John Swardson + Clare Doyle at Icehouse

A Minneapolis-based musician, John Swardson grew up in St. Paul listening to Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, U2, Springsteen, Husker Du, and Van Halen. Influenced by parents who were writers and readers, John taught himself to play the guitar, singing his own songs. With four full-length records under his belt— Ablaze, Silver Dust (John Swardson and Get Gone), Dogs in the Woods (Get Gone), and Blood Moon (John Swardson and Bad Blood)—John is steadily gaining momentum as a prominent artist and songwriter within and beyond the Twin Cities music scene.

ith her infectious debut single Devices, released in May 2023, emerging singer and songwriter Clare Doyle showcases a modern blend of soulful country and rootsy rock alongside the bold lyricism that garnered immediate attention when she began performing in the spring of 2022.  

Originally from Saint Paul, MN, Doyle grew up singing along with her mom’s Johnny Cash CDs and her dad’s Gibson acoustic, and dreaming of becoming a musician. She taught herself to play and write on a borrowed guitar in a college dorm room and began planning a move to Nashville, but found herself fighting brutal self-doubt and bad influences that kept her from embracing her talent.

Doyle had settled in New Orleans, LA until the global pandemic and consequent loss of work forced a move back to her hometown, where she began to rediscover the musical identity she’d neglected for years. Armed with a decade of heartache, adventure, addiction, and life on the road, she began to alchemize raw emotions into a collection of songs that run the gamut from clever and rollicking, to gritty and gut-wrenching. Initially inspired to write by Loretta Lynn and Merle Haggard, now Doyle incorporates both classic and contemporary sensibilities into her songs - she draws on a range of influences to write candidly about loving, losing, hurting, and making a hot mess of things. “A lot of artists cite Jason Isbell or Ruston Kelly as…inspirations, but rarely do you hear the attention to detail and knack for describing emotions that prove they’ve really learned from those two master storytellers,” writes Carol Roth of Adventures in Americana, “With Doyle, you can tell.”