Marshall Gallagher of Solar Bear returns with Swing Hero

Brandon Whalen / Fading Imagery

Marshall Gallagher's Swing Hero makes its debut on Friday at the Summit Music Hall

Sometime after that outfit folded last spring, Gallagher packed up his gear and joined the 3OH!3 dudes on the road as a member of their live band. The opportunity presented itself thanks to Gallagher's longstanding friendship with drummer Adam Halferty (American Tomahawk), who phoned him up with an invitation to join the band when the act was looking for a replacement guitarist.

The gig has been quite fulfilling for Gallagher thus far. "It's beeen really, really cool," he says of his time on the road with 3OH!3. "They're some of the most down to earth, awesome, funny dudes I've ever met. They're not rock stars. They're real easy to get along with, and they pretty much let me do whatever, too, as far as guitar stuff goes. It's real fun. It's a real breath of fresh air. It pays my bills and then some. It's going to be real hard to let that gig go, whenever that day does come -- and I hope it doesn't come anytime soon."

In between dates performing with 3OH!3, Gallagher found time to pen some songs of his own for a new project dubbed Swing Hero, which is making its live debut tomorrow night at Summit Music Hall with Serious Moonlight (the Photo Atlas's mellower alter-ego), Enos and Long Live the Liar. Page down to hear Swing Hero's self-titled five-song EP. He wrote some of the material on the road and finished it this past fall when he returned home (3OH!3 is in the midst of working on a new record).

Like Alexisonfire frontman Dallas Green and countless other dudes who shed their heavier roots in favor of exploring a more sensitive artistic side of themselves, Swing Hero finds Gallagher playing a notably more subdued style of music than the frenetic, prog-inspired brand of post-hardcore Solar Bear became so well known for.

The five songs you'll hear below were recorded at Eight Houses Down by Matt Van Leuven (who also recorded Solar Bear's swan song, Captains of Industry) and up in Fort Collins at the Blasting Room by Jason Livermore, who also mixed and mastered the tracks. While Gallagher will have the support of a few of the My Body Sings Electric guys (Brandon Whalen, Nick Crawford and Jeff Fedel) live, the studio stuff features Gallagher on vocals, bass and guitar, along with Patrick Kline of Glowing House on drums.

"A lot of it came from being on the road and being away from everybody that I know and relationship troubles resulting from that amongst other things," Gallagher reveals. "The songs are about five out of ten [that I wrote]. The others I ended up throwing away."