Glen Hansard Says Chances Are Slim for Swell Season to Reunite Anytime Soon

He's now a solo artist in his own right, but for a lot of fans, Glen Hansard will always be one-half of the Swell Season, the alt-folk duo that got its start in the gracefully unspooling frames of the hit 2007 film 'Once.' So even though he's prepping the release of his first solo album, he understands why people are still asking about a Swell Season reunion -- just don't expect it to happen any time soon.

"I would go back to it in a heartbeat," Hansard told Spinner when asked about the chances of reuniting with his former partner, Marketa Irglova. ""But the only way that's ever going to work," he hastened to add, "is if me and Mar hang out and write a few songs together. I'm not interested in getting together with her with a couple of her songs and a bunch of mine and putting them out as a Swell Season record. Our friendship is bigger than that."

Hanging out and writing songs would seem to be fairly simple for Hansard and Irglova -- they released plenty of material between 2006 and 2009 -- but it isn't so cut-and-dried from Hansard's perspective, partly because he's currently focused on promoting his new record, 'Rhythm and Repose.'

"What's the chances of me and Mar getting into a room together over the next couple years and making music? Quite slim right now," he said to Spinner. "But we're really good friends. We got together a couple weeks ago and we did something. And it was like, 'We can do this. We know how to do this.' We're good with each other. She's really good at pointing out my weaknesses. There's nothing that's going to direct that more than just me and her meeting. She's literally the most authentic artist I know."

Irglova, who's also been out promoting her own solo album (2011's 'Anar'), agrees that a Swell Season reunion could happen ... someday. "I'm sure there will be one, I just don't know when," she told the Huffington Post last year. "It's one of those things. I just made this record and Glen is releasing his record soon, and I feel like both of us really love working together and we would love to make another Swell Season record, but it's more a case of when to do it. I think it's more up to Glen than it is to me, because I'm going to be up for it the moment it's mentioned."

Glen Hansard's 'Rhythm and Repose' is scheduled for release on June 19.