Americana Highways presents the video premiere of Castle Pines’ “Swim Team Sucker” with music and Lyrics by Leandro Ariel Barrientos, Ricky Garvey on guitar, and rhythm section Sterling Fairfield and Jesse Briseño, the album was recorded and engineered by Matthew Faulkner of Betawave Records; and mastered by Daniel Long. The video was filmed by Robert Vargas JR. and Matthew Faulkner, edited by Leandro Ariel Barrientos.
Original Artwork was made for the single release by Sean Adams.
The band from Corona, CA plays sonic rhythms while Barrientos’ juxtaposition of traditional upbeat but satirical lyrical messages: “come on baby… you got nothing to lose…” while the lyrical character is going to eat her alive. This poignant video is footage of the band playing what might have been their last show for a very long time.
Swim Team Sucker was born out of 2 things, studying American Folk traditions and playing live performances in bars for 10 years, the latter took a life of its own, we loosely threw an idea over the narrative skeleton, we wanted to make a song that sounded like others in the genre but is from a completely different perspective. We hashed this tune out in front of a live audience many times, tweaking little notes, holding chords longer, building it organically by using a living, breathing, real time critique of what was being reacted to and in the end we crafted this song that feels very alive and volatile but took lyrical cues from the tradition and made it a critique of the style. More often than not, the idea of desire is sensationalized in pop culture music and from our lyrical perspective we wanted to satirize it by pointing to these flaws, by objectifying the style we are pointing to common tropes and themes while making it our own. – Leandro Ariel Barrientos and Ricky Garvey on ‘Swim Team Sucker’
Watch right here: