SWMRS, the Oakland pop/punk band fronted by brothers Cole Becker (guitar, vocals) and Max Becker (guitar, vocals) faced a crisis just before the pandemic lockdown started. In October of 2019, they were driving to a gig, when they hit a patch of black ice. The van flipped. Max was taken to the hospital with a broken back, broken shoulders, legs, a punctured lung and brain injuries. Three years later he’s back on his feet, playing guitar and writing songs with his brother, Cole.
“It’s almost miraculous,” Cole said. “He’s a strong guy, with an incredible force of will. Your recovery is determined by how you stick to the rehab program. He stuck to his, did the physical exercises and healed in the expected amount of time. The healing from the brain injury was less certain, but he recovered. He has to wear blue light glasses on stage, because a lot of light stimulation isn’t good for him, but we’re back writing songs and playing live again. It’s super cool.”
After the band’s rhythm section left to pursue other paths, the Beckers recruited their brother Cade to play bass and started working on Sonic Tonic, their first release as a trio and the first they’re putting out on their own.
“Making it was cathartic in many ways,” Cole said. “We were dealing with COVID, the different things going on in people’s lives and my brother recovering from his accident. Our other albums were written for an audience we knew we’d play for soon. When we were writing this one, that was all up in the air. I was thinking, ‘Maybe I should move on with my life and do something else,’ but words and melodies came into my head that put me in touch with the primal joy of making music.”
The songs on Sonic Tonic are short energetic bursts, sent into overdrive by the bass lines and drum rhythms laid down by a rhythm section made up of friends who would like to remain anonymous. The lyrics talk about young folks on the cusp of adult life.
“A lot of the album was examining a time in my life that I assumed was over,” Cole said. “The pandemic locked everything away, so the writing process was more personal, a way of exploring ideas and feelings I was working through. There was lot of sitting alone in a room with my guitar, looking for melodies and cadences that resonated with me.”
The band made the album quickly, at a friend’s studio in Oakland, mostly playing live. It captures the sound they get when they’re on stage.
A chiming guitar hook and a brisk backbeat open “DIY,” a song Max wrote to celebrate his return to normal activity after his accident. The exuberant vocal is punctuated by gleeful shouts of joy. “Dye Yer Hair” is a mid-tempo rocker, with a jumpy, irregular rhythm. It looks back on the band’s carefree days of playing festivals.
“In the Same Boat,” a love song to an ambivalent lover, and “Listerine,” a rocker that faces the sunshine after the end of a relationship, both have a reggae lilt to the guitar rhythms Cole and Max lay down.
“We’re big reggae fans, mainly pre-1980s Jamaican bands,” Cole said. “One of the first records Max got was the Harder They Come soundtrack.”
The band started playing high school parties as Emily’s Army, soon moving on to club gigs. Their original drummer was Joey Armstrong, son of Billy Joe Armstrong of Green Day, but they never made much of it.
“Having a behemoth in our family put a chip on our shoulders,” Cole said. “People doubted us because of that connection. It made us strong and determined to craft unique music.”
They made two albums, toured nationally and internationally, and ran through several bass players before changing their name to SWMRS.
“Emily’s Army was something we did as teenagers,” Cole said. “We wanted to open up and explore different sounds. Since our last Emily’s Army release was called Swim, we became Swimmers. If you type in ‘swimmers,’ you get all kinds of sports references, so we changed the spelling to SWMRS.”
He continued, “Because of the pandemic, it was hard finding a new groove, so we’re rethinking our approach. When you’re young, you have no material needs. Now, Max is married and I have a robust personal life. Before, our whole identity was playing shows, touring and sleeping. Now we have partners. We have to find a way to integrate our music into the new adult lives we’re navigating.”
You can view upcoming shows and listen to Sonic Tonic on the band’s website: swmrsmusic.com.
