Sword II found a unified front amid a landscape of paranoia

For Mari González, Certain Zuko, and Travis Arnold, making their second album was an incredible feat. “We were getting electrocuted, and it was really mouldy. I'm pretty sure we all got sick as fuck in that house,” González recalls. “That was part of the battle,” Zuko continues. “We literally would go in there, and it felt like fucking Alien, when she's running through the spaceship screaming bloody murder.”

And while the band laughs now – notably, from a space that is significantly less extraterrestrial – Electric Hour was a collection of music built out of resistance. At the time, the trio were enduring hostility and injustice within their community: four of their friends had been raided by the FBI in connection with Stop Cop City, a movement which opposed the building of a police training centre, citing threats of police militarisation and the destruction of urban greenspace in the area where the facility was to be built. But the fact that the situation was actively working against them – they also faced down their landlord who threatened to evict them for turning the rental home into an “electric rock facility” – only amplified the trio's desire to create within an atmosphere where paranoia and a sense of surveillance loomed at an all-time high.

“It turned us up,” Arnold notes. “With all of the stuff happening with our friends being targeted, we were saying, ‘Okay, we have to make this record,’” González continues. “Then we get in the studio, everything is just a mess, and we’re getting really painfully electrocuted on top of that. Of course, it’s bleeding into every part of our lives, because this is the world. This is the landscape of our lives.”

“There was one point where we got pissed at our landlord, and we tried to get money out of him,” Zuko reflects. “After we got electrocuted, the computer got fried. We told him he owed us money, but when he came to the house to look at the electricity, he blamed us. So when he was trying to leave, the three of us stood in front of the door of his car.” González goes on to elaborate, “We couldn’t let him leave without agreeing on something verbally!” Unfortunately, standing up for themselves, their space, and their work didn’t exactly go to plan. They reveal that it led to an eviction notice, and ultimately they had to apologise. But recounting this story emphasised an impenetrable united front among the three of them.

This bond wasn’t something built overnight. The trio mysteriously share that there’s “deep, deep lore” behind their story – which begins at a DIY house show in the Atlanta suburbs, where González and Zuko first met. “My band in high school were playing,” Zuko tells me. “This kid’s parents had a furniture upholstery store, and they let us do shows in it. He had a bunch of rock bands come out, kids were spray painting the walls, and the cops never showed up. So there was no cop violence, but definitely a lot of moshing, and that sort of thing.” They remember the space as a dingy shop where the strong scent of spray paint would get them “a little high” in the enclosed space, but it’s where the pair came together. “It was gross, but it wasn’t that gross,” Zuko smiles. She and González went on to meet Arnold in college, and utilised their local DIY scene to start experimenting with what Sword II could be.

“We were playing in a lot of DIY spaces in Atlanta that we were the ones to create,” Arnold says. “There was this place called Murmur that Certain and a bunch of our other friends were working and collaborating on. Our first couple of shows were at this place. We used to be on some crazy freak shit. Now we’re kind of chilled out.”

The “crazy freak shit” that Arnold references is a call back to the band’s very first time playing together, and it was as part of a 24-hour noise show. “It started at 5 PM on Friday and ended at 5 PM on Saturday,” Zuko explains. “And it was horrible.” Arnold adds, “It was hell. It was the worst.” Zuko continues, “There were probably 40 people. It was disgusting. We were so tired, people brought coffee, and most of the music was really terrible. We did a crazy noise set at 3 AM.” Although the band could easily mull over how awful and strenuous the conditions of the 24-hour noise marathon were, they could still arrive at one conclusion: “It was lit, though!”

From the very beginning, Sword II would establish an endurance that has become central to the band’s DNA. “That was the genesis of the creative exploration of our group,” Arnold notes. “That’s why it’s so funny to us to play at these big venues with a sound guy and security,” Zuko adds. “Whenever we’re on stage at those places, even though we’ve gotten a little bit better at doing it, we’re always like, ‘You can’t take the 24-hour noise show in the basement out of the girl.’” They acknowledge this as character development that hasn’t been lost, whether they’re playing in dark basements or on illuminated stages. “It’s still there,” they say of their DIY origins. “That’s why we got fans, that’s why they fuck with us,” Arnold smiles.

In being a part of those creative spaces, Sword II were exposed to a broad musical world. “So many different kinds of music were popping out,” Arnold tells me. “That’s why the noise fest was cool: it gave people the opportunity to pull up and do whatever. We would play with other indie bands, but at the time, there were so many bands mixing stuff. They’d have the guitar on stage, but with crazy beats and samples, so we weren’t the only ones doing what we were doing. But everything was so different and experimental, and that’s where we relate.”

“In Atlanta, the guitar music is never hegemonic,” Zuko adds. “The actual most popular music is rap shit, hip-hop, R&B, and stuff. So it’s nice to make music in a place where guitar music can’t be holier-than-thou, or too-cool-for-school. Because you’re never going to be as cool as Young Thug smashing a Bugatti. They’re the hardest, but it’s cool to have as a reference. We try to be hard in our own way, by doing our own thing.”

Following on from their 2023 debut Spirit World Tour, for Sword II, doing their own thing meant honing in on their distinct influences on Electric Hour. González found emotional complexity in Joanna Newsom and Kate Bush, rawness in Lucinda Williams, and a dramatic flair from musical theatre. Zuko built upon this with Rocky Horror, hardcore punk, and MGMT-inspired psychedelia, while Arnold rounded things off with the pop-punk of Avril Lavigne, shadowy musings of The Weeknd, and uninhibited textures of My Bloody Valentine – all rich sources of inspiration that they have been able to distil into a sound of their own. When I ask how they manage to bring those tastes together and work with them, they tell me, “very delicately”.

“It’s very hard to mix them together,” Arnold admits. “Especially when we’re playing live. If one tiny thing goes out of whack and is too loud, it’s so jarring. But when it all works together, it’s amazing.” Zuko notes that in looking to find a campy sound, sometimes a note that feels out of place or “fucked up” can actually sound good. Though González acknowledges that what might sound good to one member of the band may raise eyebrows for others. “We find a way to mesh it all together,” she smiles. “And that’s the fun part,” they agree. “How do we put this together in a way that really hits?”

Across fourteen months, the band did just that. But after nine months, they only came away with one song. They admit that they were taking too long, obsessing over the small details in what Zuko describes as getting lost in “a crazy wormhole of Ableton”. With label backing that was contingent upon their ability to bring more songs to the table, pressure mounted. “We were showing up to the studio four days a week, at least,” González says. “Before, we would just show up and think, ‘So, what are we gonna do today?’”

They also felt a sense of pressure from what was going on beyond the studio: namely, the Stop Cop City movement. “People were protesting, doing direct action, throwing benefit shows, and hosting workshops,” Zuko tells me. “They were doing all of these things to raise awareness and stop this place, and the repression by the cops came down really hard. There were always cops in the neighbourhood, by our studio.”

“That influenced how we were working on the music. We didn’t feel as whimsical with what we were doing. This time, we really felt like we couldn’t not look at what’s happening around us. On Spirit World Tour, we were thinking about politics in a very expansive way, trying to imagine a new kind of punk. With this, we felt that way, but we were watching how things were unfolding. We can’t be pushing a million buttons; we need to just go in.”

“There was an urgency,” González adds. “I felt really inspired by what was happening, and really moved by it. We knew that we had to address that in the music; there was never a conversation about it. It was just that this is what it’s like to live here right now, and there’s no escaping that.” For Sword II, calling attention to the experience of what was happening around them in their day-to-day lives wasn’t to be depicted through performative, on-the-nose references. Rather, they wanted to say things in a way that felt poetic and emotional.

At the heart of their process lies some level of compromise, which is what has allowed Sword II to tap into a creative well on Electric Hour. It feels crucial to their ability to articulate complex, heavy themes across their work. Lead single and sci-fi love song “Even if it’s Just a Dream” opens with a Twilight Zone-style synth twinkle before warming to an acoustic-led composition that sits within a soft pop realm, guided by González’s sweet, starry-eyed vocals, as she explores the idea of two people of the same sex miraculously conceiving a child in a fantastical world.

“I think it came personally from the experience of wanting to be with someone and wanting a child related to both of you, but grappling with the fact that it can never happen,” González reveals. “We were talking about IVF when writing this, about how they split the fucking nucleus. It’s this horrific thing, but it can create life. It was this really big theme.”

“It fits into how scary all of the repression is,” Zuko adds. “Would you even want to have a kid during so much global catastrophe?” Their answer? Yes. “That’s actually cool. We should bring more life into the world. There’s something worth living for. There will always be more life, fuck you guys,” Zuko muses.

Meanwhile, songs like “Halogen” and “Gun You Hold” carry bite through slightly harsher, distorted instrumentation and vocal exchanges with Zuko and Arnold. Somewhere in the middle sits “Passionate Nun”, a campy jaunt through queer Catholic school love story that’s brought in with the chime of a church bell, propelled by clangy strums and the dangerous pull of navigating desire. “Sentry” addresses the paranoia they were enduring at that point in their lives more directly, an experience that they describe as unique, though universal.

“We wanted to make a record that would reflect this feeling of paranoia but also resolution, not just in the lyrics, but in the sounds we were using,” Zuko explains. Citing “Under the Scar”, she continues, “The first part of the main riff is super weird and scary sounding, but then the next part resolves a lot. It’s warm. We wanted to put those things together.”

To do so, they took turns in the recording seat. Every song was under the direction of the band, co-written, self-produced and self-recorded, with each of them also taking on the domestic labour. One member might be at the computer, another making a meal, while someone else might be tracking and recording. It unlocked a special synergy and care amongst the trio that allowed them to truly realise the potential of the album. “We had to literally feed each other to make the notes, and it was actually really hard,” Zuko admits.

Sword II describes themselves as “survivors, psychic warriors, lovers”. In the final months of the recording process, they even began to wear full camouflage in the studio, battling distraction fatigue and doubt. “What influenced the title, Electric Hour, is that this is our moment, and we have to fucking focus. We have to say what we’re trying to say, and do what we’re trying to do,” Zuko asserts.

Speaking on what they hope for listeners to take away from Electric Hour, González, Zuko, and Arnold are direct. “I don’t think we have the answers," Zuko admits. González adds, “I feel like on the album, all of the songs are very distinct from each other. I hope that roundedness and versatility means that people can give to themselves. You don't have to be one single thing. You can experiment with your life and with love and in your world. If people honour themselves with that, it will bleed into their lives.”

“We gotta fight fascism,” Zuko adds. “That's for sure. The fascist shit is just getting worse every single day. I think you can do that through honouring your creative expression and not making it something that's just a tool for corporations. It’s important for us to just do it. To keep being who we are and saying that we don’t give a fuck, we’re still going to say whatever we want to say as long as we can. I think everybody should do that.”

“If you imagine a band on stage and there are people excited to see them, we don't wanna be like, ‘Alright guys, everything's fucked, let's go home.’ We're trying to be like, ‘We know everything's fucked. But we still gotta be lit.’” They cite the 2000 film Cecil B. Demented as a point of reference for the energy brought to their album, underpinning their inspiration for staying driven in the face of repression. “They had to be hot as fuck, they all had to serve. That was the same mentality we took to this album. We have to be violent, we have to do crime, and we have to be sexy.

“And we’re still kicking,” Arnold says, an earned sense of pride rippling among the trio. “They haven’t killed us yet.”