This September, BAILEN celebrated album release day for SWIM!!!, the sibling trio’s third full-length and first fully independent release, with a WXPN Free At Noon show, something BAILEN bassist/vocalist Daniel Bailen and I realize during a recent chat has kind of become a tradition for the New York City folk band, also comprised of Julia and David Bailen (Daniel’s twin). The starting point of the 10-song collection was a near-death experience faced by Julia when her car was struck at 65 mph by an out-of-control vehicle. Apparently, even prior to impact, she thought, “If I survive this, I can’t quit the band.” Well, the Bailen sister began writing the album’s title track and lead single on a busted up guitar that very night… And since more a month before the album even dropped, on September 25th, BAILEN have been on the SWIM!!! At Your Own Risk Tour, and will already be making the tour’s second stop in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection on November 17th when they return to Johnny Brenda’s, a venue Daniel tells me the Bailens are quite the fans of.
Izzy Cihak: This September you dropped SWIM!!!, your third full-length. How do you feel like the album compares to Tired Hearts and Thrilled To Be Here? I know it was born out of a near-death experience, and I get the impression that that had a fairly significant impact on your approach to the album…
Daniel Bailen: That was an abrupt way of telling us life is short, and we can’t be beholden to anyone to decide what music to release and when we could do it. This record is our first independent release, and because of that it feels like our most honest representation of us. We only had ourselves and our instincts to listen to, and because of that we feel like this is the most raw and true presentation of us as artists. Julia wrote the beginning of SWIM!!! on the broken guitar after the accident, and it all felt like the beginning of a new chapter, of us jumping into the deep end together and trusting ourselves. A friend lent us some incredible vintage recording gear, and we recorded the bones of the album live and we did all the vocals together around a mic to capture the closest thing to what we do live. David engineered and mixed it too.
Izzy: Like you said, this is your first independent release. How was it doing it all on your own? What kind of an impact do you feel like that had on everything, whether the process, the album itself, or even all of the nuts and bolts of putting it out?
Daniel: Being independent is a lot more work but every win feels that much greater. It’s cliche to say that people root for the underdog, but it really feels like that. We’ve experienced people wanting to get involved and fans feeling more connected to the Bailen cause!
Dare I say we are now a band of the people!? The nuts and bolts of putting it out ourselves definitely comes with a learning curve, but the industry has an opening for more artist control both in the music and on the business side if you are willing to take that leap of faith and put the work in.
Izzy: Do you have a personal favorite album track, even if just for this very moment, maybe a track that’s proven most fun to play live or gotten the most meaningful reactions?
Daniel: We really love singing “Kansas Tornado.” We are always searching to write the perfect three-part harmony song that we can do around one mic completely acoustic and show you exactly who we are as a band, and this song feels like the one we always want to go to. Also, maybe it had something to do with flipping Kansas at the election? I’ll take a little credit, haha. But honestly all of the songs are so much fun to play live. I think that has to do with the fact that they were recorded live. Tired Hearts was a really cool record to make, but we made it during Covid so we couldn’t really workshop it on the road or play much of it live before the studio sessions. These songs we got to workshop on the road, and record live and it feels so good!
Izzy: Don’t take this question too seriously… But, I’ve noticed that a lot of artists have started having sartorial themes or lookbooks for tours, or even individual dates of tours, and it strikes me that your recent music videos for “Eve Babitz” (for obvious reasons) and “SWIM!!!” (which resembles the kind of angsty abandon of 90s alternative rock) would be perfect stylistic themes… Is that something that you would ever consider encouraging, whether related to those themes or anything else you hold dear?
Daniel: I love that idea! I mean maybe we should do a 90s theme tour. We love that idea and should totally lean into the aesthetic of our videos with show themes, good idea!
The music videos have been really fun. We were lucky enough to work with Danny Gurvitz and Zacc Bang on the “SWIM!!!” video, and they wanted to film everything on 16 millimeter. That film aesthetic really helped us capture that nostalgic 90s era. And we continued the theme on the “Eve Babitz” video working with the incredible Celine Sutter.
Izzy: You have a November run of live dates that includes a local stop here, but you have played a number of shows throughout August, September, and October. How did those shows go? What were some of the highlights or standout moments?
Daniel: The tour has been incredible so far, it never gets old hearing people sing along to new songs. We started playing dates with just a couple songs from the new album out, and so we started our first show in Seattle, playing songs no one had heard before. It was special to see people filming videos and sending to friends going to the next shows to listen to the new songs, so by the third and fourth show people knew words to the unreleased tunes already! A highlight for us was playing in Jackson, Wyoming, and playing some songs among the Teton mountains.
We also played an XPN Free At Noon session here in Philly, on our album release day. It was a packed house downstairs at the World Café, and I couldn’t think of a better place to be, when putting this new music out into the world.
Izzy: I’m so excited that you’re returning to Johnny Brenda’s! How do you like Johnny Brenda’s and playing barroom settings in general? You tend to play a pretty wide array of venue types.
Daniel: We love Johnny Brenda’s. I love the balcony that hangs over the stage to give you that intimate but also grand feel. We’ve only ever had great shows there. We love playing all types of venues, sometimes it’s a living room and sometimes it’s an amphitheater, and everything in between. We are just trying to connect with the people that came to hear us play, so wherever and whenever we can do that, we are there.
Izzy: What can be expected of the live show this time around? I haven’t seen you since the Tired Hearts album cycle. I actually saw you the day the album dropped and then about a year later, which is the last time we chatted…
Daniel: That’s right! Because we did a Free At Noon at XPN on Tired Hearts release day too! It’s a bit of a tradition at this point! We are holding nothing back on this record, really embracing our vocals as our north star, using looping and samples that we trigger live with the guitar trio set up. And keeping our intimate folk songs a focal point of the set.
Izzy: I actually spun “These Bones” (the original one) on the October/Halloween edition of Philthy Radio (I try to keep all of the songs at least vaguely Halloween-y.), so I’m curious if you have any memories of how that song came about, or even of performing it live? It was a setlist staple for a while.
Daniel: Thanks for spinning it! And I never thought of it as a Halloween song, but that makes perfect sense, it’s about “bones!” That song I wrote during the early days of Covid. We had so many people around us getting sick, and I wrote that song to share a little hope. That original version with solo bass came about because I couldn’t play with anybody of course, and I only had my bass. So that song became a solo bass and vocal song. I used harmonics and false harmonics to make it feel like I wasn’t alone, those harmonics feel like there is a Rhodes playing with the bass.
Izzy: Not to detract from your own music but, considering that 2026 is coming to an end, I’m curious if you’ve had any favorite music of the year?
Daniel: Michael Kiwanuka put out a new album that we love called Fudge.
Izzy: Finally, considering that you are a family band, and your dates wrap just prior to holiday season, I’m wondering what you have planned for this holiday season of 2026?
Daniel: We always have a big Friendsgiving the night before Thanksgiving which goes pretty hard!
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