The Sword’s J.D. Cronise Discusses Milestones, Hints at New Music

“We listen to so much other stuff and that is kind of the idea, we need to show that the Sword is multifaceted and we can do whatever.”

On Tuesday (Sept. 9), the Sword’s founding frontman, J.D. Cronise, joined Loudwire Nights to reflect on the band’s career, the anniversary of their third studio album, Warp Riders, and more. Listen to the full conversation in the player near the end of this article.

“I consider us a genre unto ourselves,” Cronise admitted to Loudwire Nights‘ Chuck Armstrong.

“I don’t know what bands that are called metal are doing. I feel no association with that necessarily. It’s not that I’m unaware, my head is not stuck in the sand or anything, but I just see what we do as kind of our own thing.”

Cronise shared that the Sword were intentional about that very thing with their most recent albums like 2015’s High Country and 2018’s Used Future. But he expressed the idea of the band having its own unique sound has been the goal from the earliest days.

“I always saw the Sword as being able to basically do anything,” he said.

“[We can] play whatever we want, you know, and do it well. We can launch into a reggae jam that will blow your mind — it was always meant to be multifaceted. But you start out playing the kind of stuff we started out playing and you kind of can get a little pigeonholed, I guess.”

The Sword Are Celebrating 15 Years of Warp Riders

The Sword have been on the road celebrating the 15th anniversary of their third record, Warp Riders, and will be touring through Oct. 26 when they wrap things up at Brooklyn Bowl in Nashville.

“It’s probably our most technically challenging album, guitar-wise and drums and everything,” Cronise said as he talked about playing Warp Riders in full on this tour.

“It took a little polishing to get back into shape.”

Cronise admitted that it doesn’t feel like it’s been 15 years since the Sword released Warp Riders and though he’s not necessarily a fan of bands playing albums in their entirety, he does think this one deserves the special treatment.

“It being a concept album and everything, I think it kind of warrants a full play through,” he said.

“It’s cool to get to finally do that.”

What Else Did the Sword’s J.D. Cronise Discuss on Loudwire Nights?

The future of new music for the Sword: “We’ve started to work on some new stuff a little bit. We had kind of started to work on new stuff a couple of years ago before I quit, but I think if I had been satisfied with anything, things would have gone differently. So it’s kind of a fresh slate sort of thing. But at some point, probably next year, I’m sure we’ll have something new.”
What Ozzy Osbourne means to him: “When you start a band like the Sword, the first thing you do starting out as the approach is, well, what would Sabbath do? And vocally, it was definitely like, how would Ozzy thing this? It wasn’t how would Robert Plant sing it because I couldn’t do that anyway. He’s unbelievably influential and important and such an underrated singer. I think he was kind of like a savant in a way of he could just get behind the mic and magic came out, no matter what.”
Why he doesn’t spend much time thinking about milestones: “I’m not that nostalgic of a person. I’m kind of always looking forward.”