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Every Monday we will be bringing you interviews with unsigned UK or Ireland artists for Independent Music Monday. Recently we caught up with unsigned Edinburgh band swim school to find out more…

Who is in the band, how did you meet, where are you from and how did you come up with the band name?
The band is made up of Alice Johnson (Vocals/Guitar), Lewis Bunting (Guitar), Nairn Milne (Drums) and Matt Mitchell (Bass Guitar).

Alice, Lewis and Matt are from Edinburgh and Nairn is originally from Aberdeen but now lives in Edinburgh. Lewis and Alice both met studying music and Matt used to be in a band with Lewis but, we all met as a group back in September 2018.

Alice, Lewis and Matt had been writing tunes and jamming for a few months prior to that and it was just by pot chance really that Lewis and Nairn met through a mutual friend. Nairn was approached by Lewis afterwards about the band and that’s where it started. We had our first rehearsal towards the end of September just playing along to the tunes which the guys had been writing, it all felt very natural and our ideas bounced off each other well – it didn’t feel like we’d just met!

The name came about quite late on as we announced the band on social media along with our debut single ’sway’ back in February 2019. I think the name was decided around about January and there were quite a few options floating around. We liked the use of the word ‘school’ as the foundations of the band originated from when Alice and Lewis both met at college. I guess we wanted to be slightly quirky and have a name which could stand out so we picked ‘swim’ as it’s different!

Who were your musical influences when you were growing up and who are your influences now?
Our influences growing up were Dave Grohl, Radiohead, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Fleetwood Mac and Oasis, I guess some of these names are probably standard if you were a kid growing up in the 90’s.

Our influences now are definitely reflected in some form within in our music as we’re all massive fans of The Cure, Wolf Alice, Pale Waves, The Night Café, Slow Dive, the list goes on!

How would you describe your sound?
An upbeat, melodic, guitar driven group with an element of pop.

What is your latest release called and what was the influence behind it?
Our latest release is ‘too young to know’ which came out on the 8th of November and is slightly more fierce than our previous releases. The song takes influences again from the likes of The Night Café and Slow Dive with the backstory about the song reflecting being vulnerable and others choosing to make decisions for you because they believe you’re not able enough to do so yourself.

What’s your local music scene like?
The music scene across Scotland is thriving just now! There’s so many artists and bands doing amazing things at the moment from Lewis Capaldi to Joesef and bands such as Vistas, The Snuts, Lucia and the Best Boys and Declan Welsh. There’s too many to list but the scene in Scotland is really exciting at the moment, everyone is so supportive of each other and it’s great to be a part of that.

What do you have planned for the next 12 months? Any albums or festivals?
Next year is looking to be quite busy for us and we’re all really excited to see what 2020 holds. There are some festivals planned but we can’t give anything away on that yet. Some really exciting shows too! The plan is to just keep building our audience and to write music and record music for our debut EP.

Is there anyone you’d love to collaborate with?
Dream big or go home huh? But someone we’d love collaborate with would be Ellie Rowsell from Wolf Alice as they play a big influence on the music we write.

Any funny stories surrounding your live performances?
Hmm, not any in particular that we can think of as of yet!

What is the one thing that you want readers to know about you?
We’re avid fans of Emmerdale.

You can find out more about swim school via Bandcamp, Facebook, Instagram, SoundCloud, Spotify, Twitter or YouTube.

UPDATE: On 17th June 2022, swim school announced that they had signed to record label LAB Records, congratulations!