JOHNNYSWIM is a folk, soul, blues, pop duo with Cuban spice and a little bit of French – you’ll get that reference when you read the interview.
The music world has been playing host to a lot of duos over the past couple of years: She & Him, Scarlett Johansson & Pete Yorn, Matt & Kim, The Tings Tings etc.
Are those bands good? Absolutely. Do they make us dance in our chairs at the office? Yes. But they’re lacking one thing, we can’t feel them. It’s all good and well that their voices fit well together but we want substance; we want two people seamlessly intertwined into a coherent (but shifting) mass of love & loss that inevitably makes its way into our bones & blood.
We want JOHNNYSWIM.
Take a listen to the French movie inspired single below, check out the performance review and read about where the band name came from:
Amanda: The story changes depending on which of us tell it and we have fun switching it up but it’s about a guy named Johnny on the movie Jaws. He was trying to get away from Jaws on his raft and his friend yelled from the dock “Swim Johnny, Swim!” and that’s how it came to be.
Abner: The stories we’ve told in the past have been hilarious and Amanda’s mom has me tell one of the bogus stories to her friends all the time.
How long have you two been performing as JOHNNYSWIM?
Amanda: We’ve been performing for about 6 years now and we’ve written so many songs that we’ve lost count. Sometimes the songs come hot and heavy and sometimes we have droughts but we try to write 1 or 2 songs every month.
Continued on the next pages.
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How did you start writing together?
Abner: We met in Nashville and I had totally given up on a music career after a bad record deal. I was still writing because I love music but not seeking a career in it until I met Amanda. I saw her in church and I said to a friend she is the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in my life and I’m gonna marry her. I got up to meet her after church and she totally blew me off and I didn’t see again for about 4 years.
Amanda: Meanwhile I knew who he was and he’d always date these trendy popular girls and I was a bookworm. Whenever he and I were in the same vicinity I’d be nervous and I thought for some reason it would be awkward so I would ignore him. Four years later he came up to me in a restaurant and suggested we meet since we had all the same friends.
Abner: After we met that day I invited her to one of my shows. I didn’t believe she would come and once she showed up I was excited to see her there. After the show, she asked me what I was doing with music and I explaine
