In The Deep End

A relatively new project, and the first band for all involved, Swimming came together in 2011 when the members were asked to contribute to a night in Adelaide called 'No One Wants To Play With Us'. The event centred on the creation of temporary or irregular collaborations, often between established musicians. But when Katie and her sister Angela enrolled their friend Sam Reynolds as a drummer for their debut, the response was so positive they decided to make things permanent. With lovely vocal harmonies and a precise sense of space on their songs, you'd expect a lot of experience behind the scenes. Not so, according to Schilling:

“None of us are trained; none of us have studied music,” she tells. “We're all, obviously, pretty passionate about music – we've always had an interest or it's in our family in some way, but this is definitely our first real [experience]. There's been a huge learning curve in all sorts of ways: through production and even just playing the instruments. The vocals especially, because they're a big part of Swimming. I think [the vocals are] something that drives the music a lot. I was in choir when I was in high school, but I think that's about the most training that we've had.”

Sparse and delicate, with catchy melodies and simple beats, Swimming feel very much part of the zeitgeist. For the debut, the band wanted to take inspiration from their influences, without being drowned by them. 

“We all like a lot of different types of music,” Schilling explains, “but we really enjoy hearing each part of the music, especially the vocals. And we're all into a lot of hip hop and R&B, things with a great bassline or a beat. And that really ties in well with quite sparse music. Ang and I have been listening to Oscar + Martin for quite a while now and they have been a huge influence. We really enjoy the beats that they use and of course they're both really great singers. But we do like to keep it as original as possible. I think that's also what contributes to having quite sparse music: I mean there's influences everywhere, but if you put too much in – you don't want to make it too cloudy or have too much in there.”

Recording Yes, Tonight in their house gave the band the freedom to experiment and a gentle introduction to the art of recording. 

“We were pretty much set up in the hallway of Ang's house, right in the front door,” Schilling says. “We had two, I think three of the bedrooms set up as recording rooms, and everyone in the house left us alone for a few days, or over a week, and it was a really great experience. It was the first time, for all of us; we recorded with Patrick Lockwood from Format records and he's amazing. He knows our music really well and he's been doing our sound from pretty much since day one, so he was able to help us a lot.

“I'm not really sure if any of us have had a moment where we've really thought, 'Okay, this is what I'm going to do' or 'This is all I'm going to focus on'. We're all really quite busy people; everyone's either been at uni or had another job and Swimming definitely began as a side-project, but now needs a lot more attention than that. It's been a pretty crazy journey and I'm not really sure if anyone's realised or if anyone's understood what might happen, if we keep putting all of our effort into it. We're just taking it as it comes.”

Swimming will be playing the following dates:

Saturday 13 April - The Waiting Room, Brisbane QLD