Music > Interviews
Interview with Swim Deep
06/06/13
For a band who are yet to release their first album, Swim Deep have been making all kinds of waves (sorry). In the last year they’ve coined their very own phrase for the scene they are a part of (‘The West Madlands’), and welcomed a bass player who couldn’t technically play bass. We managed to catch up with them fresh from their tour of Europe and ask some burning questions about Warpaint’s Jenny Lee Lindberg, and to try and get to the bottom of what they’re putting in the water in the Midlands at the moment…
So you guys were all over Europe the last couple of weeks, weren’t you?Yeah, yeah, it was pretty mental actually. We played a lot of shows, but it was our first time going to a lot of these places; we’d been to, like, Germany before to play little festivals so we kind of know what to expect there, but like, the crowds in Switzerland – and we went to Rome and all these small places that we’d never heard of before – and there were so many people there to watch us, like really enjoying the music. It was pretty mental; we didn’t expect it.
Is it quite hard to appreciate the legs that your music has across the continent?Yeah, course, especially in places like Zurich; I’d never really heard of it before so to go there - and we were playing quite big venues as well – and it was just, like, great to see so many people enjoying your music when you’d never even heard of the place before.
You came back and played familiar ground – you were at the Great Escape just last weekend…That was amazing as well.
The Great Escape last year provided a bit of inspiration for you last year, didn’t it?Yeah, definitely.
Wasn’t that the place that was the inspiration for writing ‘The Sea’?No, I don’t think it was; that was written a while after that. I think Ozzy wrote that when he was pretty bored at home, I think, but The Great Escape was like the start… the start of everything for Swim Deep. As soon as we came back off that, everything started to go pretty crazy. We played our first ever, like, sold out show at The Great Escape last year and this was at like 7 o’clock in the evening as well, so it was pretty crazy. We played to a lot of people – we’d never experienced it before. And then that was kinda the start of everything. This year we played bigger shows, like we played The Dome, which is like the biggest venue in Brighton, which is crazy. We played with the Klaxons actually…
I saw that they’d finally resurfaced actually. Were they a bit rusty? Did they put on a good show?Nah, they were amazing actually! They played like six new songs and I’d heard that they hadn’t played a show for like a year or something, but no, they sounded great. I saw them when they headlined Reading actually in like, 2010 or 2009 and I think we’ve all like kind of been a fan of their older stuff, so it was good and they’re really great guys.
It’s been a hell of a wait though, hasn’t it? Maybe there are lessons to learn from the Klaxons effect? I mean, they were mega-hyped, weren’t they, and then brought out that brilliant debut. You guys have been mega hyped as well this year – are you aware of trying to court it on your terms?Erm, I think so; I mean, I think the Klaxons with MGMT kind of invented that whole kinda like style of music and that way they were dressing and stuff. And that weird, almost hippy-ish vibe, so obviously that can’t be done again, but I’d like to think that we could invent something great like that.
We’ve had you play in Norwich a couple of times now, and you’ve without doubt been a heavy touring band – how are you at the tour prep? Are you pretty organised?Erm, we’re really unorganised actually [sic]; I think if we didn’t have people with us, we wouldn’t end up playing the shows. There’s been so many times where we’ve like, left guitars behind and stuff and just like left stuff – we’re probably one of the most unorganised bands, I reckon [sic].
As I said, we’ve had you down in Norwich a couple of times now – you came to Open most recently. Can you see yourself coming back this way as part of a mammoth headline album tour?Yeah, I can’t see why not. I mean, it’s obviously not one of the biggest cities, is it? Is it? I don’t really know much about it… But yeah, I can’t see why not ‘cause we had a really good response last time we came, especially on the Spector date. That was one of the really good shows of that tour. If people want to buy tickets to our shows there, then we’ll be back.
I think it’s fair to say that we’ve waited patiently, and your album’s going to be coming out very soon, isn’t it?Well, not too soon – end of July.
Oh, that’s not too long. What can we expect from the parts of the album we haven’t heard?I think it would be more of a surprise if we hadn’t put out ‘She Changes the Weather’ – that’s kinda the vibe that it’s gonna have, but I don’t know… I don’t wanna give too much away, to be honest! But yeah, expect… Not the unexpected, but, I don’t know –
- Just expect. Full stop.Yeah! Yeah.
You mentioned ‘She Changes the Weather’; that’s just come out, almost a year to the date after your first single. Does it feel really different a year on?Erm yeah, sort of, I think, but only because we’ve adapted as a band and we have more of a following now. So now when we release something it obviously has more of an impact and we hear about it a bit more, but it doesn’t feel much different other than that it’s coming off the back of a label now rather than when it wasn’t before. But I mean, it still feels great, it still feels as exciting.
Now in one of your older songs, ‘King City’, you make a cheeky little reference to Warpaint’s Jenny Lee Lindberg – are you all big musical fans, or is it purely a lust thing? Well Ozzy wrote that lyric, obviously, and I think it was like a tie between Jenny Lee Lindberg and Scarlett Johansson and I think he chose Jenny just because he’s probably got more of a chance of meeting her maybe.
Yeah, that’s sensible – when you have your one celebrity pass, you don’t want to go for someone astronomically famous –- No, course not.
You need to be tactical with who you go for.Yeah, but I think he’s gone off the idea now a bit, ‘cause she’s married or something apparently. I think he thought tactically at the time.
With your name, and of course, ‘The Sea’, there seems to be a distant gaze towards the ocean. The West Midlands are pretty landlocked – is there any reason that the sea has been a bit of an influence on you?I think it was mainly when we started writing; we were like, so obsessed with wanting to be in America, and the whole lifestyle and things, just all that sort of stuff. But I don’t think the actual sea is as much of an influence now on the writing as it was when we first started. I think it’s more about wanting to do different things to what you’re doing, and wanting to be in a better place than you currently are.
I’ve had the very good pleasure of interviewing Peace as well, and one of the things that comes up when you read interviews with both your bands is Zombie Prom [Birmingham’s indie club night]. When I say those words to you, what instantly comes to mind?Just like, partying; that’s where we all met, well, that’s where I like first met Ozzy and Cav, at that club night. It’s a pretty big thing for us… well, it was when we first met and we all used to go there every weekend. That’s when we all met the Peace guys and all that, so yeah, it’s a pretty big thing. There’s not much behind it other than partying though really.
It made me think though that kids can make music in their bedrooms nowadays, but is that necessarily a good thing? Bands like you and Peace have shown that good things come out of just living a little sometimes, don’t they?Yeah, but I mean we all started writing better songs and taking it more seriously when we stopped partying. I think when we were partying we were writing different music and not really taking it that seriously. When we started to really think about it and decide that’s what we wanted to do, that’s when things started to pick up and we started to write these songs.
But do you think you could have written the same music had you not lived a bit?Well no, probably not because I probably wouldn’t know the guys ‘cause I met them when we were out. And I think there wouldn’t be the whole Birmingham scene if we hadn’t, ‘cause it was kind of a scene to us before anyone else even knew of it, before any press picked up on it. There was always a scene there for us, because there was a big group of friends writing music and hanging out.
Whole movements come out of people going out though; fashion, music, art – it’s not gonna happen if young people are all sat inside watching Masterchef, is it?It’s a great show though, by the way.
Ha, yeah! I actually love it. So, I think it was Ozzy that said something nice about you in an interview; he said of you joining the band “that was one of the best things that happened, to be honest.” That’s pretty nice of him, isn’t it? You won’t have known beforehand maybe, but do you think that all of you coming together, something just clicked?Yeah, I think so. Yeah, definitely ‘cause we played shows together, but separately because we were in different bands and they were like, the first band that I’d heard that was writing that sort of music, you know, that sort of beachy sound. This was like, years and years ago, way before I’d ever heard of like Wavves or Beach Fossils; I’d never heard any of that sort of music before and it just sounded really happy an’ that. So I was just like, “I wanna be in your band.” And he was just like, “Yeah, OK, cool.” I think that’s when it started to get more serious because we started to take it a bit more seriously ‘cause we were like, a band – they just had like, their friends controlling the drums on samples and stuff like that and they were like, ‘Oh, I wonder who we can get to play those parts for this show?’ It was Ozzy and Higgy, but it wasn’t like, a ‘band’.
And when it comes to Cav, he couldn’t even play bass when he joined, could he? What are the credentials you need to join Swim Deep, do you think? What boxes did he tick?Erm, he was like our best friend… and he was really pretty, so yeah, that qualified him. And he just like, loved music; he’s so into music and we knew at the time that he’d be so passionate about it as well. I dunno, our songs weren’t super tough on bass either, so we were like, ‘why not?’
Yeah, and how is he on the old instrument now?!Oh, he’s great! Me and Cav are like, obsessed with Red Hot Chilli Peppers and we’re like, destined to be the next Chad and Flea.
Yeah, well when you listen to their earlier stuff, they’ve got really funky bass lines, haven’t they?Yeah, me and Cav absolutely love that.
Now we want you guys, after the festival season is over, to be able to say to other people that Latitude Festival was the best one you did all summer, so what would make the perfect audience for you Zach?Oh, that’s a tough one… are you after a realistic answer?
No, it doesn’t have to be based in realism whatsoever.Argh… well the best show would probably be if Prince was watching us. But the best realistic show would be if everyone was just enjoying it, I guess. It’s just great to see people – as well as people going mental to your music – it’s great to see the older people that obviously know a lot more about music really enjoying what you’re doing. I can’t wait.
Maddie Russell
Swim Deep play the Lake Stage at this year’s Latitude Festival in Suffolk. For tickets and info on the entire line-up, go to www.latitudefestival.co.uk.