Tomi Swick has just released his first full CD, Stalled out in the Doorway and is currently opening up for the Goo Goo Dolls. We catch up with Tomi at the John Labatt Centre in London.

Tomi talks to Heather and Diana about the importance of breathing, finding balance in his life and keepin’ it real.

Heather: So you’re on tour with the Goo Goo Dolls, what do you think about opening up for them? Did you ever anticipate this?

Tomi: This all kinda happened really fast, like all these gigs I’ve been getting kind of in the last year. No I did not think I’d be opening for them, I didn’t know what I’d be doing, I was playing in a cover band you know, just last year.

Heather: Your career seems to be moving at a very accelerated rate…

Tomi: Yes it is.

Heather: You have just signed a record deal with Warner Music and have released your first full CD debut, Stalled out in the Doorway. How do you feel about all of this?

Tomi: Good, I’m just tired. Really, really, tired. Yeah, it’s like you drive from one place to the next and a lot of it you’ll be sitting on tour, on the road, we’ve been on tour for a month and a half now, last month with Stabilo, this month the Goos and it just picks up more and more and more and the thing is, I have a little bit of a nasty habit of partying a little bit too much sometimes and you have to learn how to pace yourself cause you burn out pretty fast when you’re on the road. You can’t sleep on a moving bus all the time, you know. So that’s the hardest part, you know, I love it. It’s a dream come true to be on the road and playing and do great venues.

Diana: What’s changed for you since you’ve signed on with a major label?

Tomi: The workload. It’s funny, a lot of people have this notion that when you sign on with a major label, ‘that’s it, you know, I got signed’. Getting signed is like getting a trophy, it’s kinda like getting a degree right? Or like getting a promotion that you’ve been waiting for a long time, but then you realize that this really means I’ve got a thousand times more work to do and it’s not laying around and partying, it’s promos, press, making sure that you show up to play every night, making sure that your gear’s ready, there’s a million things, especially at this point, cause we don’t have techs and people are taking care of all of us, right? We’ve got our band and we’ve got our tour manager and our sound guy and it’s a lot of work to get everything done. My life’s changed in, you know, responsibility-wise, you know, I’m a lot more responsible with what I’m doing with my job instead of going out and getting drunk every night.

Heather: What are your aspirations as a musician? Future goals?

Tomi: My goals are gigs, right? Like, everyone wants money, but it’s hard to make money…so, I really want to play Glasgow and Edinburgh, I’d like to play with bands that I admire, bands that I really like and I wanna be playing when I’m 50, you know, I’m trying to pull myself in a position where I have a career, and it’s slow and steady but…

Diana: You wanna go all the way.

Tomi: Yeah, and it’s not about being too famous, you know, I wanna be playing, I wanna be able to do this for a career, so you know, you have to, you need a career trajectory path – if your career’s stalling, you throw it straight out, at the very least, it’ll come straight back down, you can throw it on an angle and take it slower, create a much wider base for yourself and that’s what I’m trying to do right now. Go across the country planting seeds and getting people interested in my music.

Heather: That’s a great analogy for it, for sure.

Diana: What does music mean to you?

Tomi: Music means everything to me. It’s my de-stressor, it pumps me up when I need it to, it makes me sad, it makes me happy, it’s basically my therapy, I can sit down and even listening to music, not just playing music, I recently discovered vinyl again, I’m 26, so I grew up with CD’s you know, and greatest hits of all these bands that I love and in the last little while, I’ve been buying all these records of bands that I love, like actual vinyl records and sitting down and spending time listening to the full albums cause it’s so much easier that way and I feel like I’ve totally rediscovered music, because in the last little while I wasn’t really listening to anything, I was writing a lot, and now I’m buying all the records I can. Music is actually every aspect of my life.

Heather: How do you hope your music will affect other people then?

Tomi: It’s a kind of weird thing because some people take music a lot more seriously than others, right? Like some people just listen to music, but some people listen to every word and they get emotional, whereas to other people it’s entertainment, right? Cause when it comes down to it, it can be thought of as a staple of entertainment. What I hope people see is the impact that this is an honest guy writing music that I don’t just write songs, I don’t just write stories about me, it’s about my life and I hope that they get enjoyment from it, I hope they find what they’re looking for, that’s all I can say, cause everyone can take it a different way, so if someone wants to listen to it because they’ve been upset and they hope it makes them feel better, I hope it makes them feel better. If they want to listen to it because they want to hear good music, I hope they think it’s good music, I hope they find what they’re looking for in my music.

Diana: How do you deal with stress, Tomi?

Tomi: Badly. Well, not so much, I used to have a really bad temper. Stress…music really, really helps me, that’s true. I’ll sit down with my guitar, you know, count to ten, which is so hard to learn at an early age, being a fiery redhead, you know I had to count to ten and take it easy. I use a whole relaxation method, you know, breathing method. I actually have very bad anxiety attacks and so I had to learn this whole relaxation and breathing method and it’s really really chilled me out, so I deal with it badly but I’m learning how to handle it, so it’s a lot better.
Breathing, for anxiety, I don’t know if you’ve ever had it, but it’s terrible. I would’ve jumped off this roof two years ago, I didn’t care about anything, or doing anything, I almost died and had panic attacks and stuff and breathing is everything to me. When you breathe slowly and take deep breaths, it gives your brain more oxygen to think, think logically, whereas if not, your heart rate’s freaking out and stress is really getting at you, you start what’s called a fight or flight situation, and basically you go nuts or you run away and so you just try to calm yourself down and that’s what I’ve been learning.

Heather: How do you balance being a musician with the rest of your life?

Tomi: The rest of my personal life is a wreck…because it’s just hard when you’re playing and you’re really,,,, you’re playing one gig a month or so when you start out, but then you’ve got this whole other life that’s taking over and you wanna do this thing and when you’re in it and doing something all the time involving music, not everyone’s like this, but you know, it’s had an effect on my relationships, had an effect on my family and friends just cause I’m never around and when I go home, I got five thousand phone calls “Hey, come here, come here, come here”, and some people get mad cause you don’t show up. It’s very trying on your personal life, but it’s again, if it’s something you wanna do, you gotta sacrifice and the people that truly care about you and your friends, your family, they all know this really matters and they’ll be there when you need them. They’ll be there when things calm down. And that’s all you have to keep in mind. Cause there’s a funny thing, like people think musicians change, anything will change, and I don’t necessarily agree with it, I think some people do, but I think what happens is, say you grew up with someone, your best friend, you did everything together and then one of you goes off and does something, a job, you know they off to be an accountant or whatever, and the other person goes into entertainment, and the accountant goes into their job and they keep hearing your name on the radio and TV and all that kinda stuff, and he’s like, “There’s nothing special about this guy, I know this guy, you know what the hell is this?” and a lot of people start to resent this and it’s kinda weird cause you’re out at a club and you’re sitting there with them and you’re having a drink and people are always talking to you and so you’re not spending time and I think it’s people’s perceptions, mostly people’s perceptions of you change and so that’s why the relationship changes and so that’s what makes it weird and it’s a hard thing to…

Heather: trying to find that balance.

Tomi: yeah, trying to find that balance.

Diana: In speaking to youth, if you could only give them one piece of advice, what would that be?

Tomi: Don’t give up on things, you know. I come from a pretty rough place in Hamilton, right? It’s a rough town and I see a lot of people there end up on heavy drugs, get into trouble and a criminal life and different kinda things, you know, I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been around it for years and years and years and I just think if you have an idea and there’s something you wanna do, whatever your goal is, you know, being realistic is one thing, but also realizing you have to try, you have to try. If you wanna do something, you know, just go for it, just try it and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, but at least you tried, if you give it 100%, your all, at least you tried, you can try something else. Just give it a try, whatever you wanna do.

Diana and Heather: Thank you so much! And have a great concert tonight!

Tomi: Thank you.