U.K. Revelations
Remembering a "secret" tour that led to the creation of SWMRS
Max and I onstage as ‘Swimmers’ in London, 2014.
Of all the tours I have been on, I don’t think that any has influenced me more than the UK tour we did after my high school graduation. Some of my longest standing friendships were solidified on that trip over warm beer and cheesy chips. It was a time of discovery– to this day I still listen to music that I first heard on that trip.
This is the tour where Emily’s Army became SWMRS. Here’s how it happened: Emily’s Army had an offer to play at Reading and Leeds festival that year, but because of what’s called a radius clause, we technically weren’t allowed to play any other shows in the UK in that time frame.
“That’s when we were like ‘let’s do shows as this band ‘Swimmers’, because we [Emily’s Army] just came out with an EP called SWIM,” my brother and perennial bandmate Max explained to me recently. I remembered that we booked a secret tour around the two festival slots, but I was having trouble remembering the exact details. “And if you put a fish in your bio, we would accept your follow request on a private account called ‘@swimmerssociety’, where we posted about the shows. Ryan booked the shows individually and put his own credit card down for the deposit.”
We had met Ryan and the rest of the Welsh boys the year before, on Emily’s Army’s first trip to the UK. We had played at a venue called Hobos in their hometown of Bridgend, Wales, and they were five of the ten people who showed up. They took us to get our first kebab and showed us what it meant to ‘bun a zoot’. They also had a band.
The tour itself was fantastic– Ryan’s band Wasters opened, along with a band called the Shrives– we were all friends, and every show was a party. Our secret ‘@swimmerssociety’ ploy worked great, and there were solid turnouts in every city.
I remember the tour more for the extra bits in between the shows— crashing on Zoe’s floor, then on Fee’s floor, then on Charlie’s floor. Beans on toast for breakfast, Nando’s for lunch, Wagamama for dinner. Most of all, though, I remember how important music was to everyone we met out there.
I remember Newcastle because we played on a Saturday night. After the show we were all whisked out, so that the venue could transition to its bread-and-butter operation of being an actual nightclub. They said we could stick around if we liked— we didn’t see the harm. We sipped on gin and tonics and got ready for them to start playing top 40, when we heard something strange. Was that… Arctic Monkeys?
Dancing to Arctic Monkeys at a nightclub in Newcastle, 2014.
Slowly I began to understand that rock music wasn't something external to pop music in the UK, the way that it is in the states. There are no preconditions to being into guitars. Maybe it’s because of football, or maybe it’s because of beer— for whatever reason, it seemed like everybody loved to sing along to rock music. When the DJ played “Fluorescent Adolescent” in the club, the dance floor literally started to shake, and these peoples’ drunken approximations of the lead guitar riff drowned out all other sound.
This trip was also the first time I learned that Oasis had more songs than Wonderwall and Champagne Supernova. If you grew up in the USA like me, you could be forgiven for assuming that they were a two-hit-wonder— but that forgiveness likely wouldn’t come from a Brit (or a Welsh, or a Scot, or an Argentinian, for that matter). In the UK, it’s not an exaggeration to say that Oasis is the biggest and most beloved band of all time. It seemed like anywhere we went there was a 50% chance that a crowd would randomly break into a “Don’t Look Back in Anger” sing-along. At a house party we played in Bristol, I made a joke about them to some drunk lads and narrowly avoided getting hit in the face. The interaction went something like this:
“What’s your favorite UK band then?”
“Definitely Oasis. Damon Albarn (singer of Blur, rival of Oasis) is such a genius.”
“OI! CHADRIK. This GEEZAH DOESN’T KNOW WHO THE FUCK HE’S TALKING ABOUT DOES HE?”
Chadrik came in from the other room. “WHAT’S HE RUNNIN IZ MOUF ABOUT?”
“YANKEE GEEZAH SAYS HIS FAVORITE BAND IS OASIS, and that HE LOVES HOW DAMON ALBARN RUNS THE BAND.”
Chadrik looked at me with the contempt of a righteous warrior. “HE’S GONNA HAVE TO ANSWER TO my LEFT FIST LIAM, and my RIGHT FIST NOEL then, INNIT? THEN HE WON’T HAVE SUCH A HARD TIME KEEPING OUR NATIONAL TREASURES STRAIGHT WILL HE?”
“LISTEN ERE WANKAH: DAMON ALBARN is THE POSH BITCH singer of BLUR. He’s got NUFFINK TO DO WIF OASIS and you’d BETTAH REMEMBAH that if you don’t want TWO BLACK EYES”
Swimmers at Reading Festival, 2014.
At the beginning of the tour, we were Emily’s Army playing under an alias. By the end of the tour we were Swimmers, soon to be shortened to SWMRS.
Reading festival was the finale of the tour and the point of no return. We were inspired by our friends' bands, inspired by the success of our secret tour. We had transformed completely over the course of two weeks.
The night before the festival, we wrote and learned a song called “James Dean” (this would later become the song “Harry Dean”) in our hotel room. The next day, we got on the stage, where we were billed as Emily’s Army, and introduced ourselves as Swimmers, as if that’s the band we had been all along.
I’ve put together a playlist of the best songs I remember from that time. Give it a listen if you’re in the mood for something jangly, upbeat, and slightly melancholy.
Love this. I was 14 when I saw you guys at sound control as swimmers, and was lucky enough to talk to you, specifically, before the show, as you were speaking to an elderly gentleman about music in the corner beforehand! I’m sure I was a pain considering I was a massive fan and you were these huge rockstars in my eyes (a musician preparing for music college hahaha) but that interaction was wonderful and memorable for me. And got a pic with you all afterwards which is a prized possession. So grateful for this tour, next show I saw you at was deaf institute. Being front row at a venue as small as sound control was really special considering where you were all headed!