Edinburgh’s swim school are tipped for big things, and it looks as though they’re on course for all the greatness foreseen by their fans and industry experts. After catching them at Live at Leeds, I was delighted to score a proper chat with the band for Record Weekly…

RECORD WEEKLY’S INTERVIEW WITH SWIM SCHOOL

Hey hey, how are we all?

We’re good thank you!

How does it feel to be on the road, gigging again? Of the festival slots and shows — like the one headlining King Tut’s — which have stood out the most in 2021?

Being able to play again after having a year of no gigs is the best feeling ever.

In all honesty, for festivals, it’s hard to choose. Latitude and All Points East were the ones that surprised us the most in terms of the amount of people in the audience, as we were so far from home. To know we have that support not just in Scotland but also England means so much to us.

For gigs, I think King Tut’s was a highlight. To sell out such an iconic Scottish venue was a massive achievement for us. The crowd that night was insane and possibly one of our favourite yet.

Let’s take it back to the beginning — how and when did you form swim school?

We met at college and, at the end of 2018, started writing together. But it wasn’t until early 2019 that we announced ourselves as a band and released our first single ‘sway’. We had a class first year together, as we played TRNSMT, supported The Xcerts on their full UK tour and finished it off playing our sold-out debut headliner in Edinburgh. Then the pandemic hit…

How did the pandemic impact the band then?
As sad as it was to watch all the exciting things we had planned for 2020 be cancelled, we knew that we should do something with all the free time we were about to have. We spent days on end writing new material and rehearsing in our rehearsal space (when we were legally allowed to). It ended up with us working on all the tracks for our debut EP and more. It felt good to be productive while everything else in life was put on pause.

Overall, the pandemic benefited us massively. It gave us time to think about what direction we wanted to go in as a band, and then we planned out how we were actually going to do it. We really believe that we came out of the pandemic as a stronger, more confident band.

Which Scottish venues are your favourites to play?

King Tut’s in Glasgow and Sneaky Pete’s in Edinburgh are just some of our favourites. We also just sold out our second hometown headliner at the Mash House in Edinburgh, which is another iconic venue that we can’t wait to play. For Glasgow, Saint Luke’s and the Barrowlands are two venues that are on the bucket list.

How has your recent EP been received?

We are still in shock about how well our debut EP was received. The support we got from fans, Spotify and some of our favourite music magazines and blogs blew us away. It made us feel so confident. As we had written the EP in such uncertain and weird times, we weren’t sure if it was going to get a lot of attention, but it did. It couldn’t have gone any better.

It’s certainly one of the best EPs of 2021 for me! Can you share any hints about new music or events?

We’ve been so busy since live music came back, which has been amazing. Now, we have some free time between working and live shows, so we’re going to spend it writing new material. We hope to record at the start of next year, and we’re so excited to release new music!

In regards to shows, we have loads of really cool festivals booked in already, which we’ll be announcing next summer…

Not yet acquainted? Fix that immediately by spinning swim school’s incredible tracks on Spotify now. You’ll find them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to follow as well. Thank me later.