“If my onstage persona had a fight with my off stage persona
the onstage one would win.”
– Austin Williams
It’s that time of the year again – The Great Escape Festival, Brighton! We had the honour to collaborate with Swim Deep and SON Estrella Galicia, for this special feature. SON Estrella Galicia are running very unique events, uniting music and beer culture (Read more about them at the end of this article). For their so called second micro festival, they had Brighton based bands Currls and Projector alongside headliner Swim Deep, from Birmingham.
We met the 5 piece indie-pop band, Austin Williams (vocals), Cavan McCarthy (bass), James Balmont (keyboards), Robbie Wood (guitar) and Thomas Fiquet (drums), just before their set and had a chat with Austin, about their latest release, their inspirations and fashion of course!
Hey guys, thanks for taking the time to have a chat with us, here at The Great Escape Festival x SON Estrella Galicia! How does it feel to be back in sunny Brighton for this very special occasion?
It’s exciting, we have many fond memories of playing there, lots of house shows, I remember once I played organ for the Magic Gang and they were in the lounge and I was in the kitchen with the organ on a stove. And then the other time we played the dome before the Klaxons and Keira Knightley and Harry Hill watched us, dream blunt rotation.
What’s your favourite song to play live (at the moment) and why?
I think our new one ‘Very Heaven’ is sounding great in rehearsals. So is Vegas. But also we’ve brought songs like King City up a notch and that’s feeling very exciting.
Your latest single ‚First Song‘ from your upcoming 10 track album was just released in March this year. What was the main idea and fuel behind it and why choose this song in particular as the first single to be released?
We felt like it was a curveball from the record, and wanted to grab people’s attention with it, but also it’s got that shoegazey Swim Deep DNA running through it that felt very homely to us.
What can we expect from your new record ‚There’s A Big Star Outside‘, coming on June 7th 2024? Can you name three things that influenced the album the most?
Bill Ryder-Jones
Fatherhood
Death
The Circle of life
Red house painters
The Verve
What’s the best thing about being an artist and what’s the worst?
Being able to express yourself. Sometimes getting to travel the world doing the thing you love.
Worst thing is not getting paid for it.
Touring! You will be going on a headline tour in June this year, kicking it off in Machester on the 4th, which places and venues are you looking forward to the most?
We’re excited to go back to Edinburgh after so long. And playing a venue we fell in love with in 2013, the village underground London.
What was the funniest thing that happened to you on tour?
Well on topic, one time we were in Brighton playing the dome, and weirdly Harry Enfield was there, at the party after he kept calling cav ‘Perry’ from the show he wrote about two pillheads in Ibiza.
What’s essential on your Rider?
Scratchcards. Crisp sandwiches.
How would you describe your stage persona?
If my onstage persona had a fight with my off stage persona the onstage one would win.
What means fashion to you and what influences you in the way you dress?
For this album the dead poets society, withnail and i. Fashion is trying really fucking hard to look like you don’t.
How important is the way you dress (especially for your shows)?
Very I think. I think when you look at bands like The Ramones, and The Strokes, they just look like best mates, like they share wardrobes, I guess that dies out once you grow up and stop sleeping at each others houses, but i think it’s massively integral to any bands.
If you could, who would you collaborate with? Your desert island record?
Bill Ryder-Jones was honestly very high up there for me, and we did, and very heaven and this record is proof.
Music is …
Life.
Thanks Austin, Cavan, James, Robbie and Thomas for talking the time to have a chat and a small polaroid portrait session with us, before playing this special event tonight at the Prince Albert. Follow Swim Deep’s socials to find out more about their upcoming tour, releases and many more!
We also had the pleasure to talk to Victor Mantiñán (Head of Global Music Sponsorship) as a representative of SON Estrella Galicia, to get to know more about their events. Also thanks to Victor Mantiñán for taking the time to explain their concept (interview below).
Hey, thanks for inviting us to the second edition of your micro festival in Brighton this year. It’s a pleasure to spend an evening with you, alongside live music, beer culture and culinary experience. It’s a really interesting concept you’ve come up with, what was the main aspiration back in 2009, to start this new kind of concert experience?
Basically, we wanted to transmit the Brand values of Estrella Galicia building an event concept that reflects them: passion for the product, commitment with positive impact and of course obsession for alternative music and discovering new talents. We didn’t have the budget of the big ones so we focussed on being different, involving local music communities.
Your concept is really successful in Spain, Brazil, Portugal and the US. Now that you expanded to the UK, you already did a couple of events in London and the second one in Brighton. What made you bring this to UK soil and especially to The Great Escape?
UK is a musical reference for us, a music scene we admire and it has always been a dream for us to come here and offer our approach to music events to the uk fans, linking good beer and live music in a different way. And of course, every year our team comes to Brighton for The Great Escape. This is truly, during these days the music capital of the world, the place to discover the future of music. It is truly an honour to partner with Prince Albert and being in Brighton!
You are working for your events with local vendors, artists and sustainability projects, which offers great value for the community. From your experience, how do people in the UK like this kind of new concert experience so far and are there any differences to the audience in the countries you first started?
We are so happy UK fans are loving these events. We were worried at the beginning because there’s so much music offered everywhere in the UK and we were not sure our offer would make a difference. We love coming here and share our passion for music with UK fans and we learn something new everyday!
What are your plans for the future with SON Estrella Galicia?Where do you see the event in the next few years?
We believe in difference and try to offer something new and unforgettable to the music fans. We are non-conformists and we wake up everyday trying to do things better. Sometimes we screw up. But the truth is that theses mistakes really help us to improve and we learn something new everyday. We hope to be reinventing and improving the event concept tirelessly for it never to be repetitive or boring. That’s our commitment!
Stay tuned!
xx smoke and echoes
in collaboration with Super Cat PR & SON Estrella Galicia
smokeandechoes.com 