Rob Swire

Rob Swire - Quick Facts

Profile Overview of Rob Swire

Robert Swire-Thompson (born 5 November 1982) is an Australian record producer, singer, songwriter, and DJ. He is the founder and lead vocalist of the drum and bass band Pendulum, as well as DJ and co-founder of electro house duo Knife Party formed of Swire and Gareth McGrillen.

This profile of Rob Swire covers Early Life and Family Background, Pendulum, Knife Party, Other work and Production.

Originally from Perth, Western Australia, Swire relocated to the United Kingdom in 2003 with fellow Pendulum co-founders Gareth McGrillen and Paul "El Hornet" Harding. Swire has since fulfilled a broad spectrum of roles as a member of Pendulum, ranging from songwriting to singing while performing live with an unusual guitar-like MIDI controller – Starr Labs' Ztar Z6S-XPA. Swire also plays guitar, bass, keyboards, percussion, and other instruments. He is sometimes referred to by the stage name Anscenic.

Early Life and Family Background of Rob Swire

Rob Swire was born and raised in Perth, Western Australia. When he was a child, his family lived in Harare in Zimbabwe for five years. During his residence, he created a song which was played on a local Zimbabwe radio station. He went to Scotch College, Swanbourne, graduating in 1999, where he first met bandmate Gareth McGrillen. Over the next three years he worked as a record producer for several local drum and bass, breakbeat and metal bands, during which time he occasionally used the stage name "Anscenic". He also made a couple of independent releases with former hardcore techno label Hardline Rekordingz, including a collaboration with the label's founder, Animal Intelligence, which was titled "Fat American Bitchcore". Only twenty lathe cut copies of the record were distributed, to help promote the label's 2001–2002 tour of New Zealand. Swire also produced a track titled "Electrodes on the Skull" which was released alongside three tracks by other artists signed to the label at that time.

Pendulum of Rob Swire

In 2002, Swire formed drum and bass act Pendulum with fellow Xygen bandmate McGrillen and local DJ Paul "El Hornet" Harding. Swire relocated to the United Kingdom the following year, along with the other members of the band, and the band soon gained widespread underground recognition for their tracks "Vault" and "Trail of Sevens". Over the next two years Swire worked on material for the band's debut album, Hold Your Colour, primarily as the band's songwriter and producer alongside McGrillen. The album was released in 2005, to considerable commercial success. When the band began performing live in October 2006, Swire became the band's lead singer in addition to playing a Ztar – a guitar-like MIDI controller – during live performances.

After the band's first tour they started work on a second album, In Silico, for which Swire featured as the main vocalist, after already appearing on tracks such as "Spiral", "Hold Your Colour", "Streamline", and "Still Grey" to keep a consistent sound. Also, he continued his former roles of writer and producer, although he delegated the task of vocal mixing to a professional mixing engineer. Swire was also extensively involved in creating publicity material for the new album, as he explained during an interview with Lucy Chakaodza of The Independent.

Pendulum released their third album titled Immersion in the UK on 24 May 2010. This is Pendulum's only number one album, topping the UK Albums Chart.

Pendulum announced on 19 June 2012 that they had split. Swire stated, "We're having too much fun with the Knife Party project. It's also great because Pendulum, towards the end, sort of felt like we were doing it because we had to, and that's never a fun way to do music. Whereas Knife Party is pretty much solely us doing what we want to and if no one likes it we don't care." This can be equated to Rob Swire feeling limited to a genre under the band Pendulum, and he has stated publicly over tweets that he hates the restriction that a fan base can bring, he does enjoy continuing to produce music.

On 22 August 2013, Swire revealed that a new Pendulum album will probably be released sometime in 2014. Despite this, Swire ruled out the possibility of Pendulum performing live again. But Pendulum reunited at the 2016 Ultra Music Festival in Miami, Florida.

On 9 January 2017, Pendulum confirmed to be reuniting for a world tour and possibly releasing a new album, with Swire also returning. They performed live at several music festivals internationally throughout 2017.

On 29 June 2018, Pendulum's album, aptly titled "The Reworks" was released, composed solely of remixes from artists such as Skrillex, Moby, Pegboard Nerds, Noisia and the Knife Party alias. Remixes from Noisia, Knife Party, Icarus and Skrillex were released as singles beforehand.

On 17 September 2020, Pendulum released two singles "Driver" and "Nothing for Free", making this the first new material in ten years since Immersion. A music video for "Nothing for Free" was produced, and the two songs were included in a live set performed by Pendulum at Spitbank Fort on 2 October 2020. Swire indicated that for foreseeable future, Pendulum would continue to gradually release tracks in small chunks similar to the September 2020 release, rather than wait to release an entire album at once. This concluded in early 2021 as the listed songs plus 2 new tracks released in their EP Elemental. A second EP, Anima, was released in 2023. Pendulum's fourth album, Inertia, was released in 2025.

Knife Party

In 2011, Swire formed the electro house duo with Pendulum co-founder Gareth McGrillen. The duo released their debut EP, 100% No Modern Talking, on 12 December 2011. The group's popularity grew considerably when they released the top 5 hit U.K. Single, Antidote, in collaboration with Swedish House Mafia. The single was released on 16 December 2011, and has now hit over 22 million views on YouTube. "Internet Friends", was released as a second single from the EP, but peaked at a lowly number 83 in the U.K Their second EP, Rage Valley, was released on 27 May 2012, and produced three singles, "Rage Valley", "Bonfire", and "Centipede". All of the singles made it onto the U.K. Top 100, but none hit the top 40. But the EP's second single, "Bonfire", peaked at number 18 on the Finnish Singles Chart. The duo's third EP, Haunted House, was released on 6 May 2013, and features four tracks: "Power Glove", "LRAD", "EDM Death Machine", and their own VIP mix of "Internet Friends", originally from 100% No Modern Talking. The duo has accumulated a large cult following for their distinctive style: With influences of electro house and dubstep on their first EP, their style has grown to include influences from a wider range of styles, such as moombahton (a combination of house and reggaeton music), and drumstep. The Knife Party remix of Swedish House Mafia's "Save the World" was Zane Lowe's 'Hottest Record in the World' on 31 May 2011.

Source: adapted from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Swire), text available under CC BY-SA 4.0.