COI014: A jackknife to a swan
And he was gone
“Completed the new Head Automatica album ‘Swan Damage’ this morning. Mixing next week. BANG.”
That comment, tweeted and since deleted by Daryl Palumbo, was issued more than a decade ago, on May 27, 2009. If you’ve been counting, that’s 3,715 days with no substantive update on Head Automatica’s third album. So what the hell happened?
Head Automatica was always an unusual project. At the time of their first release, 2004’s Decadence, the band was sold to the press as the duo Palumbo (well-known in heavy music at the time as the singer from Glassjaw) and Dan The Automator, the forward-thinking producer who had helped shape albums by Gorillaz, Primal Scream and others. The album was full of grimy beats and new-wave synths, the kind of songs that could fill a dancefloor as well as set off some sing-alongs. Tim Armstrong contributed a guest verse. It was a glorious sonic mish-mash that did a hell of a job selling New York City nightlife to kids who spent their summers in parking lots watching screamo bands.
Dan The Automator left the project on the eve of Decadence’s release, which did nothing to slow the band down. Less than two years later, Head Automatica – now a road-tested quintet — delivered Popaganda, an album that Palumbo openly admitted was a love letter to ’70s pub rock like Elvis Costello, Squeeze and Nick Lowe. The songs were slick, retro-leaning pop-rock loaded with earworms, and the band played the hell out of ’em. Head Automatica landed on the cover of Alternative Press at the peak of the emo-pop boom, coincidentally ending up being the biggest issue in the magazine’s history at a whopping 248 pages.
The stage was set. Head Automatica had made a name for themselves, and Daryl Palumbo had proved himself as more than just a hardcore kid with a great record collection — he had a creative vision and he was going to pursue it. With the support of his manager, John Oakes, Palumbo began a journey to create Swan Damage that started in the fall of 2007 and continued for nearly two years, multiple producers and a slew of recording studios on both coasts.
“The idea was to rent a house in Long Island,” recalls drummer Sammy Siegler, who joined Head Automatica during the Popaganda touring cycle. “Some of the guys could live there, write, do pre-production, and ultimately build a studio and make a record at the house… but [it] never really happened.”
Siegler, alongside guitarist Craig Bonich and keyboardist Jesse Nelson, would drive out from New York City daily for sessions with Palumbo and bassist Jarvis Holden, who both lived at the house. But Swan Damage’s producer Jason Lader wasn’t into the idea, so sessions eventually relocated to New York City and Los Angeles.
“I don’t remember a lot about those sessions,” admits Lader, an in-demand producer, engineer and mixer who has spent the past decade working with everyone from Lady Gaga and Ed Sheeran to Portugal. The Man and the Avett Brothers, pairing up with Rick Rubin multiple times along the way. It’s no surprise his memory is a little foggy.
“This is the first time I’ve been asked about [Swan Damage] in a long time,” Lader continues. “Have you ever heard any of the tracks? They were fun. I remember having a great time recording. I liked Daryl a lot. All the guys were great. We had a great time working together. This makes me want to find the hard drive and pull the songs up.”
Lader’s assistant engineer at the time, Frank Charlton, also had positive memories of the sessions.
“I really didn't know Head Automatica or Glassjaw at all, but the record seemed pretty cool and definitely dance heavy,” Charlton recalls. “At the time it reminded me of the Killers. It felt very cool and dance clubby. The guys were really nice and ended up drinking beer at my apartment at least once. At the time I was really into making homebrew beer, and Jarvis wanted me to make him a cerveza-style beer so I mocked up a label.”
The feelings were mutual from the band’s side. Siegler and Lader were old friends from school, and the drummer had previously brought him into the ever-tangled Long Island scene, where he produced albums by Nightmare Of You and Men, Women & Children a few years prior. The Swan Damage sessions stayed positive and productive, with Palumbo’s tireless work ethic pushing everything forward.
“There were a few songs we worked on that were written before I was in the band, but for me it seemed like five or so months of writing and recording,” Siegler says. “I think Daryl was excited about the live element, the vibe we had as a band in that basement — a sort of live, heavy, funky thing — but was also really interested in a programmed dance thing, so that might have been a hurdle. I think Head Automatica has always done a good job of existing in both the programmed and live spaces, I think with Swan Damage he and we were trying to find that sweet spot where it could all live together.”
Palumbo turned to production duo the Brothers to assist in these more electronic-based songs, scheduling a Brooklyn recording session in between the sessions with Lader to flesh the record out, which added some unintended stress on some band members.
“There was a bit of frustration around some of the changing of direction — is it going to be like this or like that, working with this person or that person — but that’s all really part of the process,” says Siegler. “Sometimes you need to go down those roads, as frustrating as it might be.”
A month after Palumbo announced the record was moving onto the mixing phase, his manager John Oakes announced it was complete and booked the band a handful of shows in July 2009 to celebrate — only the celebration turned into a memorial service, as word came down from Warner Bros. that Swan Damage was not going to be released. The band effectively was stopped dead in its tracks, only playing a handful of shows in the years since and undergoing multiple member changes, most notably Holden being replaced by Richard Penzone of Men, Women & Children in 2010.
Here we are, 3,715 days later, and the world has yet to hear a recorded note of Swan Damage. Why not?
“I really didn’t have any insight to those conversations,” Siegler says. “I’m assuming they wanted some magical ‘guaranteed hit’ or something, but I’m not too sure. I’ve had scenarios where labels would do the right thing and give the artist the album back if [the label] didn’t want to release it. You would think WB would take the high road and do that, but again, I wasn’t really involved in those conversations.”
“I remember really enjoying [Swan Damage],” Lader comments, “and being really upset it didn’t see the light of day.”
Multiple requests to Warner Bros. for comment on the status of this album have gone unanswered. So will Swan Damage ever come out? Will Head Automatica ever play again?
“I hope so,” says Siegler, who is currently busy with his new hardcore band Constant Elevation (also featuring Vinnie Caruana of the Movielife). “I feel like out of all the tracks we recorded, there could be a really solid 10-song release. I still stay in touch with those guys, so a new recording and shows would be dope. Let’s do it.”
The story doesn’t end here, however: I was lucky enough to get Daryl Palumbo to agree to an interview about Swan Damage. He goes incredibly in-depth on the story behind the album’s creation and subsequent shelving, along with plenty more never-before-known tidbits. Make sure to subscribe to Colors Of Insomnia now, as the next installment of this newsletter will be that interview in its entirety.
Today’s subject line is a lyric from the song “A Jackknife To A Swan” by the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, because how many other songs do you know that reference swans? Listen to the song below, and if you dig it, you can buy the record it’s from on Amazon (and by clicking that link, there’s a chance I may make a few cents):
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