Swim Deep are making us weak at the knees with eighties nostalgia. Fuelled by long road trips home with the sounds of Magic FM on the stereo, their debut album Where The Heaven Are We is a mesmerising voyage through psych-rock, grunge and some service station stop off at lo-fi indie. As their album looms, we caught up with vocalist, Austin, to reminisce about Glasto, talk about crazy NYC subway rides and summery alcohol. Then they put together a mixtape of heavenly tracks, literally.Noisey: Hey Austin, excuse my hayfever…
Austin: Ahh man, I’ve got it really bad as well. It went for a couple years and I forget about it and then this year it’s come back with a bang. Get the Benadryl, it sorts me out and I can take it in the morning and the evening then it’s sweet.I'll give it a try. So how would you encompass summer in a drink?
Sangria. It's what I used to drink as a kid in the summer. I think I’ve got a bit sick of it though, I’ve drunk too much of it. Or maybe a mojito. One time in summer, we went to Bristol and we caught the cider bug. The cider was properly homebrewed. We had a few and it gets you real weird by the third.LOL, so the album is ready to headlock the world but why’d it get moved back a bit?
I don’t want to go into it too much but it was some kind of production error. It wasn’t because we had bad vibes about the 29th. A week’s fine, I’m cool with that. To be honest, it will be a refreshment for us to have it out. We wrote those songs when we started off, they were like our first collection of songs. It’ll be a relief when it comes out. I can’t wait to write new stuff.And what’s behind the 80s influence?
I guess it’s just nostalgia from being in the back of my mum’s car with the retro stuff on the radio on the way back from days out. Just listening to stuff like Lighthouse Family, Lionel Richie, Fleetwood Mac and stuff like that and there’s something in those years that really resonates and creates a certain atmosphere. I really liked that stuff so I’ve tried to recreate that in the studio. I guess that’s the only influence that I really wanted to pull through. It wasn’t copycat, it was just a sound I was trying to get.Then there’s Charlie Hugall who produced the whole project. How important was it for him to not change your stuff too drastically?
First and foremost, he became one of us and we wanted to work with someone that got us completely. There’s a lot of people that don’t get it but you really have to see it for what we see it. We went in there with a solid idea of what we wanted to make and then it was just like these songs that we had. It was good that we met him before and I just threw some ideas at him just like, let’s freak out. It all kinda got compressed into quite a simple album. Rhythmically, it's also quite simple but I think it’s cool. I think that’s quite a difficult thing to do sometimes. Sometimes it’s easier to weird out and make some bullshit you don’t really understand.Nice. In the video for "The Sea", what shopping centre are you wheeling around in?
That’s the Elephant & Castle one. It’s proper dark there and really depressing. That’s why we wanted to do it there because it was a bit dysmal. I think it’s gonna get closed down anyway.The babe in the video for “Honey” was cool.
She’s real cool. Looking back I’m just like shit, we were kids. It’s quite cool thatwhat we did then we wouldn’t do now. I still think it’s a great video. We didn’t want to do a live performance. We didn’t have many ideas but we wanted to make it ourselves and get a babe in there, throw some paint around and smash some stuff up. Just stuff you want to do as a teenager. I enjoyed the day actually, it was really fun. It was weird to get there and there were cameras.Cool. So I have some quickfire questions for you. What’s the background on your phone?
It’s a picture of me looking really wasted at Glastonbury. I’m trying to get that middle finger pose and I was trying for ages before I finally got it. We look a mess, it was on the Sunday morning.What did you think of it?
It was cool, but I was just like how has [Mick Jagger] not had a heart attack. He’s doing it for two hours, I couldn’t do that for two hours. There’s nothing [The Rolling Stones] haven’t done. It was a good year man, there was a lot of fresh young bands and the first time a lot of us went with bands. We played a few shows and it was a real good thing. Everyone I’ve spoken to has said it was a really good year.Second question, would you rather be a dragon or own a dragon?
Own a dragon man. I reckon I’d own a dragon and we’d be best mates. You could just ride it and the times you want to chill wit humans then maybe you can make love to your girlfriend or make tea. Stuff like that you can’t do as a dragon.What about domestic issues, how would you house a dragon?
I guess if you were a dragon and you were free to do what you want you wouldn’t need a house. But if you rode a dragon, you could go wherever or maybe make a sky castle and go up there and you could just come back really quickly if you wanted to go out.Also is there a dragon diet?
Unicorns?Final question, what is your favourite public transport memory?
We were in New York and it was the first time we’d been there. We were on the subway and it was so disgusting. I got depressed before I walked off. There was this crazy man and he actually looked quite sick. He had this leather jacket on and really long hair. He was just a mess but really crazy and shouting like “RARRR RAR RARRR” with blood around his mouth. There was this little baby next to him and he was only a baby so he couldn’t speak. He was with his dad and everyone was silent, it was so awkward. Then we stopped and this baby started creasing, like proper loud. The man stopped and looked around then sat next to the baby. He’s getting more and more frustrated as this baby is laughing. There’s a point when I got scared but the dad was laughing with the baby.Baby 1 - Crazy Man 0.
Oh! Wot A Dream – Kevin Ayers
Dreams – Fleetwood Mac
Life Is But A Dream – The Harptones
Hung Up On A Dream – The Zombies
Dreams – Gabrielle
I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night – The Electric Prunes
Three Steps to Heaven – Eddie Cochran
Breaking Into Heaven – The Stone Roses
Heaven is A Place On Earth – Belinda Carlisle
Heaven only Knows – ELO
Heaven – Los Lonely Boys
Heaven – Psychedelic Furs
Heaven – Talking Heads
Heaven, Hell Or Houston – ZZ Top
Say Hello 2 Heaven – Temple Of The Dog
Stairway to Heaven – Led ZeppelinThe single ‘King City’ is released on 29th July and available on 7” and digitally, followed by ‘Where The Heaven Are We’ on 5th August both through Chess Club / RCA Victor and available on vinyl, CD and digitally through all usual outlets. You can pre-order the album from here and here.Follow Errol on Twitter @Errol_And
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Austin: Ahh man, I’ve got it really bad as well. It went for a couple years and I forget about it and then this year it’s come back with a bang. Get the Benadryl, it sorts me out and I can take it in the morning and the evening then it’s sweet.I'll give it a try. So how would you encompass summer in a drink?
Sangria. It's what I used to drink as a kid in the summer. I think I’ve got a bit sick of it though, I’ve drunk too much of it. Or maybe a mojito. One time in summer, we went to Bristol and we caught the cider bug. The cider was properly homebrewed. We had a few and it gets you real weird by the third.LOL, so the album is ready to headlock the world but why’d it get moved back a bit?
I don’t want to go into it too much but it was some kind of production error. It wasn’t because we had bad vibes about the 29th. A week’s fine, I’m cool with that. To be honest, it will be a refreshment for us to have it out. We wrote those songs when we started off, they were like our first collection of songs. It’ll be a relief when it comes out. I can’t wait to write new stuff.And what’s behind the 80s influence?
I guess it’s just nostalgia from being in the back of my mum’s car with the retro stuff on the radio on the way back from days out. Just listening to stuff like Lighthouse Family, Lionel Richie, Fleetwood Mac and stuff like that and there’s something in those years that really resonates and creates a certain atmosphere. I really liked that stuff so I’ve tried to recreate that in the studio. I guess that’s the only influence that I really wanted to pull through. It wasn’t copycat, it was just a sound I was trying to get.
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First and foremost, he became one of us and we wanted to work with someone that got us completely. There’s a lot of people that don’t get it but you really have to see it for what we see it. We went in there with a solid idea of what we wanted to make and then it was just like these songs that we had. It was good that we met him before and I just threw some ideas at him just like, let’s freak out. It all kinda got compressed into quite a simple album. Rhythmically, it's also quite simple but I think it’s cool. I think that’s quite a difficult thing to do sometimes. Sometimes it’s easier to weird out and make some bullshit you don’t really understand.Nice. In the video for "The Sea", what shopping centre are you wheeling around in?
That’s the Elephant & Castle one. It’s proper dark there and really depressing. That’s why we wanted to do it there because it was a bit dysmal. I think it’s gonna get closed down anyway.The babe in the video for “Honey” was cool.
She’s real cool. Looking back I’m just like shit, we were kids. It’s quite cool thatwhat we did then we wouldn’t do now. I still think it’s a great video. We didn’t want to do a live performance. We didn’t have many ideas but we wanted to make it ourselves and get a babe in there, throw some paint around and smash some stuff up. Just stuff you want to do as a teenager. I enjoyed the day actually, it was really fun. It was weird to get there and there were cameras.
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It’s a picture of me looking really wasted at Glastonbury. I’m trying to get that middle finger pose and I was trying for ages before I finally got it. We look a mess, it was on the Sunday morning.What did you think of it?
It was cool, but I was just like how has [Mick Jagger] not had a heart attack. He’s doing it for two hours, I couldn’t do that for two hours. There’s nothing [The Rolling Stones] haven’t done. It was a good year man, there was a lot of fresh young bands and the first time a lot of us went with bands. We played a few shows and it was a real good thing. Everyone I’ve spoken to has said it was a really good year.Second question, would you rather be a dragon or own a dragon?
Own a dragon man. I reckon I’d own a dragon and we’d be best mates. You could just ride it and the times you want to chill wit humans then maybe you can make love to your girlfriend or make tea. Stuff like that you can’t do as a dragon.What about domestic issues, how would you house a dragon?
I guess if you were a dragon and you were free to do what you want you wouldn’t need a house. But if you rode a dragon, you could go wherever or maybe make a sky castle and go up there and you could just come back really quickly if you wanted to go out.Also is there a dragon diet?
Unicorns?Final question, what is your favourite public transport memory?
We were in New York and it was the first time we’d been there. We were on the subway and it was so disgusting. I got depressed before I walked off. There was this crazy man and he actually looked quite sick. He had this leather jacket on and really long hair. He was just a mess but really crazy and shouting like “RARRR RAR RARRR” with blood around his mouth. There was this little baby next to him and he was only a baby so he couldn’t speak. He was with his dad and everyone was silent, it was so awkward. Then we stopped and this baby started creasing, like proper loud. The man stopped and looked around then sat next to the baby. He’s getting more and more frustrated as this baby is laughing. There’s a point when I got scared but the dad was laughing with the baby.
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TRACKLISTDream – Dizzie Rascal
Oh! Wot A Dream – Kevin Ayers
Dreams – Fleetwood Mac
Life Is But A Dream – The Harptones
Hung Up On A Dream – The Zombies
Dreams – Gabrielle
I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night – The Electric Prunes
Three Steps to Heaven – Eddie Cochran
Breaking Into Heaven – The Stone Roses
Heaven is A Place On Earth – Belinda Carlisle
Heaven only Knows – ELO
Heaven – Los Lonely Boys
Heaven – Psychedelic Furs
Heaven – Talking Heads
Heaven, Hell Or Houston – ZZ Top
Say Hello 2 Heaven – Temple Of The Dog
Stairway to Heaven – Led ZeppelinThe single ‘King City’ is released on 29th July and available on 7” and digitally, followed by ‘Where The Heaven Are We’ on 5th August both through Chess Club / RCA Victor and available on vinyl, CD and digitally through all usual outlets. You can pre-order the album from here and here.Follow Errol on Twitter @Errol_And