Take Two translates the day’s headlines for Southern California, making sense of the news and cultural events that affect our lives. Produced by Southern California Public Radio and broadcast from October 2012 – June 2021. Hosted by A Martinez.
If you've watched The Fighter, Ted, The Transporter Refueled, Horrible Bosses, or Horrible Bosses 2, odds are you've heard music from The Heavy.
Their song "How You Like Me Now" has been licensed for something like 30 movies, television shows and commercials. "That song was pretty much written in 10 minutes," said lead singer Kelvin Swaby. "At the time I was, you know, kind of going through a bad patch with my children's mother. And so, you know, it just kind of fell out."
Now, the British band is releasing a new album called "Hurt and the Merciless," and they're showing it off at Coachella later this month.
And on this new album, as on ones prior, Swaby said, he found inspiration from emotional situations, as audiences can hear in their song "Since You Been Gone."
"It's about dealing with toxicity within my life at this point that I actually wrote that song. And you know, we all deal with toxic situations within our life. It's just being drawn to a fire... you know it's bad, you know it's going to burn you, but... oh man! I just got to keep on touching it."
Alex Cohen recently sat down with Swaby to talk about the new album, the success of "How You Like Me Now" and the inspiration behind "Since You've Been Gone."
To hear the entire conversation click on the audio embedded at the top of this post.