Mick Attardo took the time to sit down with Top Shelf Music and talk about his new reggae rock project, South Swell Syndicate, via Long Beach, California.
Mick, no stranger to the music scene, has recently come back to bring reggae rock — on his terms.
And, let me tell ya, his music speaks for itself. Here’s what Mick had to say about his journey thus far, the reasons behind his hiatus, and what’s to come.
How did South Swell Syndicate come to fruition?
- MA: It was really just like a kind of therapy for me to deal with the loss of my brother last January. I’ve had these songs in my head for years and I honestly gave up playing music like five years ago… but after he died, I started playing around on the guitar again and one of my friends overheard me and suggested I go into a studio to record them, so I called up Lewis Richards at 17th St. Recording Studio and, two days later, I was in the studio recording.
How did music first come into your life?
- Music was in my life since birth. I know a lot of kids don’t listen to music now, which is sad. They are all caught up in video games and Tiktok or whatever… their parents never showed them what was up, so they are totally disconnected and disinterested.
- I was fortunate that my dad was always listening to classic and contemporary rock in the truck driving around in the late 80s early 90s, so I got exposed to a lot of music subconsciously early on. He would also play that Bob Marley Legend CD on Sundays while doing chores around the apartment, so I got into reggae super early as well from that. I remember singing “Buffalo Soldier” as a kid, having no idea what it meant, but I loved it. It was such a happy uplifting vibe that I feel really transported me away from my chaotic trauma-filled childhood. My grandfather also played trumpet and I remember whenever we were driving around in his Fleetwood Cadillac or when he was watching me at his house, he always had on the local college jazz and blues radio station KJazz, so I got exposed to all that as well when I was super young.
- I think when I got into middle school, that’s when I decided I wanted to be a rock star. Like I was dead set on it for some reason… that sounds hilarious now, thinking back. That’s also about the time I first got into Sublime; it was like right around the time when Bradley died, so there was this weird lore about it around school… Kids not really knowing the full story would gossip about this singer from our hometown who died right before he got to make it big and I just remember relating it to a Greek tragedy, which to me made the music even more special and magical to me.
- I grew up super poor… like, no joke, I always had anxiety about the water or electricity getting shut off because my dad could barely afford to pay the bills on time working as a single father of two, so I was always hesitant to ask him to buy me anything for fear of him saying ‘no’, but when I was 15, I finally asked him to buy me a guitar and we went down to Guitar Center and got a mexi strat and it just took off from there. I would play along to CDs and the radio and print out guitar tablature from the Internet and just play all the time. It was a great escape from my depression as a kid.
- At school, I told my friend Brett (who played drums) that I just got this guitar and he said he had a drum set, so we started a little band in his grandma’s back pool house down the street from where I lived. We got his neighbor George to play bass. He had a guitar amp and I had a bass amp and, after a few sessions of trying to figure out why our instruments sounded weird, we did a little trade and we were both like ‘Ahhhhhaaaaa!’ We didn’t have a singer, so they peer-pressured me into it and it just went from there. We started playing high school parties and I just fell in love with it. I knew that was what I was gonna do when I grew up.
Tell us about your old band, RedEye Redemption…
- I formed [RedEye Redemption] and I was doing it full-time for years, but it just never seemed to catch on. I got really frustrated, so I quit playing music. It wasn’t the right group of guys. Everyone had different opinions on what they wanted to do and no one really shared my vision, so I just ended it abruptly one day and I started focusing on my career doing insurance. The music is still on Spotify, if anyone wants to hear it. A lot of these South Swell songs I wrote at that time, but we just never recorded them.
Switching to a name like ‘South Swell’, it sounds like surfing plays a role in your life?
- Yeah, I’ve been surfing off and on since around the time I started playing guitar. But when I turned 30, I decided to really get into it and try to get good [at it]. It’s been a very transformative and humbling experience. It does so much for you: keeps you fit, teaches you discipline and good habits, like getting up early, learning about different breaks and places in the world, and makes you motivated to travel more. I drive down to Baja all the time now and I’ve been to so many awesome places all over the world I never would have thought to travel to before, just to surf. I love it. But don’t try it, surfing sucks! [Laughs]
How does it feel making music again?
- It’s really weird, honestly. I’m still not totally 100% about it, because I don’t like the ‘look at me’ factor of being a musician. I like my privacy. With social media now, everybody wants attention and it’s creating a lot of narcissism in society; I don’t want to become one of those types of people or be viewed as one. Part of me wants to be anonymous like Daft Punk and just wear a mask, so no one knows who I am in real life. [Laughs]
- I really love making people happy, though, at the end of the day and if I can do that through my music, I know that’s a really special thing and I’m grateful for it. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
Are you working towards an album at this time?
- [We just started] recording and plan to be finished by May to set up a summer release. Expect a lot more variety of sound on the full record.
Have you found bandmates?
- Nope, [I’m] still on my own. Hopefully I find the right guys, but if I don’t, I can just use the studio guys at 17th Street again. My goal is to find like-minded guys who also surf, so we can go on trips together to surf and play shows for little beach communities all over the world.
Well, we love your sound. Can you tell us about the inspiration behind the song “It’s Alright”?
- I wrote that song for my friend Sophia before she passed away in a car accident in 2017 in Hawaii. She was a really close friend and an amazing surfer. It became a tribute to her and also to women’s surfing, but I didn’t intend for it to come out that way in the beginning. It was just like a spur-of-the-moment thing, sitting in my room chatting with her when I came up with the hook. I didn’t finish it until after she died, so my perspective on the lyrics radically changed from what I originally intended it to be.
“On The Low” is so chill and breathtaking. Sounds like the writing pours out of you…
- As I mentioned before, these first four [singles] are all old songs I wrote when I was in RedEye. I changed some of the lyrics here and there in the studio, but like 95% of each song was already written years ago. I’ve been writing a lot of new stuff that will be on the upcoming record, but I have some other old songs I never recorded that will also be there, too. It’s gonna be an interesting mixture, but I think it will work out and make a cohesive record.
Do you have any touring plans or collab ideas for 2025?
- I really like DENM and The Elovaters right now. I would like to do some collabs with them in the future, if they are into it. My goal is to get on the California Roots Festival and all those summer reggae festivals in 2025. It seems like a fun party and I know my songs would fit right in.
What bands or artists have inspired or continue to inspire you?
- So many. Everything from Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, and all that classic rock stuff to 90s rock like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Sublime, classic reggae like Toots and Bob, Joe Higgs, etc. to funk like James Brown and Curtis Mayfield, R&B, golden era hip hop… I’m particularly inspired by Nate Dogg’s melodies… just everything, man. I love music. It’s like free therapy.
In the studio now, we are looking forward to another touching base with this exciting new project once the album is released in early summer! Stay tuned and, in the meantime, check out South Swell Syndicate below!
South Swell Syndicate – “It’s Alright”
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