Cranking up a crackling vinyl copy of the 1984 eponymous Swimming Pool Q’s A&M Records debut can transport an entire generation back to the hip college radio station airwaves that first introduced young listeners to the Atlanta New Wave act. Songs like “The Bells Ring,” “Some New Highway,” “Pull Back My Spring” and “She’s Bringing Down the Poison” became mainstays on college radio playlists. And just like they were exposing R.E.M. and U2 to the masses, the college kids ruling those wheels of steel were convinced it was only a matter of time until mainstream radio took notice and the Atlanta quintet would also be selling out arenas across the country.

While the Q’s never ended up elbowing their way next to their Athens pals in MTV’s Buzz Bin, the venerable Atlanta act is still rocking 46 years later.

On Saturday and Sunday night at Napoleon’s in Decatur, the band will celebrate the 40^th anniversary of their beloved big label debut with a pair of shows. On Saturday night, they’ll play all 10 songs in order and on Sunday they’ll reverse the order “just to show we can!” At each performance, they’ll play a set of fan favorites with current bassist Robert Schmid and then J.E. Garnett will resume his 1984 role on bass to recreate all the numbers from “The Swimming Pool Q’s.”

Blessedly for fans, these days the band is also hard at work putting together a double vinyl release of its 2003 album “Royal Academy of Reality” set for release in 2025 while Q’s vocalist Anne Richmond Boston, with the assistance and support of notable indie rock friends, is working on “I Should Be Happy,” a fresh take on her long-shelved second solo album, first recorded 30 years ago.

Both recovering from recent bouts of COVID, Q’s co-founder guitarist/vocalist Jeff Calder and Boston sat down with Eldredge ATL to discuss 40 years of “The Swimming Pool Q’s,” the band’s longevity and its upcoming releases. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Eldredge: In preparation for this interview, I pulled out my vinyl copy of “The Swimming Pool Q’s,” with the lyrics sheet and sat down with it and just listened to it all the way through. Have the two of you gone back to the album as you prepare for these 40^th anniversary gigs?

Jeff Calder: A lot of the songs we know because we still play them live. But playing these again with J.E., everything just falls back into place the way it was recorded. We’ve had a couple of rehearsals and from that perspective, it was not at all difficult for it to sound kind of like the record. I’ve had to listen to the record a good bit recently to refresh my memory on some of the songs, which are a little difficult. What strikes me about the record is how great Anne’s vocals are.

Anne Richmond Boston: In contrast to how they are now, I think you’re trying to say! (laughs).

Calder: Anne’s vocals are amazing but I don’t really want to comment on the male vocals. He might be a little weak! Anne’s vocals are exceptional as is Bob’s guitar playing on this record. I still can’t believe all of the things we were able to do on that record. We had a really interesting production team on it.

Eldredge: Anne, have you gone back to listen to it recently?

Boston: I haven’t and I need to! There are a couple of songs on there that I had completely forgotten. When we’ve been doing them at practice, there are a couple where my voice has really changed, especially during COVID and also not singing as often now. So I need to do some vocal calisthenics before the shows! Some of them are really out of my range now.

Eldredge: I was listening to the notes you’re nailing on songs like “Silver Slippers” and “Purple Rivers” and I was wondering if 2024 Anne Richmond Boston curses 1984-era Jeff Calder for those keys he put the songs in?

Boston: (laughs) No, not at all. Luckily, the stuff on “Silver Slippers” is falsetto anyway. When I work at it, I can still hit them. Besides, keys have always been weird with us anyway! Jeff will write a song thinking it’s in the right key for me and he’ll send it to me and I can’t get anywhere near it.

Calder: I’m not even anywhere near the ball park. I’m always wrong. But you know, at least I’m thinking about it now. Back when we made that record, I didn’t really think about those things. When it worked, we just got lucky. We had not yet reached that level of professionality.

Eldredge: Since you’re playing the entire album through, were there any deep cuts on it that you realized you hadn’t played for decades?

Boston: Yes, definitely “She’s Bringing Down the Poison.” I was like, “what?” I couldn’t quite remember it. But then when you get into rehearsal, there’s that part of your brain that goes, “Oh, here it is.” We had a rehearsal with J.E. two weeks ago and it was like no time had passed at all.

Calder: “Silver Slippers” is really difficult to play. It’s in two different time signatures. At the time, us and the Athens bands were just kind of all over the place with time signatures.

Boston: On “She’s Bringing Down the Poison,” for whatever reason, I got to the point where I hated doing that one live. I think because the heart of me isn’t some big rock chick. I liked the low-key stuff more.

Calder: It’s a powerful vocal.

Eldredge: Listening back to it this morning, I remembered what a terrific opening line “Poison” has — “She’s screaming like a phone off the hook too long.”

Boston: Now, there are people who have never even heard a phone off the hook! (laughs).

Calder: (laughs) I guess it’s the same thing with the Trailways bus reference [on “The Bells Ring”). Is that even still a bus company?

Boston: Maybe we should find a recording of a phone off the hook in case someone asks!

Calder: I’m making a note. (laughs)

Eldredge: You recorded this at Axis Studio in Atlanta in May and June of 1984. When you think back to the sessions, do any stories stick out in your mind?

Calder: It was a great studio. I think the building is still in existence. The Hampton Grease Band recorded there and so did The Brains. We were there when The Police recorded there. It was a really great room.

Boston: I remember when we finished recording “Some New Highway,” I really thought it was going to be something. I thought that was a song that would put us on the charts. We all kinda felt that way. I remember us listening back to it and thinking, “We’ve really got something here.”

Calder: We worked really hard on all of that material with [producer] David Anderle and [associate producer] Ed Stasium. We were really prepared to record. Interestingly, we had not even signed the record deal with A&M until we were nearly finished recording. I’ve never heard of anything like that, especially since they were paying the bills. I remember that we wanted to put a sitar on “Celestion” but we couldn’t find one. So we found a guy who had an electric sitar that was in pieces out in Decatur or Scottdale. Bob [Elsey] and I drove out to get it.  It was in terrible condition. But we would not be stopped. So we brought it back to the studio and Ed said, “Man, this is just not going to work. Why don’t you go out and hit it with a hammer?”  We actually have pictures of Bob hitting it with a hammer and it made this incredible drone. So we overdubbed it about four times and that’s the beginning of “Celestion.”

Eldredge: On the album’s lyric sheet, there’s this Eudora Welty quote above the lyrics for “Some New Highway” which reads, “She could hear traffic on some new highway. A sound like the buzzing of one angry fly against a windowpane. Over and over.” Did Ms. Welty provide the germ of the idea that became “Some New Highway”?

Calder: That was a bit of a breakthrough song for us. The subject matter was about a transformational moment in the region. It’s very different from our earlier satirical material. It’s very emotional. I think I had seen that quote from Eudora Welty and turned that idea into a song. We had been traveling in the South for a number of years by then and there are a number of things in the song that we had seen on our travels in these small towns. It was a conflation of those little places. I knew Anne would nail it. A lot of the songs on this album were created for her.

Eldredge: Jeff, you wrote several of these songs with the terrific Atlanta musician Glenn Phillips, who also did some of the arrangements on this album. What was the inspiration for “The Knave,” one of the songs you wrote for this with Glenn?

Calder: (laughs) I think “The Knave” was a kind of revenge song. We were attacking the knave. He was kind of an imaginary figure. Given the folk rock aspects of this record, there was almost a medieval thing going on. I mean, “Silver Slippers” is basically an Elizabethan murder ballad. I don’t know why anyone would want to cut a murder ballad in 1984 but the idea appealed to us. I think the word “vest” made it into the lyrics of “The Knave” as well. If you remember, everybody was wearing vests in 1984. I really loved the clothing of the era. That and those formal shirts with the cuffs that just kind of hung down. Peter Buck had really long arms and he could play the 12-string with the cuffs hanging down and he could pull it off. With me, the cuffs went all the way down to my fingertips. I couldn’t make it work!

Eldredge: Glenn Bewley did the photography for this album. I love the black and white back cover of the band. Was that shot here?

Boston: Yeah, it was a parking garage that I want to say was on Spring Street. It was downtown and I remember driving by it and thinking, “This would be the perfect place.” It was circular and it looked a bit like a Q.

Eldredge: Anne, this is the band’s big major label A&M Records debut and you got to do the cover design and album concept!

Boston: Yeah, it was really crazy. I couldn’t believe they let me do it. At the time, I was working for [iconic Atlanta graphic designer and artist] Don Trousdell, who was my mentor. I had worked for him for years. I asked him if he would design the cover so he came up with an idea and then I came up with an idea. I mean, I just cut it out of colored paper. We presented our ideas with several other people and when he saw mine, he said, “Oh, yeah, you need to go with that.” And I remember saying, “Really?” And then A&M let us do it, which was exciting.

Calder: It was a terrific cover that really stands out and jumps off the shelf.

Eldredge: Jeff, you recently announced that the Q’s last album, 2003’s “Royal Academy of Reality” which I believe clocks in at 20 songs and nearly 80 minutes, will be re-released on double vinyl?

Calder: Yes. That record is so long that at the time they had just introduced 80-minute CDs and it was so new the plant wouldn’t take responsibility that the discs would print OK and be playable. It worked but it’s a lot of material. This re-issue on vinyl has been somewhat labor intensive. We had 23 reels of half-inch tape and they’ve all been transferred. I’m not sure we’ll be able to get it out before 2025 but [DB Recs founder and Wax n Facts owner] Danny [Beard] wants to do it. DB is also interested in putting out Anne’s record, so those are both positive developments.

Eldredge: Anne, you recently posted about reviving and remixing your long-shelved second solo album, “I Should Be Happy.” Here are some of the people who posted encouraging comments: Patterson Hood from Drive-By Truckers, Darryl Rhoades, The Golden Palominos’ Syd Straw, Pylon’s Vanessa Briscoe Hay, Kelly Hogan of the Jody Grind, Jim Johnson of The Chant, Charles Walston from the Vidalias and James Kelly from Slim Chance and the Convicts. It was a Who’s Who of Indie Rock commenting on Facebook!

 Boston: [Ex-Coolies front man and Fellini’s Pizza king] Clay Harper had kept harping on me to put it out so he spearheaded getting the tapes digitalized. [1980s new wave Face to Face vocalist] Laurie Sargent is a friend of mine so I took the tapes up to New Hampshire where she lives. We started working on it and the first thing she did was put the vocal up in the mix. I was like, “Oh, my god.” I’ve never had anything whatsoever to do with the production of anything I’ve ever been involved in, except just to sing. Now I’m working on it with [former Sugar and Bar-B-Que Killers member and current director of UGA’s music business department] David Barbe at his studio in Athens. Plus we found other songs I had cut that I had completely forgotten about. It’s really exciting. [Q’s guitarist] Bob [Elsey] came in a couple of weeks ago to put a couple of guitar parts on it. That was really fun because we have never done anything together other than the Q’s. Patterson actually came by the studio while we were working on it. He was so sweet. It’s nice to know someone might listen to it.

Eldredge: As we close out, one thing I kept thinking about as I listened back to this A&M debut from 1984 is that there were a lot of 1980s-era bands who sold more records but the Q’s have endured. Why do you think that is?

Calder: Someone could say, “Well, they should have broken up 35 years ago…” (laughs). But we’ve lived through so many transitions together. When this record came out, CDs hadn’t started and MTV was still new.

Boston: I think some of it is inertia (laughs). And some of it is just us enjoying playing music together.

Calder: It’s a strong bond. We’ve been through a lot as a band. If you want to hold a band together for a long time you have to be flexible. You have to leave people alone at certain points and let them develop as people. Drug problems tend to effect the longevity of groups and that wasn’t an issue for us.

Eldredge: Not having the money for drugs can be a good thing.

Calder: Yes, it can be a positive thing being paupers.

Eldredge: As I was putting these questions together, REO Speedwagon and Jane’s Addiction both released statements announcing the cancellation of their tours, citing irreconcilable differences. Of course, that was after Perry Farrell took a swing at Dave Navarro live on stage, too.

Calder: That’s a true sign of success — you have to release a statement.

Boston: Our statement is “Yeah, we’re still together!” (both laugh).

The Swimming Pool Q’s will celebrate the 40^th anniversary of “The Swimming Pool Q’s” Saturday and Sunday at Napoleon’s in Decatur. On Saturday, Sept. 28, the show starts at 8:30 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 29, the performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. To purchase tickets for Saturday’s show, click here. For Sunday’s show, click here. The band will also perform at the Decatur Book Festival at the First Baptist Church on Sat. Oct. 5 from 4:15 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. To get the latest on the Q’s, follow their Facebook page.

Richard L. Eldredge

Richard L. Eldredge is the founder and editor in chief of Eldredge ATL. As a reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Atlanta magazine, he has covered Atlanta since 1990.