Let's cut to the chase: Swervedriver is about as significant an iconic figure in the guitar rock world as any other nineties alternative group. With a home on Creation Records during the indie label's golden era (before Oasis's big success and big spending fucked it up for the smaller guys), singer-guitarist Adam Franklin and his bandmates enjoyed a cult-like fan base that still exists today, despite the uncertainty that surrounds the group's future. The band dissolved in 1999, following positive reaction to their 1998 album 99th Dream, which was released on the Zero Hour imprint after Geffen unceremoniously dumped them two weeks before the disc's release. A North American tour went ahead as planned and featured Canadian ambient-rockers Sianspheric as the opener for the Canadian dates, thereby forming a musical bond that has since developed.

Never one to give up, Franklin quickly developed a largely instrumental, soundtrack-inspired full-length album, which he released as Toshack Highway in 2000. Since then, however, the gifted guitarist (with that trademark vocal drawl) has found a way to conflate his songwriting approaches past and present. On a new double EP set that pits Toshack Highway against Sianspheric -- Toshack Highway vs. Sianspheric: Magnetic Morning /Aspirin Age (Sonic Unyon) -- Franklin rekindles the fuzzed-out spirit of his old band alongside a forward-searching acoustic style that fuses Fahey and Drake.

Speaking via phone from his new home in the United States, Franklin was excited to discuss this project, the prospect of an extensive Canadian tour, the important role Swervedriver continues to play in shaping his creative output and how it aids in opening doors.

Splendid: How long have you been in New Jersey?

Adam Franklin: Since November...

Splendid: Oh, so it's new? How are you finding it?

Adam Franklin: It's cool, I like it out here.

Splendid: What prompted your move to New Jersey?

Adam Franklin: (laughing) A woman.

Splendid: That's always good.

Adam Franklin: Well, you know, the long distance dating thing gets a bit tiresome after a while.

Splendid: So it's a long-term thing?

Adam Franklin: Yeah, I guess so -- it's been three years or something now. But for a long time we were going back and forth between the UK and the US, and it wears you down. And also, people start questioning why you're spending so much time in another country. Coming into immigration and stuff, you know -- "What's the nature of your business here?" And basically I got a warning, with people starting to get dubious about that stuff.

Splendid: Getting back to the business at hand... What got the idea of the split album with Sian off the ground, and what elements ensured that it worked?

Adam Franklin: Really, they just contacted me and said "Are you interested in putting out a split?". We had toured together a few years ago -- and had a really good time and everything -- and at that point I was thinking about getting another release out and I wasn't quite sure which angle to take, whether to put out a full-length album with somebody or to keep on releasing (the songs that were already completed). And in the end I thought, "Why not?". It's got a different angle because it's different territory in a way. (Swervedriver) had a good time playing in Canada so it's quite nice to be doing a "Canadian" release (on a Canadian label). It all seemed like a good idea and I quite liked the idea of the "versus" -- like the old dub albums.

Splendid: Is the new collection of songs indicative of what you've been doing lately? It's another step away from the first Toshack Highway album, with its soundtrack-y instrumentalism...

Adam Franklin: It's very different from that first thing. Part of the reason for just getting the things out is to keep up with changing styles, really. For a while I was thinking about doing a totally acoustic album -- sort of country or folky. And I guess maybe three or four of the songs on this new release have an acoustic base. But since then I've already moved on again. I've been playing in New York with a drummer, with a bass player on a few occasions, really trying to develop a band feel. And that's more like a power trio almost, so in some ways the songs on the new release aren't quite up to date.

Splendid: In a lot of ways the moniker simply represents whatever you're working on at the time...

Adam Franklin: The moniker has become a sort of bane, actually... I think the fact that it's "Toshack Highway" and that first album came out very sort of electronic and spacy -- quite a departure from anything I had done before. And there is still a bunch of songs from that time that we didn't get to record, almost the same amount again of that kind of Ennio Morricone-type, instrumental-y, keyboard-y soundscape thing. And I think in some ways Toshack Highway really represented that style. Then I did the four-track EP (a limited edition collection of four-track demos available from Space Baby), and literally as we were locking up the album, my roommate and I were like, "Alright, what name is it going to be?", having suggested it should maybe be "Adam Franklin" since it was essentially just me on those recordings. And I thought, "Well, let's go with Toshack Highway and keep the name out of it." And even then, maybe the next one shouldn't be Toshack Highway just because that one was. But when the versus idea came up, it just seemed strange to have "Adam Franklin versus Sianspheric" -- I'd be outnumbered: one to four. So I'll keep the name for a while since it seems to represent what I do. We'll see...

Splendid: So it's fair to say that you see a stronger connection between what you're writing now and the Swervedriver material, than the period of the first Toshack Highway album?

Adam Franklin: Quite definitely, and in fact "Magnetic Morning" could almost be a Swervedriver tune. I think at the time of the orange album (the self-titled debut) it was really a question of wanting to do something totally different and get away, not step on Swervedriver territory. There are songs on the orange album that might well have ended up being Swervedriver songs at the time. I had recorded the demos and handed them to the other guys in the band and said, "Is there any way this stuff can be Swervedriver?" It did have keyboards and stuff and was very much instrumental, but in the end we thought it sounded like a different project and it was agreed the band needed a break anyway. So that was a good thing, because I think it meant that the Toshack Highway album moved even further away. On certain songs I just decided not to have electric guitars at all, and other songs had electronic bass and drums.

Splendid: Do you think your influences are changing as the styles you explore shift, or do your influences stay at home?

Adam Franklin: The things you listen to change, but I think in the end everyone has their own style in a way. I can say definitely at the time of the orange album I was into a lot of electronic music -- Autechre, Boards of Canada, Broadcast. I guess I've always been into soundtrack-y stuff, and Ennio Morricone started to creep into Swervedriver tracks as well. It's expanded a bit more, perhaps, on the Toshack Highway album. But now, "The Streets That Spin Off", for example, comes from Guided By Voices or something, so in some ways maybe I'm getting back into playing electric guitar again.

Splendid: There seems to be a consistency in your lyrical style -- would you agree with that?

Adam Franklin: Yeah, I think lyrically I'm probably not influenced very much by books or whatever. With lyrics, I think you kind of write what comes out, in a way. Sometimes the lyrics come from the tune; putting it down on the four-track to demo, you sing whatever comes to your head and maybe that stays. Sometimes you may listen to it and keep the sound but change the timing or the words. There are some lyrics that I'll spend six months on, and in the end go back and change it around or whatever. But yes, lyrically I see myself remaining quite consistent.

Splendid: Do you recognize your influence (and Swervedriver's influence) on other artists? Sianspheric is an obvious example, but do you have that kind of distance from your own work that you can recognize it?

Adam Franklin: There seems to be currency that's still alive, as it were, with Swervedriver: every now and then you hear bands that either sound like Swervedriver or you meet people in bands who really like the group. It's difficult, really. There was a Doves song I remember from their first album a few years ago, and literally twenty-five people came up to me and said, "Have you heard that song? It sounds just like you guys." But ironically, when I first heard the Doves album it was my least favourite track. (laughs) Read into that what you will.

Splendid: Is Swervedriver still on a hiatus? How would you describe the band's status?

Adam Franklin: Well... that's a funny one, really. You may not be surprised to hear that I've gotten kind of fond of Swervedriver, what the name represents and what the band represents. There's that song "Never Lose That Feeling", and that still rings true -- you walk out your front door and you suddenly get this feeling that we all had, that passion for the band. When the band sort of finished... it was the right time for it to finish. But whether it should actually finish is another question. When I think about it, 1989 was a more enjoyable year than 1999. During that year there were a lot of crappy situations and we all got a bit burned out on it really, but the band never said anything about it. (laughing) It was kind of like the car got pulled up on the shoulder but no one went back to the gas station to fill up the cannister.

Splendid: But you're still in touch with the guys?

Adam Franklin: Oh yeah. Things are mentioned from time to time, and situations change, but everyone is living in different places now.

Splendid: With the new Toshack Highway album, and the chance to tour rather extensively, does it feel like the right time to extend the Swervedriver "pause" and run with the current project?

Adam Franklin: Yeah, I feel like I've been feeling around for various styles for a while since that first album came out. And I think all of these sonic territories that Swervedriver would not have inhabited have allowed me to branch out a little bit. The next thing I really want to do is a full-length album of the songs that I've got knocking around. It's been a while since I've worked on a full-length release.

Splendid: Who is part of the new band on this tour?

Adam Franklin: Toshack Highway actually toured behind that first album in the United States and parts of Europe. Jeff Townsin, who played drums on the album and this new EP, played drums,, and my friend Will played keyboards. The bass position changed -- one for the States and one for Europe. And then this new EP is once again Charlie (Francis; producer/engineer -- High Llamas, Swervedriver, Palace Songs, Minus Five) and Jeff, which in some ways makes it more Toshack Highway. But Jeff is back home in London, so I've been playing with Ron Lowder and working out new songs. We're playing quite a cross-section of stuff, with some Swervedriver re-workings. And we're going to attempt some of the songs from the Toshack Highway album as a two piece -- it just seems to work as a two piece. It's a strange thing, but I guess nowadays you're getting bands that do without a bass part.

Splendid: You've been very active over the last few years with solo performances and one-off showcases, but you haven't had a chance to tour extensively. Are you excited at the prospect of setting out on the road in support of the split EP?

Adam Franklin: Yes, very excited. I get thinking about it and I realize it's the first time I've played shows on the run since the end of 2000. We did three weeks of the Toshack Highway band in the US, and then another three or four in Europe. I'm really looking forward to it, actually, and I think it seems like a good package. I'm friends with all of those guys in All Systems Go (part of the package tour featuring Sianspheric) and I think it will be a lot of fun. I'm also pleased that it's not just me, because it's been just me since that last Toshack Highway tour. Partly due to the situation: I was coming over to the US and just thinking "Well I'm out here, so I should probably validate being here by actually going out and playing some shows." So I started doing the solo acoustic thing, which is good fun, but initially it's quite daunting being out on stage on your own. I've always tried to introduce new elements to the Swervedriver songs and do them in a different style -- not just play the chords and sing the words. That was quite liberating. I was just going up and down the east coast on the Amtrak trains with my guitar and it was great -- getting the train up to Philadelphia and DC and staying with friends, and then going down to Boston or whatever. We did a few gigs in the Midwest and then flew out to the West coast, but I think there is only so much you can do with the acoustic thing; it was time to at least get electric again. (Laughs) Just standing up again meant I had to go out and buy a guitar strap. Playing with Ron had been great since he's so intuitive, and it's quite strange playing with only two people, but it really works.

Splendid: You mentioned 1989, and I wonder whether or not it's very much a different time and a different place right now -- or does some of that energy and some of the spirit find it's way into what you're doing presently?

Adam Franklin: It's definitely a different time and place from 1998, which was the low point, spirit-wise. I think the chance to recharge the batteries has been a really good thing. Historically, bands aren't really meant to last that long, anyway -- look at The Beatles and The Smiths. Both of those bands existed for an incredibly short amount of time. And then there's Fleetwood Mac, who reappear every few years. (laughs)

Splendid: Swervedriver was always identified as being an un-British band during that early-nineties Anglophilia boom -- but when you guys toured North America, it was never a matter of seeing one show, but rather travelling to see three or four shows. I was speaking with Neil Halstead (Mojave 3; ex-Slowdive) around this time last year and I asked him about being a part of something that has been so historicized and mythologized, namely the Creation Records era. We discussed his excitement about the thought that Slowdive fans have been willing to go with him wherever he explores, in terms of styles and sounds. I think the same could be said of Swervedriver's relationship to Toshack Highway, specifically with regards to this new EP.

Adam Franklin: Yeah, there has been a whole fan base, as it were, that is still there. There's a number of them who have followed me and checked out what I've done since. You hear the name of some band from ten years ago that you totally forgot about coming back, and I guess you realize some things do have a longer currency. Swervedriver still seems pretty contemporary. The thing about Swervedriver is, to me, it's more than a band. (Embarrassed) It was a very fun band to write songs for because it all just sort fell into place... there was a sort of ideology there, and imagery. I think a lot of songs came almost from dreaming up that kind of imagery. All the lyrics about driving and stuff, I guess people really got into that whole thing.

Splendid: Does the choice of Swervedriver material that appears on Toshack Highway releases -- "The Hitcher" on the Everyday Rock'n Roll Is Saving My Life EP and "The Sounds and the Times" on the new one -- indicate the areas of the Swervedriver catalogue you're most interested in re-examining? Or were those the songs that sat best with the acoustic style you were exploring?

Adam Franklin: The latter, definitely. There are a lot of Swervedriver songs that I love that I would never attempt to play live, and there's a bunch of other ones that I kind of just remember having core sections of good words or whatever. I was quite surprised when I started playing around with "The Hitcher" -- it was quite a good little tune, but it was one of the songs that was tucked away at the back, as it were. I changed the key and did it picking-style, and it seemed to make sense. Likewise with "The Sounds of the Times" -- I'd forgotten that verse section. There are a whole bunch of songs that aren't worth me doing live, like "Sandblasted" or "Duel". (laughs) Most of the singles, really. "Last Train to Satansville", however, lent itself to a kind of country rendition.

Splendid: Which are some of the other songs you think you might pull out with Toshack Highway live?

Adam Franklin: Well, actually, I've tended to do things that Swervedriver never played live: "The Hitcher" was never done live; "Flaming Heart", which was hidden away at the end of Ejector Seat Reservation -- the kind of Stones-y tune -- has appeared on occasion. (Adam rummages through piles of bootleg Swervedriver and Toshack Highway live recordings that he has asked fans to mail him) "93 Million Miles From the Sun", which is basically the words from "Harry and Maggie" (from Mezcal Head). "99th Dream", which I've been doing picking-style -- which may sound kind of ridiculous and probably is. "Sci-Flyer" (from Raise), which has just got a good verse, really. That's another where I've taken out all the long, heavy intros and just concentrated on the words and the core sections of the verses.

Splendid: Do you think, as the tour goes on, that you'll fall into an established set? Or are you willing to play around with things?

Adam Franklin: I want to play around with things. I think that's the thing that makes it fun, really. I remember touring with bands that we supported in the early days, that would get on stage and after the third song say, "How you doing?" and then they tell a joke -- and the next night they do the same set. That always astonished us. One of our proudest achievements was at The Metro in Sydney, Australia -- quite a reasonably sized venue. We had sold out both nights and we realized what we had to do was perform an entirely different set each night. We managed to do a really cool set each night without repeating any songs, so anyone who was there both those nights certainly got their money's worth. There is also the possibility on the Toshack Highway tour that some of the guys from the other bands might step in and do bits and pieces. I think we're going to approach it really laid back and see what develops and have a good time with it. But there is certainly room for it here and there.

Splendid: Do the guys in Sian and All Systems Go do a good job of keeping a lid on their Swervedriver fanaticism? Do they behave themselves?

Adam Franklin: (laughs) I'm amazed that so many people do seem to be really into the band. I just did a spate of shows over here that started in New York with Jack Rabid's The Big Takeover magazine. He plays drums in a band and they were having a Christmas party, and he asked if I wanted to do a solo set. So Jack said, "Actually, my band is playing and we know a few Swervedriver tunes. If you were up for it we could do three or four tunes at the end." And I thought, "Well, it's only a party, what hard could it do?" I went to one rehearsal and they were already rocking through "Rave Down". (laughs) People went a bit crazy for it at the party. So when All Systems Go asked me to play with them in LA, they said the same thing about playing Swervedriver tunes. Then Lift To Experience asked me to do it in Texas... so now the joke is that I've become this Chuck Berry figure who has a pick-up band in every state. (laughs)

Splendid: So what are your thoughts on Sian's Aspirin Age, and what do you think of the battle you've gotten yourself into?

Adam Franklin: (laughs) I think it's great -- it's probably my favourite stuff of theirs. The "versus" thing ended up having the right effect on the project. Since we were aware there was going to be another disc, all of us discussed the sounds of the bands. I wasn't really sure what I was going to be doing at first, apart from the acoustic stuff, and Sianspheric are far from an acoustic band, but they said they had a couple of tunes that were acoustic-based, and that they would attempt to approach things from that side. Likewise, maybe that's why I brought in "The Streets That Spin Off", since that's a heavier tune that complements their heavier tunes. I think the whole running order works really well. It doesn't matter which order you play the discs, since the Toshack Highway side starts off heavier and then gets more acoustic, while the Sian side starts off acoustic and then gets heavier. I especially love the second song, "Beneath the Ocean Floor" -- the drums just sound great; really deep, deep drums.

Splendid: Did you smile when you first heard "This All Happened", with its decidedly Swervedriver sound?

Adam Franklin: I suppose it did, yeah. They emailed me and said, "Look, we've got this song and it really does sound like Swervedriver and we're not one-hundred percent sure we should put it on there." And I assured them that it couldn't sound that much like Swervedriver -- it's a different band with numerous different elements at work. But I do love that tune... it's great... actually reminds a bit of "And Your Bird Can Sing" from The Beatles.