Neu Swim Deep: ‘Guitar Music Isn’t Dead, One Direction Are Smashing It’

Open a music magazine or flick through a new music blog and you’ll find more references to this ‘B-town’ thing than you will actual songs. It’s the most fledging of scenes, where a new band emerges out of the cracks as each day passes. Birmingham used to just house The Twang, a group of thirty-somethings responsible for sterile lad rock impersonations and cheap, forgettable rock songs. Two years back one mention of Birmingham wouldn’t spark a flicker of a debate. That’s completely changed now, with Swim Deep - perhaps the most conceivably chart-friendly band of B-town’s cast - heading up a long list of acts making waves.

And ‘B-town’ is not a thing of myth. In this very conversation with Austin Williams and Cavan McCarthy from the group, the guys are Skypeing Neu in the only wifi-friendly part of the Camden Barfly’s backstage area. They’ve arrived to see fellow B-town hellraisers Peace and Jaws play a show with London neo-psych band Temples. In the middle of our chat, Peace shuffle into the room with watermelons in their hands (as if it’s some kind of contractually obliging novelty, what with the fact that a giant sliced watermelon graces the front of their latest ‘Delicious’ EP). The interview comes to a slight halt halfway through, as both bands talk about Germany and the array of goods available in the local sex vending machines. Meanwhile Jaws are soundchecking their tropical guitar-pop upstairs. It’s a bit like travelling to New York for the first time and seeing it in the flesh, experiencing the city you’ve always seen on TV in all its awe-inspiring actuality.

“We’re eventually going to get all of the bands together for a big tour,” says Cav. “But we can’t decide which order everyone would go in. We can’t decide which band people like the most…” Austin stops to consider, before confidently deciding: “We’ll do it as part of our Greatest Hits tour.”

Austin and Cav talk with the full awareness that they’re signed to a major label and that they’re eventually expected to sell records. That’ll be the big litmus test of ‘B-town’ and it will either see a continued rise or a dramatic fall from grace for the city’s assemblage of bands. But Swim Deep aren’t close to being fazed. When I mention that they’re the first pop group to push a message of escapism to the forefront of their songs, Austin neatly answers: “Yeah, that’s why we got signed.”

Asked whether it’s at all alien to the band, to share a roster with the likes of Chris Brown and Dido on RCA Records - the band put pen to paper this past August - Austin replies: “It gave us a lot of confidence, actually. A fuckload of confidence. To think that a major label is interested in four guys making shit punk songs a year previous, obviously that says that we’re doing something good.” What are the biggest perks to being signed to a major? “We can eat food now,” says Cav. “We don’t turn up to our gigs starving anymore.”

Peace have signed to Columbia, they made the Top 20 with their most recent EP and have won the adoration of Radio 1’s most influential of disc jockeys, Zane Lowe. Swim Deep and others have also flirted with the station’s playlists. Bit by bit these bands are escaping a city they adored, but which they all collectively desire to leave for good. “Yeah I think that’s why we all make music, so we can travel with it,” Austin acknowledges. “But it’s not that we hate [Birmingham]. It’s where we all met each other, so it’s a great place. It’s real social. We’d go out as one big group. But it’s not like a luxury. To get away from it would be great.”

Austin is a fascinating frontman. You’d expect four guys dressed up in denim jackets and skinny jeans to be nonchalant, playing it cool and acting like they don’t give a damn about their rise to prominence. But Austin is quick to admit; “I always saw [Swim Deep] as a career…Ever since I got kicked out of college I was like ‘shit, what am I going to do?’ That’s why I wanted to make it a career. It’s the best career I could ever imagine.” Half of the time his answers are curse-filled, seemingly disinterested. But occasionally he’ll come out with a statement of clarity and intent. Beneath the escapist message and sunny pop music, Swim Deep are a band of great aspiration, keen to make a name for themselves and declare the ‘guitar music is dead’ debate redundant.

Said debate appeared lifeless, on its knees, when major labels show such faith in Swim Deep and Peace. “That conversation just rests on the coincidence that around the same time, a load of shit bands were coming out,” declares Austin. “A lot more people are accepting pop culture these days.” But wasn’t there a time when pop music itself would incorporate elements of guitar music as if it was convention or a necessity? “Actually, One Direction’s new album is pretty guitar based. Their new song is a straight rip off of The Clash’s ‘Should I Stay Or Should I Go?’. Guitar music isn’t dead, One Direction are smashing it.” On that troubling note, you can’t help but pray with every inch of life that another band will come along and do the ‘smashing it’ role themselves, with more authenticity and intention than five handsome, reality TV show runners up. Swim Deep lie at the centre of the equation for a change of the tides. They might act like they don’t know it, but there’s a hell of a lot resting on their shoulders. You sense that if any band can weather the pressure, they can.

Swim Deep’s new single ‘Honey’ will be released on 5th November via Chess Club Records.

Taken from the November 2012 issue of DIY, available now. For more details click here.