If you listen really closely to the Swon Brothers‘ upcoming self-titled debut album, out Oct. 14, you might be able to hear the sound of ping-pong balls hitting the table.
Uh, why?
“There were a couple of mornings where you get in the studio and you’re worn out from being on the road,” Colton tells PEOPLE. “I was tired, I wasn’t awake yet. Me and the engineer would play rounds of ping-pong, just to wake up. I went from having no energy to wanting to win … what is the championship of ping-pong called? Well, anyway I wanted to win that.”
Even though the mornings in the studio were rough, the brothers still feel like they’re living the dream.
“This is something that we have chased our whole lives,” says Colton, 25. “We have been in and out of studios our whole lives, but it’s been like a home studio with duct tape on the walls, certainly not the state-of-the-art studio that we record in now.”
Adds Zach, 29, “We were like kids in a candy store in that studio. We got to co-produce this album. We were very involved and very outspoken, it was just fun.”
Check out the new track, “This Side of Heaven,” off The Swon Brothers’ debut album, below. (Available for pre-order on iTunes and Amazon. Fans who pre-order will receive an instant download of the single “Pretty Beautiful” and can stream the full album.)