Some bands spend their later years trying to recreate the past. The Sway have taken a different approach. Nearly four decades after forming in North London, the four original members are still making music, but they are no longer concerned with proving what the band could have become. Instead, they are enjoying what The Sway has always meant to them: friendship, creativity, family and the freedom to make music on their own terms.
That spirit comes through in “Feasting 2026 (HK Mix),” a striking new interpretation of “Feasting on my friends,” originally recorded in London in 1992. The darker early Sway song has been transformed by Harry Kook into an energetic EDM track built for the dancefloor. For Paul, bass player and founding member, the change was initially difficult to process. After a few listens and some minor tweaks, however, he began hearing it as a completely new track rather than simply a remix of something familiar.
The collaboration also represents an interesting meeting between generations. Harry Kook, the son of Sway guitarist Jim Kook, brings a completely different musical vocabulary to material created decades before his own career began. Rather than protecting their original recordings, The Sway have embraced the reinterpretation, allowing their catalogue to reach new audiences while discovering new possibilities within songs they thought they already knew.
In this interview, Paul reflects on “Feasting 2026,” the band’s early years, their experience during the Britpop era, the split that followed and the comeback that eventually brought all four original members back together. He also discusses the lifelong friendships that have kept The Sway connected, their decision to revisit old songs alongside new material, and why getting older has given the band more freedom rather than less.
With new music planned for 2027, The Sway are still looking forward. Their story may have begun decades ago, but as Paul makes clear, you never really leave The Sway.
“Feasting 2026 (HK Mix)” takes a song that originally came from The Sway’s earliest days and completely changes its musical identity. When you first heard what Harry Kook had done with “Feasting on my friends,” what was your immediate reaction to hearing something so familiar become something you could almost experience as a completely new song?
Not going to lie, I was was a world of confusion 😂. It sounded too fast too me, almost comical but I was too close to the original, I suppose. The rest of the boys were really happy with it on first listen but a couple more listens for me and we sent Harry a request for a couple of minor tweaks and he nailed it. I can now appreciate it a a track in its own right and to a man, we love it!
The original “Feasting on my friends” was recorded in London in 1992 with Mongerman and carried the darker, moodier character of the band’s early indie sound. What do you hear in the original recording today that still feels connected to who The Sway were then, and what do you hear that belongs specifically to the people you have become now?
In 1992 Feasting On My Friends lyrics were written by David, our singer and guitarist, whilst he was experimenting with vegetarianism and the words reflect his strong feelings at the time. We, as a band, have always been good at writing music to showcase David’s words and our knack of a good hook and melody, keep even our darkest and heavy songs, just on the right side of light. The original song still holds up as an anthem and lyrically can be interpreted as the listener wishes. And ode to the little, delicious baby lambs or a warning not to take your human friends for granted. That’s the beautiful thing about art. Take what you want from it.
Harry Kook was given complete creative freedom after his remix of “The Grief,” and this time he transformed the track into a full-on EDM floor-filler. How important was it for the band to resist the temptation to protect the original arrangement and instead allow someone from a younger generation to completely reinterpret your work?
Harry Kook did a great job with his first foray into The Sway. There has been a lotta love fir his interpretation of ‘The Grief’. The brilliant thing about ‘Feasting 2026’ is it was probably the last track I expected him to work on. A genuine surprise and after a few plays, a happy one! We have become far less precious about our work as we’ve gotten older. Harry has breathed new life into a couple of tracks, we enjoy his results and it these form some sort of breadcrumb trail to the bands wider catalogue, then that’s a bonus.
There is something particularly interesting about the fact that Harry is Jim Kook’s son. How does hearing someone from the next generation take material that you created decades ago and reinterpret it through an entirely different musical vocabulary affect the way you think about The Sway’s legacy?
Harry is forging a career in music. We know how hard that is from experience, so anything between us that is mutually beneficial, is a great thing. Harry is, like his old man, a very creative and talented boy but is opting for a role on the other side of the desk. He’s hustling and he’s making waves. He’ll go far. Jim keeps out of it, when it comes to instructions. You know what kids are like when Dad thinks he knows best. We are all Dad’s to grown up children now and all of them are headstrong and Independent. Harry and I have struck up a rapport whereby I can communicate any requests as a paying punter, rather than as Dad’s mate be a pain in the arse! 🤣. Harry knows his stuff and is learning more all the time. Musically, we are not his cup of tea but he excels at tuning us to a different audience, whilst also converting many older fans to his work. The Sway have the ultimate say and to date, Harry’s work only broadens our legacy and for that we are thankful.
The fact that the same words and hooks can survive such a dramatic change in tempo, production and atmosphere says something interesting about the songwriting underneath the original recording. Did working on this remix make you hear “Feasting on my friends” differently as a piece of songwriting, rather than simply as an early Sway recording?
Feasting 2026 simply takes me someplace else. An early 90s rave. I think the lyrics in this version are less important than in the original. The objective is now to move your feet rather than contemplate the deeper meaning of the words. Play the original when you are coming down 😉.
The Sway’s history has involved several endings and new beginnings, from the early 90s period and UK tours to the 2008 comeback, “When Worlds Collide” in 2011, and eventually the renewed momentum that began with “Songs For Then & Now.” What has kept the connection between the four original members alive through all those periods when The Sway was no longer an active band?
David and I have been friends since we were pre-schoolers 50 years ago. He has been a constant in my life and he’s my brother. And we’ve been friends with Sean (Drums) and Jim (Guitars) for over 35 years and we are family. We’ve had our ups and downs but bonds have proved unbreakable, despite some truly turbulent times. The Sway is no longer our career. We were lucky that it was during those amazing years in the early 90s but it remains what we were born to do. We are still at it, all 4 original members and we just have the best time on the limited occasions we get together. We have a saying, ‘you never leave The Sway’. Nothing sinister, it’s just we neve have.
Releasing “Twice In A Lifetime,” revisiting a song from the final show of your original 90s era, and then following it with the deeply personal “The Grief” creates an unusual relationship between memory, loss and new beginnings. Do you feel that returning to your past has changed the way you write and record new material today?
We made a pact always to return to the past during our latest studio endeavours, forva couple of reasons. To our minds, we have a wonderful back catalogue of songs that very few people have heard and don’t exist outside of some very crackling demo tapes. As we don’t have the logistics to get together to write full songs as a band, our annual adventure into the recording studio, is to work on an old track from the 90s and to turn something David has written recently, into something stamped with ‘The Sway’. This works well, keeps us all interested. ‘Twice’ and ‘The Grief’ are testament to this process.
The Sway originally emerged from North London in 1989 and experienced the intense period when Britpop took over the UK music landscape. Looking back now, how do you view that period and the path the band took at the time? Are there things you understand differently about your place in that musical era with the perspective of almost four decades?
Between 89 and 95 we strive to just be ‘The Sway’. Of course, influences creep through in the music but whilst natural, we really hoped our songs were strong enough to carry us. Unfortunately for, Britpop came and our brand of ‘Stadium Rock without the pousturing’ as we were once labelled, seemed to consign us to the shadows. Madness looking back. We were told we were past it in our mid 20’s whilst the likes of Noel Gallagher was making waves at the same time and he was older. A shit record company and too many novice musos getting in our ear. We maybe should have sacked the lot and rode the Britpop wave but we’re stubborn, disillusioned and cracking up. We split before it took us under. In hindsight, it was a blessing. Bad habits and bad decisions were catching up on us. We’ve all gone on to have happy lives and now have the best of both worlds, playing rockstar a couple of times a year.
After nearly forty years of musical history, what does being fearless as a band actually mean to you now? Has getting older changed what you are willing to experiment with, or has it given you more freedom because you no longer feel the need to fit into anyone else’s expectations?
Everything is on our terms now. We still have the fire. We still have opinions and we are still stubborn so and sos but not to the point of conflict. The key is to have fun. It’s not that deep, we live in an unstable and at times, horrific world. Why would we want to get together and it be a battle if creative wills? One old song, one new song, 100s of laughs, a curry and a whole lot of brotherly love. We are the greatest band who never were. We are family, we are constants and we still have each other’s backs, literally until death do us part. Like we say ‘You never leave The Sway’ 😀.
With two brand new songs planned for 2027, The Sway clearly does not see “Feasting 2026 (HK Mix)” simply as an exercise in nostalgia. What are you trying to discover about yourselves as musicians in this current chapter, and what would you like the next generation of listeners to understand about The Sway that could never be captured by looking only at your history?
The venture into remixes has several purposes. To give an up and coming young producer some work. To prove that our minds are not closed to interpretation. To fill a commercial void between original releases, open a door into The Sway’s history to new fans. We can all sit down with headphones on and lose ourself in music, but everyone likes a dance, right?
A pleasure to talk to you.
Paul.
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