GENRE IS DEAD! Interview with SWMRS

GID: You’ve been performing some new songs live. Which one is your favorite at least at the moment?

Max: I don’t know. It’s fun to see people’s faces. We start off the set with “Trashbag Baby” and I think it sets such a good tone for the rest of the show. Right now “Lose Lose Lose” goes off. Every time people are jumping. 

Seb: I think what I’m really proud of about our record is that not all of our songs sound alike. You could take or leave one or the other. I think they all sound pretty unique in their own ways, so it’s hard to pick a favorite on stage because they all have their super parts and moments to play in them. So it’s not like you feel like you’re playing the same song twice even though they’re different.

Joey: It also makes it easier for our fans to have a favorite because every song is so different, so people have an extreme view on each one. I even like it when a fan’s like “Oh, I hate this one but I love this one” because that’s the point. This album is like a mixtape. We grew up making mixtapes and we send our girlfriends mixtapes and they send us mixtapes and it’s one of those things. We made this record, it came from us. And to see it live and to see the various reactions every time the first notes play, that’s the most special part about it.

GID: In summer, you played the Hurricane and Southside Festival, which is one of the best festivals in Germany. The lineup was really incredible. Do you also walk around festivals and watch other bands?

Seb: Yeah! At Rocko del Schlacko, we saw The Broilers and that was amazing. We loved that. 

Joey: We also saw Rex Orange County at Reading and Leeds. He was awesome. It’s cool to see bands who are from the country that you’re playing the festival in. When you see Broilers play in Germany, it’s insane. When we saw Rex Orange County play at Leeds, it was crazy. That’s the magic of playing festivals is that you get to see this bigger scope of music and it’s not just the same type of whatever from where you’re used to. And so that’s the best part of festivals.

Seb: And it’s cool because we love watching shows and we don’t get to often because we’re always on tour. And to play at a festival with bands you actually have wanted to see for a long time and are curious about and to be able to see them is really cool. We played with that band Dreamwave at a festival and they were so fucking good 

Joey: It was also their hometown. I was at Reading, so it’s really cool to see local bands. I think when we saw – I don’t know if it’s Babymetal – but we saw some Japanese hardcore band and we saw them in Tokyo and it was the coolest shit I’ve ever seen. 

SWMRS are currently on tour. Check out all their dates here. And pick up their new album Berkeley’s On Fire here.

Watch our video interview with Max and Cole back in 2017 below:

Interview by Melissa Wilke
Additional editing by Ashley Perez Hollingsworth

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