation-

Jared
Yeah,

Ria
Towards the end; but yeah, fun stuff there. Also for that song, the music video, like, the visuals behind it are pretty interesting. So when you guys are doing music videos or anything visual, is there someone who takes the reins on that?

Jared
No, you know, like everything in our band, it’s kind of like a collective. There’s no… There’s no leader, there’s no one. We all have… We are…. I mean, I guess the reason we’re all in a band together is because we have similar… We’re into similar things that we find aesthetically pleasing, which tends to be older things. Like, for that video, like, a big thing was, the cameras, they were old, like 70s TV cameras. So it kind of… That’s where you get that look from. And we’re… Yeah, we’re kind of all into the same, like filmmakers; and so usually when someone’s like, “I have an idea for a video”, I’m kind of like, “Alright, cool. I’ll probably like what you come up with.”

Ria
That’s a good place to be, good way to stay a band.

Jared
Yeah.

Ria
And then, staying on that visual side, you guys have had a couple songs in bigger movies like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and 500 Days of Summer. When you see stuff like that, does it make you think about how your songs kind of look? Or if you would ever watch a movie and think, “Oh, this song that we made would sound great, right there.”

Jared
No, I never think of it in terms like that. I like when they’re in movies and stuff like that, because I can remember being, you know, in middle school and finding out about bands through like movies; and I was glad that those two movies that used our songs like they kind of became.. I think they’re kind of like cult… I actually haven’t seen either movie, but I think they’re kind of like cult [classics]. My nieces really like the Scott Pilgrim movie, and they were like… They’re teenagers now, so like, it was kind of cool for them to think I was cool for being in a movie they like. But no, I haven’t thought about… Now I have scored some stuff for movie stuff, but like, when we’re writing the songs, I never think about it through that lens.

Ria
Yeah, that’s fair. If there was a movie that you could soundtrack, like your favorite movie, and you’re like, “I know how this should sound”. Has there been one that you’ve ever seen that-

Jared
Oh gosh, no, I don’t know. Maybe, like Apocalypse Now, it’d be fun to do like, a bunch of, like, psychedelic jams for something like that. We could probably score a good western movie.

Ria
Yeah, I could see that, I could definitely see a Western. You’ve mentioned before that you grew up religious and that has played a part in your musical influence. Do you ever feel in the punk scene you’re kind of alone in that or kind of isolated?

Jared
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I talk about it some… I try not to talk about it because I think, I think religion should be a very personal thing. But, yeah, I do definitely feel like I’m the odd man out with that. But, you know, the reason I got into music was because of, like, Little Richard and Elvis and James Brown and Johnny Cash and all these guys and Hank Williams. They were all kind of came from the same sort of churches I came from, you know, in Georgia and Tennessee and… But, yeah, I don’t really talk about it too much. The influence I Definitely, probably wear on my sleeve because I grew up in a church that I’m not ashamed of at all, it’s very, I guess, liberal. But my views on religion are pretty much live and let live. I’m into everyone doing their own thing.

Ria
Also about growing up in the south. You come from Georgia, and you’ve also mentioned your love for San Francisco bands, so how does that reach a little boy in Georgia?

Jared
Man, you’ve done some research. Well, how did that… I had an older friend of mine, RIP Bobby Bangy, this guy… All the music I got into was through like older people, like my dad, or like older brothers, or older people I skated with, and, yeah, just like, got me into, The Mummies and, like The Bobbyteens and that whole like, budget rock scene in San Francisco. And I remember, I was like 16, and I flew out to like, this festival in San Francisc- very small. It was, like at a club there. And like me and my friend, I think… No, I was 17, and he was 16, and our buddy was, like 25 and we got there, and they’re like, “This isn’t an all ages, it’s 21 and up.” And so, we weren’t allowed to go in the festival, and we flew out to all the way out to San Francisco. I don’t know if it would be more fun now, because the internet gives you access to everything, or if it was more fun when you really had to search for it, because, like, everything I found out about was just like, you go to a skate session and someone would give you a tape, or like you’d hear one song somewhere, and you have to really do a lot of- It was hard to get songs, especially a lot of punk stuff. It was very difficult. You know, you’re having to write like magazines and, you know, go through this, like underground network of kids with mix tapes, which was pretty fun. I think it gave you, like, a, like, an Indiana Jones type of thing when you found something, because it was like a treasure hunter, you’re like, “Oh, man, I found this thing that’s so cool.” Now, like, I can’t believe, like, I’m trying to think of, like, back when, like our first tour, we had, like, I’m on a tangent now, but we had like, five tapes in the car, and we just listen to those on repeat right now, I have like, almost every song ever recorded in my pocket, and I’ve, like, I can’t decide what to listen to.

Ria
Yeah, there’s a bit more pressure in the “‘You have to pick a good song. You have to buy the good song from the record store.”

Jared
I don’t know how we got from San Francisco to there, but yes, I love, I love that, like 90s San Francisco punk scene.

Ria
Speaking of tape, I believe you mentioned recording on tape for more recent projects, because it gives you a little bit more of that pressure.

Jared
Yeah. We went back to… Because I was always… We were always very, very opposed to computers and anything like, any technology or any advanced technology. So we did everything on tape. And then, we did a few records, we started working with some producers, and they worked on Pro Tools or whatever, maybe not even that. I didn’t pay enough attention. I don’t know what they were using. But yeah, we went back to tape for this record, and it had been a while; and I like tape because you had… Like, there’s no BS in it, everyone has to play the thing together, it is very difficult to make changes. So I like that aspect of it. It makes you really work. And there’s no like, sometimes, like, when you’re with a computer, like, “Oh, I did it wrong. Oh, you can just fix that.” And then it’s like, the next thing you know, you’re an AI band.

Ria
Ugh, that’s no good.

Jared
Yeah, so I don’t know. The older I get; maybe that’s the norm, maybe most people get like this, they get older, [and] like shun technology. But-

Ria
Yeah.

Jared
I’m not super into technology, I’m kind of a Luddite.

Ria
That’s fair. There’s been a bit of a turnaround in the college scene, especially everyone wants to collect CDs and tapes now-

Jared
Really?

Ria
Yeah.

Jared
That’s awesome!

Ria
Yeah. There’s also just been a more scary side of things, where streaming companies have the power to take stuff away. And-

Jared
Yeah!

Ria
Lost media.

Jared
Yeah, lost media is like a real thing. I don’t play video games, but I have friends that do, and they’ve, like, mentioned that before. Like, you can just wipe stuff, and that is crazy. Like, everything could be wiped… Like, I used to have photo albums, and now I have all this stuff, like in a cloud. Like, what if that just disappeared? Like, all your pictures are gone. That used to be the thing… Like, when your house caught on fire, like, the first thing you did was, like, you grab, like, wedding photos and all that stuff. And I… The older I get, I start to see, like, a lot of technology as like, demonic.

Ria
You know what? You never know, it’s always good to be skeptical. One last question. I ask this to everyone we interview here at KCSU, are you familiar with the Golden Record?

Jared
The Golden Record? No… Is that the one that’s in space?

Ria
Yes, it is.

Jared
Yeah! Chuck Berry’s on that.

Ria
He is on there with “Johnny B. Goode”

Jared
Yeah.

Ria
If you could pick one song from any artist; could be yourself, could be anyone else, to go on the golden record for aliens to hear and be like, “This is how humans sound.”

Jared
Oh… That’s… Ria, that’s a tough one.

Ria
Take your time. Take your time. Yeah.

Jared
I mean, we’ve got Chuck Berry on there, and I believe a lot of the classics are on there. He’s the only, like, pop song that’s on there. I believe.

Ria
Yeah, they’ve got some stuff from around the world, and even some nature sounds on there.

Jared
Yeah, nature sounds all that, but he’s like, “the pop guy”. I mean that really for aliens… Like, the thing is, like, I feel like nature sounds and all the other stuff is really important. Like, the way they would view pop music like Chuck Berry would be the exact same as, like, what’s super different than him like as Abba or Tchaikovsky. Who’s to know they even have like… Like, rhythm wouldn’t be the same for aliens. That said, I don’t know, like, I think “54-46 That’s My Number” by Toots and the Maytals; that’s like a pretty across the board good, like, chill jam. I could see Chuck Berry being very abrasive. Like, you hear that, and it’s just gonna sound… Which I like, but we’ve been conditioned to like that. I don’t even like that choice as my song. I like, I like bird sounds like, that’s way cooler then Aliens aren’t going to be into like our music. Like your grandparents aren’t even into like your music.

Ria
Yeah, good point. And hey, the birds have their own songs, so…

Jared
Yeah. I think that’d be like a much better… That’s like better, but, yeah, the Golden Record. I haven’t thought about that thing in a while. I’m so glad that that’s floating out there.

Ria
Yeah, someone’s enjoying it, hopefully, maybe.

Jared
Hopefully.

Ria
Yeah.

Jared
Or maybe hopefully not. I don’t know.

Ria
Alright, well, anything else you guys want to promote?

Jared
No, we just got this record out, and then I’m going back home to work on my garden for a while.

Ria
What are you growing?

Jared
Right now I’m… Well, we’re, it’s end of season, so we’re doing, I’m turning my whole yard into flowers and wildflowers. So my girlfriend spent last week, because you wait till a lot of them are dead, and she collected the seeds for all the ones we like. And we’re going to resew those and make a bunch of more patches. I have a big lawn. I bought my place, like, a year ago, and we’re trying to get rid of all the lawn, just all flowers and pollinators. So it’s really just getting it ready for all the pollinators to sleep and then come out in the spring. Planting a lot of bulbs, maybe build a greenhouse over the winter.

Ria
Alright. Well, this has been a conversation with Jared of the Black Lips.

Jared
Thank you so much for talking to me.