With yet another headline tour across the UK commencing in
just under a month, Swim Deep have only given us a mere taste of the enormity
of the album to come. With hit singles released so far such as Namaste, One
Great Song and To My Brother, the full album will be released in just 9 days.
This year has been hectic for the Birmingham based five piece
to say the least due to their admirable rising success, following on from their
previous album ‘Where The Heaven Are We’ which seemed to gain a large fanbase,
capturing the interest of many indie music lovers. With their second highly
awaited album - Mothers due in just over a week now, it’s clear that they’re at
the perfect stage to do so after the turn up of thousands at the several
festivals they played across the summer; from the likes of Glastonbury to The NME
stage at Reading and Leeds.
Thanks to the generosity of the manager of Swim Deep, even though they have a busy schedule he
kindly arranged for band member James Balmont to answer a few of my questions in depth to which I am
eternally grateful!
So, without further ado..
Who would you say was the
main musical influence for the band?
With our new record it was really the instruments themselves that were
the influences on the music. We bought instruments like the Roland 303 bass
synthesizer and the Roland 808 drum machine, which were used a lot in the late
‘80s in acid house music - artists like A Guy Called Gerald, for example. We
bought vintage synths like Oberhaims and a Polysix, which we recognised from
ambient musicians like Brian Eno and Tangerine Dream, so they had an influence
on our music too. But the stuff we were listening to also included artists like
Aretha Franklin - we took influence from her vocal delivery for the
motown-style vocals in Namaste, for example, whilst elsewhere we used the
tremolo effect on guitars because we’re big fans of Spiritualized and they use
that sound a lot. Laniakea was written the day after me and Ozzy went to see
the Brian Jonestown Massacre. So there isn’t one “main” musical influence
really, this record is a melting pot of dozens and dozens of influences mixed
in with the spirit of Swim Deep.
Is there a main artist
that you're compared to? - does it bother you being compared to other artists
or do you find it flattering?
I don’t know what the main artist we’re compared to is, but it’s always
enjoyable I think when people try and categorise our sound (our new music
especially), by comparing it with other artists. People said To My Brother
sounded a bit like the Happy Mondays, for example, which is interesting because
it does a little bit but we never realised that, and it wasn’t a conscious influence
by any means. It’s also good because the rest of the record doesn’t sound like
the Happy Mondays at all, so it makes that comparison only a very shallow one.
It’s important not to be bookmarked alongside one particular artist on the
whole, and as long as people struggle to do that for our sound then I think it
means we must be doing something different and that’s what we want to do really
- we just want to be Swim Deep.
What was the one song that
made you want to be in a band?
There are too many to list, too many to remember - but what’s easier to
remember is when you hear a song and you think “shit, I want to make a song
like that”. ‘Space Oddity’ by David Bowie is one I think - the way he creates a
whole story and uses his instruments to reflect the sound of that story is just
incredible. It turns a song into something more than just music, and I think
the self-encompassing nature of that song - almost like a concept-song - was
something we attempted a few times on the new record. And I think we had a good
outcome as a result of that way of thinking.
How was the track listing
process? Do you each have favourites from the album? Why?
We recorded something like 17 songs when we were making this record and
one thing we made a sure thing from the very start was that every single song
that ended up on the record had to have been someone’s favourite at some point
- it had to have been “the best song” for some period of time. So in our eyes,
there is no filler on the record. It’s 11 songs that represent us at the peak
of our creativity at that moment in time. We’re super proud of all of it. In
fact, the only reason there aren’t 12 songs on the record is because it would
have been too long that way - we had to cut one that we really love called
‘Caramelize’ and make it a bonus track because it just wouldn’t fit. That was
one of the most difficult decisions we had when organising the track list!
Fuieho Boogie stands out as probably the most ambitious track on the
album, it feels like the biggest track for sure - i mean it’s got a breakbeat
section at the end which we still just think is batshit crazy, so that
definitely marks a significant point in our lives as musicians. But I also find
that Forever Spaceman is one of the ones that has the most to say - it doesn’t
follow a verse-chorus structure at all; it flows with the narrative and the
lyrical content makes a really interesting story, about a man lost in space.
With the bass line I was literally trying to cram as many notes in a possible
so it’s almost like a jazz bass line. All these things mixed together make for
a great song I think.
Where did the idea for the
Namaste music video come from?
We thought it was funny that some journalists were likening the sounds
of the synths on the track to those of old gameshow themes so we thought we’d
just run with that idea and have some fun with it! And it was REALLY funny
making that video. Paul Daniels is mad.
How would you describe
your new sound? Is it experimental or do you think you'll stick with it?
It’s always experimental because there’s not much point making music
that takes no risks… We’ve come to describe it as a “sci-fi” record though.
It’s not psychedelic music - that’s a term that’s used so loosely now that it’s
lost any meaning. We were listening to a lot of sci-fi films’ scores (eg.
Vangelis’ Blade Runner score) while creating the record, and that’s the sound
that much of our synths were inspired by. Some of the lyrics touch on things
outside our own realities as well - things like being lost in space (Forever
Spaceman), mythical beings (Green Conduit), dystopian laws in other countries
(Fueiho Boogie), ethereality (Heavenly Moment)… So yeah, it’s a sci-fi record
for people rooted firmly on Earth.
Do you think there's been
much of a change in how the fans have been reacting to the new songs live than
how they were compared to older material?
The best reaction you can hope for is something that’s emotionally
charged. People either love it like “what the fuck is this?!” or they think
it’s fucking horrific - and we just love that. There’s no worse feeling than if
someone were to say the music was boring or uninteresting, and not a single
person has said that to us. The fact that people are so confused and excited or
enraged by it means it’s powerful, and that’s a great feeling.
As a fellow brummie, where
is your favourite venue to play in Birmingham and why?
I think we’ve become quite fond of the Oobleck since we’ve played there
a couple of times now and it’s nice and intimate but with a great atmosphere.
We played early versions of Green Conduit and Hotel California there in 2014 so
there’s a bit of history there too!
Written By Rosie Mulhern
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