- Ethan Swan grew up in Rochester, New York, where D.I.Y. was the best escape hatch he could find out of teenage monotony. Trading zines, cassettes and letters through a far-flung labyrinth of similarly isolated kids gave him both perspective and hope. After high school, Ethan settled in Portland Oregon where he joined the art-punk band Emergency, and co-founded the independent label Archigramophone with his bandmate Paul Dickow. The hand drawn tape covers of Ethan's adolescence informed the aesthetic of the label, and each release became a spraypainted, hand-silkscreened art object.
- Today Ethan's dedication to this messy collision of art and music resides in his current bands: Car Clutch, Corpsekisser and BARR. These groups have given him the opportunity to play everywhere from New York's legendary performance space The Kitchen to The Smell in L.A.; from living rooms in St. Louis to nightclubs in Prague. While none of the bands resemble each other musically, they all share a hope for deeper communication, new forms of expression, and maybe bloody pants.
- When he's not playing music, Ethan helps organize epic benefit shows with his friends Brendan Fowler and Aaron Bondaroff, writes about his favorite records for a variety of publications, and, if you bought an Animal Collective tour shirt in the last couple of years, you probably bought it from him.
- Ethan's current home is in Manhattan, where he lives with his sister and a rabbit named Emerson. His writing can be found in Maximum Rock & Roll, Vice, Sincere Brutality and more.
