Paleface Swiss On Their First Australian Headline Tour

Switzerland’s global reputation for being a peaceful and neutral country is in absolute tatters thanks to one band destroying all before them! A lot has happened since PALEFACE SWISS‘ incredibly successful, sold-out run with In Hearts Wake in 2024. Their fan base has exploded exponentially thanks to their now infamous sets at festivals such as Sick New World and the accolades are piling up for their crushing performances on sold out tours of Europe and The U.S.

Now the Swiss wrecking crew return to Australia as all conquering headliners, armed with their brand-new record, Cursed, which entered the Spotify Global Charts at #7, as well as reaching #3 in both the US and UK charts, a testament to their unstoppable rise. Guitarist Yannick Lehmann talks to Hi Fi Way about the tour.

Counting down to your first headline Australian tour, are you getting a bit excited?
Yeah, super excited. It’s crazy. We were in Australia a year ago, time flies and now back as a headliner. Yeah, super excited!

Do you have a lot of great stories and tour memories from a year ago? Or was it just a bit of a whirlwind?
I think just the fact that we that we achieved to play Australia with our little shitty band is a massive goal we achieved. The shows were super sick, raw energy, nice people. That’s all we want.

Are you’re focusing mostly on the new album Cursed on this tour, or are you looking to cover a bit of everything?
We cover a bit of everything. But since the release and being tour now, we play the whole album. You will get the full experience of Paleface Swiss when you come to a show.

What do you look forward to most now that you’ve been to Australia once? Any places you’re looking forward to get back to?
Of course I’m super happy or super excited for all the headliner shows. I’m super excited for Melbourne, because we have some off days there. We also had that on the last tour, and I think Melbourne is such a nice city and great food. We didn’t get the chance to see huntsman spiders last time. So fingers crossed. I see them this time.

Say what? Huntsmen Spiders?
We went to basements in the venues, and narrow streets and stuff. But we didn’t see any huntsman spiders.

Have you been pleased with the fan reaction to the new album. Is that what you expected?
The reaction, and just everything was so crazy when we released that album. For me, I didn’t get any bad comments about it, so I guess we are doing the right things and it also feels very right. So yeah, as I said, to achieve this as a small DIY band is just unbelievable for us.

With the intensity that you guys play with, is that hard bringing that to the studio and trying to capture the live sound in the recording?
We all always write songs that are made to play live. We don’t like any big productions. We just like the raw rawness of the music. That’s how we write the songs, and we try to bring that energy on stage as well. Our songs are written to play live now.

Before you started recording the album, did you have an idea in your mind about how you wanted the sound?
No, not at all. We didn’t talk about the album writing session. The first time we talked about the writing session was when we got on the plane to the Canary Islands, where we wrote the album. So we didn’t really know what to expect. We just started. Everything went super smooth, supernatural, and Cursed was born.

Was a lot of that improvised and or did you have to rehearse before you hit record?
No, we just sat down, pressed record, and the album just was there. We had two weeks for the writing session, and we wrote the full album within those two weeks. Super supernatural, super smooth.

Was that different than the previous album, Fear and Dagger, in terms of approach?
For Cursed, it was the first time we flew somewhere to write. Fear and Dagger was written in our basement, our rehearsal room, after normal day jobs. For Cursed, we wanted to go away from normal life and focus on the music. It was the best decision we ever made.

What was it about the Canary Islands that appealed to you to go there and record?
Our good friend Ron has a house there and owns the studio. We lived there basically for free, just paid flights and studio rent. Everything else was kind of free, so it came naturally that we recorded there.

Is it satisfying being a DIY band, in control of everything?
A: Yes, it’s the best thing. You own all the rights, can do whatever you want, write whatever you want, release whenever. We can schedule breaks or tours ourselves. With a label, you have to work and tour. We can shape our journey however we want. Since the beginning of 2025 we quit our day jobs, we don’t have time for our normal day jobs. Until then, we all worked normal jobs, but for this year, no time or energy left to do both.

As the songs are taking shape, did that create excitement in itself?
When we wrote the album and we did on the road as well, we were having the time of our lives. The better the time we were having, the darker and heavier the album gets. That’s how it works for Cursed. When we played it for the first time we were super happy. I haven’t had any complaints. It’s just a banger.

Hard to let it go without tweaks?
Not really. Everything felt natural and smooth during songwriting. We didn’t change much when recording. Cursed was always there.

How do you feel with the weight of expectation now that Paleface Swiss is growing in profile?
Pressure? No pressure at all, because we are DIY. We can do whatever we want. It’s nice because we work every day for the band. That’s the downside of DIY, but we love what we do. Couldn’t be happier.

Beyond the Australian tour, what’s next? More touring or following up this album?
Australia will be our last tour for the year. After that, we’ll see what’s next, and also we have to do mandatory military service in Switzerland. In December, we hang out a bit before the next European headliner tour in January. The grind never stops. It’s bout three weeks in November, every year. I have to do it two more times, then I’m done.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch Paleface Swiss on tour with Nasty on the following dates, tickets from The Phoenix…