February 22nd, 2010
Artist Interview: Swimteam
| I’ve really been enjoying Swimteam’s latest effort Harlem over this past week. So much so that I’ve decided to ask these guys some questions about the album & to share a couple more songs with you guys. These two songs paired with “Hound” & “Sun” (songs posted last week), show just how diverse Harlem is; no two songs sound the same, yet they all flow together fantastically. But they don’t give the album justice by any means; listen for yourself: stream & buy the album here.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. Song: Bloom.mp3 Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. Song: Cheeky.mp3 Newdust: How long have you guys been making music together? |
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| Swimteam: Mike and I started our first band in the spring of 2008, so it hasn’t been too long really. |
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| ND: What did you listen to growing up? | |
| S: The first band I really loved was the Red Hot Chili Peppers. But my main influences were bands like Brand New and Jimmy Eat World. Then about three years ago I discovered Radiohead and my musical taste experienced an explosion. Mike’s favorite band growing up was The White Stripes, which is a much cooler answer. |
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| ND: What’s your favorite album as of right…….now? | |
| S: One of my favorites right now is ‘Vaudeville Villain’ from Viktor Vaughn. I just recently got into hip-hop and the two of us have been listening to a lot of MF Doom projects like Madvillain, Viktor Vaughn etc. I think this influenced Harlem a lot, in that we started using samples and loops extensively. |
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| ND: How was the recording process for Harlem? Was it recorded at home? Studio? Were there any others involved? | |
| S: We recorded it in Mike’s bedroom throughout December. It was by far the easiest recording process we’ve done so far. The songs were written very quickly and we were constantly coming up with new ideas. |
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| ND: What were some influences/feelings/emotions that had an effect on songwriting? | |
| S: Other than the music we were listening to, I can’t think of any other influences on the songwriting. Perhaps the cold weather? Also, many of the ideas were written long before we started recording Harlem, so it’s kind of surprising that the album is still sonically consistent. |
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| ND: Is there any theme to the album? | |
| S: Going into the recording process, we didn’t have any theme that we wanted to present in the album. However, after the fact we’ve noticed it’s very melancholy overall, right in that position between happy and sad. This is probably due to the mixture between the Hip-Hop and Electronic influence in the synths and beats, and the influence of our songwriting which has never been too upbeat. |
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| ND: How is this album different from previous ones? | |
| S: This was the first album where we really wanted to make something completely different from anything we’d heard before. We tried to blend all of our musical influences into a new sound, that most importantly, we would really enjoy. Interestingly enough, I believe this has been our most accessible album to date, based on the response from our friends and the large range of influences you can hear in Harlem. We are very proud of Harlem, and we really want as many people listening as we can. |
