Well known songwriter Seth Swirsky has many creative itches to scratch beyond just penning hit records for the likes of Taylor Dayne, Al Green, Michael McDonald and dozens of other artists. He is a painter, author, essayist, filmmaker - the list goes on. But for about ten years he also written/performed as part of a duo called the Red Button. He and Mike Reukberg create jangly, smart, sophisticated songs that fully reflect their love of 60’s pop; blending everything from Merseybeat charm to Brill Building class. They’ve just released a new collection, Now It’s All This! featuring a new 6-song EP along with their first two albums and a host of fun rarities.
Legendary guitarist/radio host Little Steven Van Zandt has once again (third time) chosen a Red Button song, the new single “Tracy’s Party” as his “Coolest Song in the World This Week” on his popular Underground Garage Sirius-xm radio station. I spoke with Swirsky about that, and some other things.
Tell me what is happening with Little Steven and how it all came about?
Although I record as a solo artist, I started a band with Mike Ruekberg called The Red Button in the late 2000s. Our songwriting and sound harkens to the Beatles-style of the mid-60s —namely, 3-minute, melodic pop songs with choruses you can sing. Little Steven discovered our first album, “She’s About to Cross My Mind” when it first came out and exploded out of nowhere. He chose our single, “Cruel Girl” as his “Coolest Song in the World This Week” on his popular Underground Garage Sirius-xm radio station. That’s a huge honor for an Indie pop band. He again chose our single from our second album and with our brand new release — “Now It’s All This!” (JEM Records)— he has chosen our latest single, “Tracy’s Party” as his “Coolest Song”. It will be featured the week of January 15.
How does it feel to get that sort of accolade?
Well, just consider the source: Little Steven is a breathing rock ’n roll encyclopedia (on top of being the great musician he is in Bruce Springsteen’s band and as an actor). Because of his unparalleled breadth of knowledge regarding pop and rock music, when you get your songs designated as the “Coolest Song in the World” by him, then you know it’s officially…cool!
How does the Red Button figure into your entire career- what does a Red Button project like the newest release mean to you?
I grew up wanting to make pure pop songs in the 60s and 70s style of The Beatles, The Monkees, ELO, Donovan, Elton John…you get the picture. From the 80s through the 2000s, as a professional songwriter with EMI, Warner Chappell and Sony, I wrote songs for a multitude of popular artists —probably, my most well-known hit songs were “Tell it to My Heart” for Taylor Dayne and “Love is a Beautiful Thing” for Al Green. But, my heart was always in that simple, melodic-pop style of my youth. I started recording as a solo artist in my 40s and had quite a bit of success, both commercially and critically, winning many “Best Album of the Year” honors at The HMMA’s (Hollywood Music in Media) and LA Music Awards. My latest solo record, “Circles and Squares” (2016) was played heavily on KCRW along with other taste-making radio stations the world.
And then you met Mike.
Right. While recording my solo records, I met fellow singer-songwriter, Mike Ruekberg. He wrote, sang and played all the music for that cool Indie film, Dummy, with Adrien Brody. We discovered we loved the same kind of music and started putting a few songs together and in a few months realized we had what became our first album. We called ourselves The Red Button and put it out, just thinking it was a fun project to make. Then, out of nowhere it seems, it just blew up , as they say today. I guess by word of mouth. We got an enormous amount of orders for the record, which isn’t quite the norm for a self-made Indie release. I think we ended up selling over 22, 000 copies. Tom Petty found out about us and started playing our songs on his Sirius radio station. Belinda Carlisle played our record to her audiences as warm-up music before she went onstage during her worldwide tours. Our songs were being played at movie theaters around the world before previews. Susanna Hoffs and Director Cameron Crowe became such fans that they wrote really cool blurbs for our second record. Little Steven also heard us, and as i mentioned, made our first single “Cruel Girl” his “Coolest Song of The Week” and it all just happened. I had experienced watching artists I had written for performing my songs on TV—or, hearing them on the radio. But, when it’s your own band, well…let’s just say, it was quite an exciting experience to be played and appreciated so extensively.
Which takes me to the new Red Button album, “Now It’s All This!” It’s a retrospective of all of our work: our first two albums fully remastered, plus six new songs and a few “unplugged” versions of some of our fans’ favorite songs. Chris Carter, the DJ for Sirius-xm’s Beatles Channel (and “Breakfast w/The Beatles” DJ), wrote the extensive liner notes. So, that was really cool.
The music business has changed so much since you started- do you enjoy it as an artist as much today?
While you can find melodic music in any generation, i do believe there is a lot less of it over the past 2 decades. And that’s sad to me because human beings enjoy singing — melodic songs are some of life’s greatest little gifts that give us a happy feeling. That is one of the main reasons I make my solo records and why Mike and I made The Red Button records: to inject more singable songs into the universe.