We caught up with the brilliant and insightful The Swallowtails a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

The , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

We recently released an EP called “Lucky Penny” which was our first experience co-writing as a team. In the past we’ve collaborated on the two albums we’ve put out, but this was our first time splitting writing and vocal duties. We’ve been a band for 5 years and it seems like we are finally at a point where we know each other well enough, and trust each other musically, to embark into this next phase of co-writing.

We’ve been through a lot as a band in terms of our lineup since we first came together in 2018, so to be a duo now and moving forward making the music we need to is so fulfilling/healing. We recorded the entirety of this EP in January on the coldest days of the year. We are proud of ourselves for finding the inspiration that fueled these recordings, and we hope people can hear that when they listen.

The , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

We are The Swallowtails, a rock/pop acoustic duo based in Kansas City, performing on what are traditionally folk/classical instruments. Featuring Miki P on Guitar & Vocals and Rachel Lovelace on Bassoon & Vocals, our unique arrangement helps us create a sound all our own throughout our music.

We formed in 2018 and started playing live shows around the KC area. In 2019 we had our first experience recording together and released an EP that fall, followed by a bit of touring in Colorado. We were performing regularly up until the pandemic hit in March of 2020. Covid slowed our pace and we were creatively dormant for a while, although we released our first full length album in the winter of ‘20 that we had recorded the previous year. In May of 2023 we put out our sophomore album “The World Still Spins” which won an award through The Pitch KC’s Best of KC for our song “Take it Slow.” November of that same year we became a duo, brining us to our present lineup.

We most recently have released an EP in February of 2024, attended and performed at the Folk Alliance International Conference, and performed throughout Kansas City and the surrounding Midwest. Our passion is in writing songs, traveling, and performing live. You can find us regularly performing in KC and throughout the Midwest, as we are stretching out beyond our hometown this upcoming year. All of our music is available on our Bandcamp + all music streaming platforms.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect of being a creative is finding out more about yourself through connecting with others.

Often times we will write a song and realize in retrospect “oh, hey this is about me experiencing this very specific emotion” without having had that intention when we started writing. And then we’ll play it out at a show and have someone come up to us who really connected with what we were singing about and tell us how it affected them. It’s those full circle moments, truly connecting with people and being moved by the energy that we are receiving when we perform that make it all make sense.

This path as freelancers and independent artists (not being signed to a record label, being our own manager/booking agent) is really, really difficult at times. Almost discouraging sometimes. So having that community, listeners, supporters, friends who believe in us is key to our creativity and artistry.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Simple, easy things that society can do to support artists is to simply share the art.

Speaking for the ‘artist’, it makes a world of difference to have your craft shared organically. It can be very expensive to promote in this digital world, and often times creatives have to fit into molds/trends that don’t really speak to the artwork itself to gain views or followers. There’s a lot of festivals/live music venues that won’t even consider booking your band if you don’t have x amount of followers on Facebook or Instagram.

At this point it’s free to like a picture, share an event, subscribe to a channel, leave a review, drop a comment, or text your friend group chat a Spotify link. All of these sorts of actions help propel artists to the audiences that have been waiting for their artistry to change their lives. Artist require an ecosystem around them to make a living, people that will buy the music, really buy it (physical copies of the music, t-shirts and other assorted merchandise), and they need people coming to their live shows more than ever.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://theswallowtails.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theswallowtails/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theswallowtailsmusic
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@TheSwallowtailsMusic
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@theswallowtails https://spotify.link/9EAZYwq4fDb https://theswallowtails.bandcamp.com/

Image Credits
Photos by Ben McBee Photography