Piedmont band paddles back to Gilman St.

Sam Benavidez,
Arts & Life Editor

If Cole and Max Becker walked down Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, heads would likely turn at their respective green and blue hair. The Becker brothers, 19 and 21, are known for more than just their hair.

For one, their band Swimmers recently returned from playing Soundwave Festival in Australia. The pop-punk, turned beach-pop, turned indie rock and roll band will celebrate the sixth anniversary of their first show at 924 Gilman, an all-ages, DIY music space in Berkeley on Friday, May 15.

Prior to that first Gilman show in 2009, they played three shows in total; their sister’s birthday party, a battle of the bands and at a biker bar.

We’ve gone through phases where all of the kids that hang out there hate us.

— Cole Becker

“It’s funny, its not something that hits you until you realize you’ve been there for so long,” adds Max. “You realize you played most of your shows there. There are people who have showed up to every single one of our shows at Gilman.”

Their growing fan base ranges from young teenagers to their college-aged peers. As it has been for many other successful bands, 924 Gilman Street for them is where it all started.
“Having that place as a refuge when you’re 13 years old has really influenced me, knowing that there are other people out there that are into the same things I’m into, and who are accepting of who you are,” says Cole.

Swimmers, formerly known as Emily’s Army, have undergone more changes than just their band name in October. With the replacement of Travis Neumann, who left the band in 2014, Seb Mueller has taken over on bass, and Max moved to guitar.

Perhaps most noticeably, their sound has grown and shifted somewhat radically as the members have.

“We started writing 10 years ago. When you’re nine, 10, 11 years old, most of the time your influences are pop-punk stuff, and people who you’ve grown up worshiping,” says Max. “You get older and you start refining your taste.”

Their sound is hard to confine to one genre. But singer/guitarist Cole is fine with that.

“We never really want to settle,” he explained. “But right now, we’ve formulated a sound that sounds like us without being restricted to just one particular thing.”
Classes and readings in feminism have also been a major influence in the band’s writing style as of late.

“It’s a more conscious lens that you have to put on your writing,” says Cole. “We’re incorporating it into everything we do as I think everyone should. It’s not a huge transition; it’s just consciousness.”

The lens hasn’t been for everyone, however. Fans of bands aren’t always open to change.

“It’s been sort of like a weeding-out process,” says Max. “If people can’t hang with that idea, they’ve stopped listening to us, and I think we kind of want that. We want to be able to influence people to do good things.”

Currently, Cole is enrolled at UC Berkeley; Max at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo; Mueller at Tulane University in New Orleans; and drummer Joey Armstrong is spending time living in New York City taking drum lessons.

“I think it’s good for our personal lives,” says Max of the temporary separation. “I know way too much about the three of them. It’s good to get away.”

The band has to be a bit more selective with their booking of shows, as it can be a logistical headache to gather them all. They have agreed to take weeks, sometimes months off of school to complete US, European and Australian tours.

Swimmers guitarist and singer Cole Becker sits behind a building at UC Berkeley to discuss their upcoming sixth anniversary show tomorrow.
PHOTO BY SAM BENAVIDEZ/THE PIONEER
Swimmers guitarist and singer Cole Becker sits behind a building at UC Berkeley to discuss their upcoming sixth anniversary show tomorrow.

“I think we’re all ready to take semesters upon semesters off of school,” says Cole. “We’re ready to be full-time musicians.”

For now, they are focused on the anniversary show at the roughly 700-person capacity venue.

“I’m just really excited. I didn’t start realizing it until this year, how much that place means to me, we’ve been there a lot,” says Max. “We’ve gone through phases where all of the kids that hang out there hate us, and then all of a sudden we get better, and we tour, and people love us again. We’ve gone through so much with that place, and it’s an exciting feeling.”

Up next for the band is a summer of pre-recording of new material, recording with their new producer, Zac Carper from skate-punk band Fidlar, and a couple years of touring.