in the studio right now, standing just to the right stage left of rocker.
Corey, welcome.
Well, thank you kindly.
How are you guys doing tonight?
Awesome.
And founding members Luke Jorgensen, Corey Swadley and Paul
Matt started working together back in 2010 to write and perform songs that
drew and built on their eclectical eclectic musical roots with the addition
of Audrey on bass, Jeremy on trombone and guitar and Michael on trumpet.
The Lord fifth has grown to become a band of powerhouse musicians, leaving it
all on stage with every performance.
And after the tragic loss of their leader in 2018, Luke Jorgensen, the band is
committed to carry on in his honor and uplifting message of hope and
togetherness that continues to resonate through their music today.
In the studio with us right now is guitarist and co founder Corey Swadley,
Corey, welcome back to Maxing Gradio.
Thank you, Karen, the rocker.
Rob, how are you, my friend?
I am doing so well.
Thank you so much.
Alrighty.
Now you were just telling me a little bit about that song.
We just heard the path and that was one of the first live albums ever
recorded at the up north.
Tell us about that song.
So the path, it was a tune that I wrote back in the day, you know, trying to
convince a lover that, hey, if you don't love me yet, you know, stick around.
And I'll show you the way the path.
Yep.
And then we ended up getting married and now we have two kids.
So hey, I love it.
You know, I think it's a, it was a story more to somebody else or maybe to
myself that you just got to stick with it and try to show somebody the way.
Now you were just telling me you took your kids to the EW basketball game today.
I sure did.
And dropped them off and you're juggling your kids with your wife.
Are they at home listening to the interview right now?
Absolutely.
They have to be.
They have to be.
Yes, they're hanging out with Popcorn and chocolate and soda.
I bet too.
Yeah, probably on the app, most likely on the app.
They're streaming.
Yes.
Well, Corey, how did you get started playing music?
I mean, what's your backstory before the Lord 5th?
So, wow, is this a way back machine or just a kind of back?
I like to find out, you know, how people got into music.
Well, my father plays music, my uncle plays music, you know, Steve Swadley, Dan Swadley,
they were, they were kind of my idols growing up.
My grandpa plays music, my great uncle played me.
So Swadley's there, they're just a bunch of musicians.
So that's what we did on weekends was we watched all of our uncles and aunts
and grandparents and moms and dads all get together and make music.
So for me, I was given instruments when I was five, six years old.
Before I could even play them, we just had them around.
And then once we were old enough to carry equipment, we were, we were rowdies.
And so like, yeah, I remember Wednesday nights when dad would come home at two in the
morning, middle of the school year, everybody'd wake up.
We'd go out and empty his van of equipment and, you know, and I, I didn't fear it.
Then I don't fear it now, man, the equipment's just a part of it.
But that's when I fell in love with it was seeing how much my dad enjoyed it and how much
it meant to him, just the, the opportunity for artistic, you know, expression,
expression. Thank you for that rocker.
Yes, it was just, it was just something fun to him and it's something fun to me.
I love sharing it with my kids now too.
You know, my daughter loves to sing.
My son loves to play drums.
They're six and 10 and they're just getting started with it.
I just started teaching my daughter ukulele and it's just, it's just always been a part
of me. And so I'm happy to still be doing it because it's not easy at this age,
you know, I'm what, 35 now?
Or I mean, 45 now.
Yeah, it's not easy to carry this torch, but I'm very happy to be doing it.
You know, wow, that is very cool.
Now what all instruments do you play?
I, well, I play guitar well.
Yes.
And as my, and I, I sing, which I think is a wonderful instrument, but as, as Luke
Jorgonson used to always tell me, they pay you to play guitar, not to sing.
He was the singer. He was always the singer.
No, I have drums.
I like to bang on some drums.
I think most guitars think they can play drums, but none of us actually can.
I have a piano at home, so I can noodle around in chords and stuff like that.
And I have a bass and I have, I've been in a band where I played bass before and I've
been in a bandjo and a eight-string lap steel and all that kind of fun stuff.
And I've done some recording with those instruments.
So being, being a left-handed guitar player, there's not, it's not always easy to pick something up,
but I've had to learn how to play a lot of instruments upside down.
So I, I, I, like drums.
Yes. Oh, man, trying to, trying to hold a drum beat with my right foot.
Just don't feel right.
Right.
It just doesn't feel right.
So I would say I dabble in a lot, but I'm very comfortable with a electric guitar.
And you play with a mascot theory as well.
Yes, I do. Yes.
Yeah.
You play with other groups.
Right now, it's lower fifth in the mascot theory.
Yeah.
That's probably enough, right?
That is, that is more than enough.
Hey.
That keeps you busy.
Oh, it certainly does.
Yeah.
Now, the lower fifth incorporates blues, rock, soul, country, even bluegrass.
Tell us about the lower fifth in your music.
So the lower fifth started off with Luke Jorgensen with just this wonderful writing style.
And he had this way of, he was a very generous person with his time and his talents.
And he brought people together to kind of anybody that wanted to record, but didn't really
have the, the ways and means to do it, he would do it for you for free.
And so he had, so this was early on in the, in the, on set of the lower fifth, he would
play shows, he would book shows with a full band.
And he wouldn't have the band until like the night or two before the gigs.
And so he called me up one day where mutual friends that were like, hey, you should really
meet this guy.
We chatted up and I got a call from him on like a, a Wednesday or Thursday.
And he's like, hey, we've, we've got a show Saturday, can you learn two hours of music?
And I'm like, yep.
So I did it.
Yeah.
And I told him that Sunday, I'm like, you don't ever have to call a guitarist again.
I was in, I was in the band.
I was hooked.
We all met that night, played a two hour show.
It was awesome.
Most of those members stuck around for maybe a year or so.
And so we kind of did the revolving door.
We had to, had a drummer or two.
We had a few different bass players.
But once Paul Metz joined the band, we were hooked to three of us.
And then once Audrey joined the band, we were hooked with the four of us.
And then once Jeremy came in, it was, it was, it was tight.
It felt really good.
And so I got my start just wanting to help Luke do what he was doing because he just had
this wonderful vision about music, but also this energy of just happiness and not, he
wasn't asking anything from music.
He just wanted to give things to music or use it to support others.
Now in 2018, your band leader Luke Jorgensen passed unexpectedly and the band committed
to carry on in his honor.
Now tell us about, you know, what Luke meant to the band and how the band was able to
continue.
Well, Luke, having devoted himself more than just to his band, but just to the Madison
music scene, he, there was kind of this emotional void and a lot of people felt it.
What, once he was gone, and we just kind of looked at each other and I was like, you
know, I don't feel right just handing Luke's lyrics in his songs to somebody else.
I was like, so I, but we all sit down.
We had a meeting.
I told the band, give me a year.
Let me sit down.
I will learn his songs.
I will learn how to sing them in my way and let's see if we can continue doing this because
we want to still give everybody this chance.
I was singing backing vocals and stuff, but lead vocals was not my, not my specialty.
And after that year, we were like, let's, let's keep doing this because we could see
that everybody still wanted what the lower fifth was giving was just this opportunity to
to celebrate and have hope in their lives.
And so we were carrying on carrying on with that message just in mind that we wanted to
keep everybody still having that opportunity to just get out, let loose and have fun.
What would you credit in your life to Luke and what he kind of inspired you?
So I think Luke was somebody that was very good at making music about more than himself.
And so I think that prior to his passing, I could see how much he was just selfless in
music.
And I think that was a great inspiration to a lot of us was how can you use music to help
people?
Whether he was organizing fundraisers for less fortunate people around Christmas or organizing
shows, bringing people in, finding ways to connect across city lines, state lines, wherever
it's bringing people together and if a band needs an opportunity, try to give it to them.
And I found that inspiring.
And so when I was kind of in this position where I'm like, what am I going to do now?
Always having been a very good sidekick to great songwriters.
It was kind of a challenge to kind of step in and be like, what can I do and how can
I bring people along and how can I carry his message?
Because it was quite a heavy burden, not burden, but I mean, he just had, he just had
a way.
He just did it look easy.
Well, he just he affected people, you know, in a really special way.
And so I saw that as a huge inspiration and I'm trying to do that.
And I'll never say that I'm trying to do what he did, but I'm trying to find my own
life in that and still give my lower fifth brothers and sisters and our family of, you
know, this, this musical community, give everybody the still that chance to feel hope and
togetherness and just to feel open and inclusive in music because it's, it's something everybody
should be able to do is just be happy with themselves.
What a great message.
Now the lower fifth has started work on a new album, spill the details when will this
be available?
Oh, my word.
We don't have any completion dates yet, but we have the foundation is there.
The songs are written.
We've been, some of them have been tested live.
Some of them haven't been yet, but we spend a lot of time playing live.
That's just our thing because that's, that's, that's where it feels the best.
And to try to capture that isn't always easy.
And but now we're, we're, we're to a point now where we all feel like we have the means
to do it with the technology we can have in our own home studios and things like that.
We're like, we don't really need to go anywhere.
We can just do this at home, let's just lay, lay the groundwork, have the template.
Like I'm sending the list of songs.
We're all rehearsing doing our things on our own and a song that feels good live.
It should be pretty easy to lay it down in a studio as long as you can capture it.
Right.
So that's kind of where we're at is worth going through the capturing process.
Now speaking alive, the lower fifth is performing this Thursday, February 27th at the
Burlkin Madison.
And again, at the Gamma Ray bar on April 10th, with the German art students, how do people
keep up with the lower fifth online?
Best way is through Facebook or Instagram.
Just follow us on there.
We dumped our website a while back because they just kept charging us fees.
And we're like, you know, social media stuff is pretty well free.
So following us there is, is probably the best way to keep up.
And when we're playing shows, we're always talking about our next one.
We're always talking about the current one.
So yeah, next and next Thursday's the next opportunity to catch us.
We've got low down brass band coming up from Chicago.
They're a wonderful band to play with.
So we'll be opening up for them.
If you've never seen them, you got to you got to check them out the burrow because such a cool venue.
Yeah.
And so that's that's our next site.
But yeah, just follow us on as follows on the socials.
And we'll we'll keep you informed.
Look, Corey Swadley of the lower fifth.
Thank you so much for coming down to chat with us tonight.
We really appreciate it.
We're happy to be here.
Now we're going to play a lower fifth song called Hope.
Tell us about this song before we hear it.
This was a song that was on our album that we released before Luke passed.
It was one of his siren songs.
It was the title track to our studio album that we released back in 2008, 17.
And we've still we continue to play it at almost every show because it just we want the music that Luke left us with
is like the last living bit of him.
Yeah.
And so we want to always celebrate that.
And this song means exactly that to us.
It's just this vibe that you we get from playing it.
So we recorded it again live at that live at the up the up north because the up north is kind of where it all started for us.
So this song just embodies the emotion that we that carries on from our dear brother Luke.
All right.
Let's hear it.
And this is the lower fifth hope you're listening to Maxine Gradio.
We are local music.
Thank you.
