This is Part 1 of a four-part series detailing the rise and demise of The Swellers, a Flint-born band that has toured the world multiple times. They've played on some of the biggest tours alongside some of the biggest bands. Now they're calling it quits. After years of waiting for their big break and near misses, after record deals and managers, they've given up on what every band hopes for, the thing they were so close to for so long.

FLINT, MI--The Swellers were in Brazil the first time they had The Talk.

They were in Rio de Janeiro, or maybe it was Sao Paulo. It's the kind of thing that gets hard to remember when you're touring the world playing punk rock shows, and it's the kind of thing that also doesn't really matter. What mattered was how good the show was — and it had been a great show. It was outdoors under the Brazilian sun in a large amphitheater and they were on tour with a band called Story of the Year, which they had long admired.

Story of the Year has a tradition in which their guitarist at some point during the show does a backflip off a speaker, and so when The Swellers were onstage, their bassist, Anto Boros, climbed up on a speaker himself.

Lead singer and guitarist Nick Diener told the crowd that they needed to close their eyes for the stunt, catching just the before and after. "One, two, three," they counted together, and Boros did an awkward backward somersault onto the stage while the crowd looked on, eyes open and laughing. A great show.

They knew it was a great show because they knew what not-great shows were like. Like any band, they'd had their share, and they'd had more of them recently. It had been four years since they were on the Warped Tour, opening for bands such as Paramore, playing for sold-out crowds as far as away as Japan. Tour offers weren't coming now as they once were. Records were not selling as they'd hoped. It was hard not to get discouraged.

And yet here they were, in Brazil, finishing up one of their three shows in the country and then walking up the back steps of the amphitheater into the venue's office to hang out and sip a few beers while the next band got ready, and guitarist Ryan Collins, usually a guy of few words, brought up the thing he'd been thinking about for a while.

When Collins wasn't playing shows in Brazil, he was working for Jet's Pizza in Michigan. He'd been working there for years, mostly as a manager behind the counter, making and serving a lot of pizzas. It wasn't a bad job — it was there for him whenever he came home, and his bosses were always fine with him leaving to tour. Now his bosses were telling him there might be more opportunities within the company. He had a chance to go beyond managing a store. He could move to Chicago for a more lucrative job. More than a job. They were offering him a career, one in which the money from an out-of-country tour didn't mostly go to buy more tires for the band's van.

"I was drinking a little bit and I was just kind of thinking about it the whole trip," Collins said. "I was just like, 'Yeah, I got this stuff coming up and it might be a better move for me to take my job more seriously. ... It was a little nerve-wracking because I didn't know how everyone would take it. That whole year was an up and down year. A lot of down."

Nick Diener and Boros understood, even if they didn't say so at the time. Nick Diener was engaged to be married and wasn't sure how well life on the road would work with marriage, even with a supportive fiancee. Boros was an electrician and had some opportunities of his own.

That left Jonathan Diener.

He and his brother had been playing since they were kids. The Swellers were formed when they were teenagers, long before they ever met Boros or Collins, and for a long time, even though they were in their mid-20s, being professional musicians was the only job they'd had. They'd long ago moved out of their parents' house, but until recently had lived together and spent most of their time together on the road.

Things had changed over the years. Now, when Jonathan wasn't onstage he was working behind the drum counter at Guitar Center. It was getting harder to make ends meet just by playing. But it was a life Jonathan wasn't ready to give up yet.

"They all agreed with each other and I was super mad at that point, and I yelled at everyone," he said. "We're like, in Brazil, and we're having this talk?"

They struck a compromise. They would keep touring, but maybe not as much. Who knew? Maybe their new record, due out in a couple months, would be a hit. They would, at least for now, keep going, and that was what Jonathan Diener needed them to do. He didn't want to move up in the Guitar Center world. He wanted to play drums. Because if he didn't keep playing drums, then he wouldn't be the person he set out to be. He wouldn't be doing what he loved anymore.

If he didn't keep going, he might wake up one day to realize just how long he'd still been in retail, and that the best thing he'd done was behind him, when he'd been in a band you'd never heard of, but could have, if things had only worked out a little differently.

Check out Part 2: Humble beginnings, from Store Bought Heroes to The Swellers.

