March 27, 2025 • 24 mins
Before they perform LIVE at the Van Buren tonight, JOHNNYSWIM stopped by to chat with the crew about everything! From music to influences to...Chip and Joanna Gaines...?... What a FANTASTIC time we had with them!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Broadcasting live across the world. Right now. This is the
John Jay and Rich radio program. In the studio, we
got Johnny Swim. Thank you so much for coming.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
In honor to be here absolutely is kidding you take
time out of your day to hang out with us.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
I love this well. Can I give you the backstory
of why these guys are here? Yes, in fact, I
demanded so.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
First of all, like yesterday, yesterday, and one other day
a couple of months ago, I worked out to your
one of your albums, which is.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Never heard that before. That's not something I've actually never done.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
That, So let me let me give you the backstory
on that. So I don't know how long ago it was,
but like, I work out of this gym. My doctor
owns the gym. Wow right, and so my doctor it's
a cool place. It's a cool gym. But sometimes if
you're a patient there and you're working out, she might
need to come in and say, hey, we need to
get your blood drawn right now.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
So it's kind of good that to me. I would
love that, by the way, Yeah I would not, but
she would.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
So some other people I've got to know work out
that gym. We become kind of friends. Two of those
people are the ones over there. Yeah, we love them,
Tara Smith and Justine Smith and you know, and they
we talked. They know what I do for a living
and what they do for living in the one day
there she was like, I think Tera came in. She's like,
have you heard of this band? And she just starts
wearing your clothes. She got your bird jacket, She's got everything.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
She got a dope jacket, actually she does.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Then she went to Nashville to see you and went
to the Bluebird Cafe, which is the legendary.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
We did a whole weekend the Bluebird, the Ryman, like
all the spots like you performed at Ryman. Yeah, Friday
night was the Bluebird. Saturday night we did a place called.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Third Lensley, which is a legendary kind of live radio spot,
and then Saturday night we did the Ryman.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
I've been to Ryman and I've been to Bluebird, but
those are like just know that you guys performed there,
Like they don't just let anybody perform there, they don't, right, right.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
We had Amy Grant with this at the Bluebird. Don't
know if you know Amy Grant. It was that was
like my mom that was like my childhood.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
That's all she listened to.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
It was her literal child. I Amy Grant, and I'm
dressed in drag. I look like I looked like a
del I've never heard before.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Lots of unique sounds happening to I don't know any
of these words. It's amazing.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
So anyway, so Tara is like, hey, they're coming to Phoenix,
and I'm like, if they're coming to Phoenix, I go,
maybe we can get them in the studio.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
So then the whole email exchange happened, and then hear
you guys, Oh, it's amazing. I just rolled off the
bus with a cup of coffee.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
And is this the first night of the tour?
Speaker 5 (02:26):
No, it's a first it's second week of the tour.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
First night of week two.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
I have no idea what day it is, to be
perfectly clear, I think it's the first day of the week.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
And you guys travel with your little kiddos too.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Don't have them ten six and five? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (02:40):
How do you? How do you function?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
My sister God, his sister's a saint, is how we function.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
My older sister raised me. My parents came from Cuba
in nineteen eighty. Everybody had many jobs, you know, that
kind of classic refugee story. And my sister, who was
a little bit older than me, was the one that
took care of the house, me and my other sister,
and so she take me to school. She's the one
that you know, she had all these things that she
would yell at me when I was little. I now
hear her yelling at in I flinch, but it's actually
at my son.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
To watch out. That's gonna be trouble.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
That's exactly right. So we're really blessed to have her.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Man.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
She takes care of the kids.
Speaker 6 (03:10):
For me, and like it's at the point where like
I was trying to put you know, there's not a
lot of nights on tour where we can put the
kids to bed. You know, the time works out, we're
on stage whatever. So last night we had a day off,
so I was like, I'm gonna put the littlest one
to bed right because the other two were like to
read to go to sleep. So I crawl in her
bunk and I'm like, we're having her back. I'm trying
to get her to go to sleep. But at some
point she just turns around. She goes, can you go get.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
T tea, What are you done with me?
Speaker 5 (03:33):
She goes, you don't do this right.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
And I was like, well, teach me how to do it.
She's like, you need to do it harder, to do
it hard. She goes, Mom, that's too hard.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Just continue.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
I love you. I'll see the morning. It's like, did
you grow up in Miami?
Speaker 2 (03:45):
I grew up in Jacksonville, just north Jacksonville, Florida, nine
four Dovolca.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Where did you grow up?
Speaker 5 (03:51):
I grew up in Los Angeles and New York and Nashville.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
We have really similar backgrounds, to be honest. My family
came here with the clothes they were wearing on a
boat that was over overpopulated with people in nineteen eighty.
She's royalty, So you know, we came up really differently
the same A.
Speaker 5 (04:07):
Few generations back. My people came the same way.
Speaker 6 (04:10):
That's true, before they were forced on the belt from
Italy and Africa.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
So guy, you guys meet at church? Is that where
you met?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
We met because of church? There's a really there's a
true story that's kind of awkward.
Speaker 6 (04:23):
So I go to this church. I'm like, you know, teenager,
I think I'm a freshman in college. No, I must
have been a sophomore and my parents are there.
Speaker 5 (04:30):
It's in Nashville.
Speaker 6 (04:31):
I go in, you know, jeans, t shirt, super chill,
just rolled out of bed, you know, kind of like today,
and I.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
See this guy and he stands up and I think, oh,
he's so cute.
Speaker 6 (04:40):
He also looks like he could be my brother, which
is weird, right, those two things together.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
We will unpack all that.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, we can pack. I'm in therapy. I don't have
a brother, arapist.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
See him stand up and I think he's cute.
Speaker 6 (04:52):
And then I see this like flock of girls who like,
you know, came to church ready you know, they've got
their extensions and there they are ready, and I was like, well,
if he likes those girls, he's never gonna like me,
because that's not something I do.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
I don't have that switch, you know.
Speaker 6 (05:05):
So I just got And I also just thought, well,
he's probably trouble because those girls were like, you know,
I don't want to say talk trash about anybody, but
they were trouble and they didn't like me, and I
didn't like them. So I was like, well, if he's
to a friends with them, that's that's it for me.
So later he tried to come talk to me, and
I just was like, nope, I rolled my eyes and
I just turned around before he could even say hi.
But I did have a crush on him still because
I'm not an idiot, and so I would kind of
(05:27):
like stock him online and like hover early.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
You know, we're on MySpace and stuff.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
Did she know? Did you know he was a musician?
Not at all? Not no, I mean because the guitar
is the great equals, right, yes.
Speaker 5 (05:38):
So we finally meet at a coffee shop.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
You can tell this part and then I'll jump back in.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I'm gonna start from beginning again one more time from
my side. So I go to church that day because
I was seeing this girl and she said, we can't
keep seeing each other unless you come to church with me.
My pastor says, if I'm gonna keep seeing you, got
to come to church with me. I was like, I
guess we're going to church. Let's go to church tomorrow.
And so go to church the next day. That morning
we're at church, I see Amanda across the church stand
up as church is letting out, and I say to
the girl that I'm with, that's the girl I'm gonna
(06:04):
marry and I thought I thought those thoughts, but I
said it like apparently. I was like, that's the girl
I'm gonna marry, and so I got a quick elbow
to the ribs. I was broken up with on the spot,
and that was my last breakup in life. I walked
up to say something to Amanda. She rolled her eyes
at me, so I cowered back into my seat. But
it really like psychologically messed me up. I was like,
if I can have this kind of intensive a feeling
about a stranger across the room, there's something kind of
(06:26):
real that I should be probably mindful of and waiting
for it.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
For God exactly, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
And so it was four years until I ever met her.
A friend of ours songwriter who was my roommate at
the time, named Matt Carney.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
We went to a.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Coffee shop at like Harney yeah artist too, Yeah exactly,
it's brilliant.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Yeah yeah, well you guys want Matt Carney. Yeah dah.
I love Matt Carney. My wife and I fell in love.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
So when Nothing Left to Lose came out, Matt and
I were roommates and a man and I were dating
at the time and this is a little trash talking
about Carne. I love you, Matt, forgive me. We came
home that day and he was packing a U hole
by himself. He was dragging his big bed into the
U haul and we got out. We had dinner and
we're like, Matt, what are you doing? Like, well, tell
us that you're moving. I knew you were moving at
some point, but help I help you pack. You just
had his first big hit song. He's like, dude, I
(07:16):
just don't know who my friends are anymore.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
And we're like, where are your friends, Matt, mattress.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Your friends? Bro, you got one radio hit. You're gonna
be okay. He did something with Matt Carney.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Yeah we did, I think in Colorado.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah, Colorado, Mat Mat, Matt Amanda. He's amazing and he
was honestly a big brother to me. I was telling
somebody on the bus the other day he was a
big brother to me. Songwriting wise. We were living in
the same house for years and I remember writing a
song and playing it for him I was really proud
of and he listened to it. He's like smoking a pipe,
you know, wise old Matt, and he's like, I just.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Think he could do better. Man and like broke my heart,
but it was the right thing.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
About your songs, and yeah, yeah, exactly, this is what
WHOA you had a big hit.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
But honestly, he was right and it was the energy
I needed.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
But we went to a coffee shop that night and
Amanda was there and he goes, Amanda, you know my
roommate Abner and we had never met. It had been
four years since that fateful day.
Speaker 6 (08:07):
So the first thing is that he ever said to me,
the first words that Abner ever said to me. He
turned around and he saw me and he said, I've
been waiting to meet you for so long. And I
was like, excuse me.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
What a song? I've been waiting to meet you for
so long? I haven't written that.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Song specifically, but I feel like we're five albums in
writing songs about it, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (08:28):
The title I've been waiting so long? Yeah, it sounds
a great song title.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
First on social media, I mean I kind of.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Sorry when you say she's from Royalty, Can you explain
that for audience?
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Yes, so my family not Royalty, but really amazing humans.
Her mom was done a summer and she grew up,
you know, between l A and New York and whatever.
I grew up on the west side of Jacksonville, Marietta,
so it's like the very too, all the different things,
but ultimately we were raised the same, which is the
craziness of it.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
I'll never forget that.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
My dad, when he found out I was dating Donna
Summer's daughter, he called me me, Hey, hey, tell me
the truth.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Don't lie to me. Do they know you're poor?
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (09:19):
My god, By the way, Donna Summer, I believe, I
honestly believe that I do what I do right now because.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Of your mom.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
The first forty five I owned was on the radio.
Oh that's sweet.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
And I would go to my neighbor's house and we'd
listen to it as a record player.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
It's so funny.
Speaker 6 (09:36):
We have we have a song on the new album
and I we change the lyric. It says Bowie's on
the radio for most of the song, and then at
the you know, the down chorus, it says Donna's on
the radio. And so every night I get to sing
Donna's on the radio, and which makes me happy.
Speaker 5 (09:50):
But the first night of tour, we're at Chili's because.
Speaker 6 (09:52):
It's somehow become a tradition that our our band and
crew go to Chilis.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
We have to ride the Dente.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
You guys know, the Presidente Margarita at the Dent.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Our kids like, this place is amazing. Okay.
Speaker 5 (10:04):
Anyway, on the radio came on while we were there,
and we were all.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Like, the first night, She's got one thousand songs, but
that one to me, hits home.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah time that one, I don't know, Yeah, that's cool.
That was we got a tattoo for after she passed.
I used to always make fun of the song MacArthur Park,
like what we were talking about juice and so down
a passed. I got tattoos for everybody, like my dad,
my mom, a few for a man, to all my kids,
and I got a cake.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Melting getting rained one and melting.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
And we had a busy day and I was just
pulling up real quick my tattoo artist that I love
at a new shop. I didn't know where it was,
and so I'm kind of looking down at the directions
to find a parking spot.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Boom, whatever, we're here.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
I look up and it was this huge sign literally
right in front of my parking spot said welcome to
MacArthur Park.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
That's where I was getting by MacArthur Park, you know. Yeah,
so are you going to get a tattoo of like
a raft?
Speaker 6 (10:53):
Actually, that's actually a great idea. That's actually one of
the first presidents you're gonna tell it.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
You know.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
I try not to like throw my mom under the bus,
but my mom loved a prank. She loved to like
joke with people, and it was usually like politically incorrect
to some degree, especially now. But yeah, our first Christmas together,
you know, we've just been dating a couple of months,
and so she's like, she's like, I have a gift
for him, tell him to come over. So I'm like, hey,
my mom's got a present for you, need to come over.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
And I'm driving Volks so I can go off.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
They can barely get up the driveway, you know, big
royalty house, and.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
He's like, oh my gosh, it's so sweet.
Speaker 6 (11:27):
Well a little while and it's this huge box all
wrapped and he opens it and it's it's like a
life vest in an ore and she said, for.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Your trips back and forth to QBA. Yeah, she was
crying laughing.
Speaker 6 (11:40):
So and you know, obviously like they knew each other
well enough at this point for her to make that joke,
and so the joke kept going, kept going, and he
kept buying her gifts, she kept buying Haing gifts, and
that was.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
So, yeah, it should be an, it should be an.
That's great, I'll do that. Oh that's great.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
That awesome your your mom like such sonic impact, like
and for somebody to get studio and be able to
hang with streisand yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
We played a show.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
We played a Clinton Foundation fundraiser the other day the
other day, like a year ago, and we always do
this bit it wasn't hear or whatever it was. We
always do this bit where we sing a song and
we stand on a table and it's always like a
little not it's off putting, but kind of in a
cool way.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
The only time she wouldn't let me do it.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Was at a party where it was like a glass
table and they were like white anyway, was in front,
in the front table. We're playing the thing and it's
barber and her husband are sitting right at the front table,
and she's not paying a lick of attention to au Scott.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Bless her.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
She's a legend. She's amazing. But I'm like, I'm gonna win.
And I do this most nights tonight. I'll do it
at the at the show tonight. Yeah, man, you're I'll
pick somebody that seems like they're here because of their
significant other as a fan, and they don't really care,
and I'm gonna win that person.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
I'll focus.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
So at this event, I was focused on striisand I
was like, I'm gonna win Striisand so we jump on
the table last song of the set, and I stand
like inches from her plate, and I'm just standing right
in the middle of table, singing off the mic, shouting
the song, giving it everything I got. And when I
tell you this wonderful lady did not look up from
her plate the time.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Is I'm right here.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
She's that unaffected and she.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Just doesn't care. Her husband once yeah I forgot his name.
Her husband is Thanos's dad. Yeah, yeah, exactly, that's right.
That's right. Yeah, get spanking.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
So how do you like? I can't And I think
this is a good thing. I can't genre your music
at all?
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Pop?
Speaker 4 (13:22):
Is it jazz? Is it singer songwriter? Is it R
and B?
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Like?
Speaker 4 (13:26):
It's hard? Is it even Christian? Like? It's hard to
pit it down? But I know that, I instantly feel warmth.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Oh come on, man, I think that.
Speaker 6 (13:36):
Honestly, it was my mom who is the one who
was like, you know, early on, especially when before we met,
when I was just working on my own music, there
were so many people that were like, oh, we're going
to make you the next dance queen, like we're gonna
take that name, and I was like, no, I don't really,
that's not the kind of music I write. And it
was always kind of like a struggle. My mom would
be like, just write whatever you want, because truly she
you know, got famous because of Love to Love You,
(13:57):
But that wasn't really like a song that she meant
to write for herself.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
She was writing for somebody else.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
It's Georgio Morano.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yeah, with Georgio and so.
Speaker 6 (14:04):
And she always felt a little bit pigeonholed, and not
that she was like, you know, ungrateful or anything like that,
but for us, she was just like, write whatever songs
you want to write. Just write what the people that
need your music and I'm going to find it. So
write what you want to write. Like you don't need
to fit into anybody's.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
You can hear in the song just like you can
hear your mom over eight minutes of disco beats, you
can hear her guts in there.
Speaker 6 (14:24):
Yeah. So she was always always really encouraged us to
just write whatever. And so now when people say what
kind of music do you write, we just go regular
because we're.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
Like, you know, regular.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, but it makes it, it's making an impact because
you have this massive following.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Yeah, and Rod Jimmy Kimmel not that long ago too,
a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 6 (14:39):
Yeah, but yeah, it's just it's nice for us because
we never feel pressure.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Whenever we have an album coming up.
Speaker 6 (14:45):
We don't sit there and go, okay, well we need
to write something that's like this or like that. We
just kind of go, okay, what are we feeling and
let's just go with whatever our you know, our guts
telling us to goe a direction?
Speaker 4 (14:54):
Do you strip it down? And even after that, because
when I hear's some of your songs, they're so organically
like simple, and yet there's like there's intricacy to it.
But it's like you're not building a lot, you're building
a soundscape. But it's still kind of Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
So I think what I've experienced as a musician for
the last several years. Is this change in digital sounds
right where you have access to everything. If I wanted
to make a Georgia Moroder song, if I wanted to
make a whatever, I could literally just type in the
name Drag and drop into a session and be on
my way to create the thing. And for me it's
created a lot of confusionist to like, I don't even
know what okay, I want the nineteen seventies snare I get.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
I don't know what I want. I just want the
song to be right.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
And so it's made us kind of reverse in time
and instead of getting using all the digital resources possible,
we want, as we say, all the sounds to have eyeballs.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
So our music director.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Jonathan Grant Berlyn, who's a brilliant multi instrumentalist, and a
few of our other friends, we'll just get him in
a studio and we'll play the songs for him, send
it to him just acoustic vocal a week before. But
we want everything to be on purpose. I want everything
that we lean into to be a guy that played
a thing, a person that played something that was like,
oh yeah, yeah, more of that.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
It's vibe. I mean, let's let's go to that.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
And it's kind of the antithesis of of I think
what what most modern production is right now.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
It is even every country song I hear has got
auto tuned to deafit it. Yeah, exactly, it's the opposite
of what you know of country music that you grew
up listening to.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Did you guys happen to watch the Genius documentary with
Kanye No, because I think it's phenomenal, But it's go
They have footage of back in two thousand when you're
putting together college drop out here and put together the
music and how he does it right. It's just I'm
talking about Kanye now.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Right right, right, right, right, old Kanye.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
By the way, speaking of music and movies and documentaries,
wasn't there a documentary in.
Speaker 6 (16:36):
Your mom My sister director watched part of it. Yeah,
it's great HBO still.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Of course it is a lot of it like a
couple of years ago. It's cool. There's no talking heads.
Speaker 6 (16:48):
It's just you know, it's like, you know, we all
did interviews, but it's all old footage.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
She like she literally for seven years just like dove
through all.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
This and what I love that Brooklyn did to her sister.
Brooklyn is.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
You'd imagine a director making a documentary about her mother,
they'd make it really they'd polish it really nice, like
all the sweet stuff and then take out all the
bad stuff. But Brooklyn was really brutal, like with the
honest truth of Donna's upcoming and it was all really
coming in.
Speaker 6 (17:11):
And also how funny she was, Like I feel like
only people that really knew her intimately could know how
funny and silly she was, and it would be hard
to show otherwise if you didn't know her. And so
she did a really good job of showing how kind
of silly my mom was, which I love.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
You know.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Also, when you think about music and videos, she works
hard for the money was one of the biggest. I
remember that video that you couldn't turn on MTV. Have
seen that video right, little but really she was like
you know, and she was in a waitress.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Out the album cover.
Speaker 6 (17:39):
Yeah, I think I think I was in the womb
when she recorded it. And it was a little baby
when it came out.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Wow, dang.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Actually in the documentary there's video of you as a
newborn and she's singing it and that song yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
Probably like one did you go on tour? Like you're
taking your kids on tour. Yeah, very much, And so
you've made it comfortable for your kids too.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
Know any different, They're not going to know any different.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Every time I get a little sad, like, all right,
they're away from their friends for three weeks, we're gonna
send them home.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
But do you think they're cool? She's like, maybe they're fine.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Yeah, I've done you anyway.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
Yeah, absolutely, home is where we are.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
You know, you guys are cool going to our little
studio performing in so stoked to you kidding?
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Yeah? Okay, so let's head over there. Ready to go
on your name yet, let's go.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
I had a little conversation with someone in that back
room yesterday about what Johnny Swim.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, where does it come from? Johnny Swim is less
of a name, and it's more of a feeling. It's
more of like a spoken aura. Johnny Swim is extential
while practical. Johnny Swim is everything while being nothing. At
the same time, When I think of the name Johnny Swim,
I think of a name that I made up one
time on the spot and have been asked for the
next twenty years of my life what it.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Means, and it has no meaning. At all. You're gonna
be one of those ways. Because there's another band that
won't tell Oh who is it? Five?
Speaker 3 (18:52):
I think no, No, the other one Dragons that Dragons
would tell us why they.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Came to the real stories. We were sitting with the
publicist one and she was like, well, what's the name.
You can't just be admirer Amanda as a duo. You
have to have a band name. I was like, okay,
we'll just pick a name. Then she's like, no, it
has to be really important, like this is this name
is the front facing marketing piece of your future. The
band name has to mean something, so literally, on the spot,
I say, you go, our band name is Johnny Swim
and she goes, that's a horrible name. I go, well,
(19:18):
and then I make up a story that is as follows.
We a man and I met in England. Actually our
friend was trying to do long distance swimming. He had
never learned how to swim as a child. He learned
how to swim as an adult. And I was standing
next to this beautiful woman who happened to be friends
with our friend Johnny, and we had the same sign
up and said swim Johnny Swim and our buddy Johnny,
who had self taught swimmer, was self taught long distance
(19:39):
swimmer actually died on that swim and our romance began
after his demise, and we wanted to honor his legacy
forever with our band name. And she was crying and
she says, that's a that's a great name.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Well it is now.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Because I thought, you know, it's funny. I was nervous
about you guys coming in here. So I we've had
I can't tell you how many guests. Justin Bieber sat
right there, Miley Cyrus is right there.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
He was in my dream last night. Weird the Katie.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Perry Switch people, and I've never I just come in
to do the interview, and I was so nervous because
my friends helped set this up that you're the first
artist ever that I kind of like did a little
research the research because I said, we were working out
yesterday listening to your album and I was like, you
know where the name Johnny Swimm came from?
Speaker 1 (20:22):
And ters like, it's a Native American.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Yeah, I'm like, I think it says named after the goldfish.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yeah, that's right, that's that's my favorite one. That's great.
You can't up stories and over. The truth is we
made it up and there's no reason.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
That's awesome, by the way, because it's weird that because
you guys have been around, you' been Johnny Swimm for
a long time. So then then Teddy Couples comes up, Yeah,
like what.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
The hell, No, I don't care.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
I do wonder if he thinks we copied him, though,
because there's people like, we've been a duo for so
long that people thought it was weird to be a duo,
Like what are you doing? They all break up, like
it was before we were Johnny Swim, before the civil
wars were civil wars, and like when the wars started
to happen, and they're like, oh, so you guys are
copying some wars. Like no, what's funny is you do
it long enough, You guys must feel this way. You
do it long enough, people think you're copying whoever the
(21:08):
hot person is in a moment. But then you look
over a certain amount of time and you realize you're
the only one that kind of lasted that.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
Long war of the roses that was ours. Ryan Seacrets
does did all these other people do it? But it
was us?
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, you get it? You know what? What's it? Just
hit me right now.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
And I may be wrong, but the last artist that
we had in the studio was right there was Teddy
swim Hey also something Else and a big band of
Teddy swims kyl the record. When I was I was
researching it, it was did you guys do a theme
for it? She's they're friends with the people that you love.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Oh, I can feel it, like actually one of our
best friends.
Speaker 6 (21:44):
Know what?
Speaker 1 (21:44):
You could you look like you could be sisters.
Speaker 6 (21:47):
What's weird is I just bought this hat two days ago,
and I mean that's such a compliment, by the way,
because she's just like always studying.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
And drywall. She's studying always.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
And I put this hat on and I was like,
I just looked in the mirror and I thought, I loo,
but you guys.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Do the theme?
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, we're the theme song Fixed Upper, so we holme
is the song. It's a theme song Fixer Upper. We
had a long standing rule of no music on reality TV.
I'm gonna tell it really quick. Yep, we have no
music on reality TV because we had done this deal
with VH one. VH one was putting our songs on
everything and it was really cool. I tuned in one
day to watch the Johnny Swim song on VH one
and there was this breakup happening between a guy and
his side chick. He was breaking up with the side
(22:27):
chick because he wanted to get back together with his wife.
And he's like, I told you always gonna be a
side chick. You always like yelling at her all this stuff.
And then, by the way, you left this at my
house and he throws panties across the room and in
slow motion, the panties are flying across the coffee shop
and Johnny Swims playing in the background music by Johnny Something.
So we called her agent that day. We're like, no
more reality TV.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Ever, ever. Ever.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
So this little show called Fixer Upper was about to
start filming season two and they wanted one of our
songs as the theme song. And we said no, literally
about six times before it even got to us. Finally,
their agent calls us, this couple is really determined to
have you, guys be the theme song. Can you just
get on the phone with them and tell them yourself
that you won't do the theme song?
Speaker 6 (23:02):
WOA, Yeah, they just want to talk to you and
talk to you why they want the song whenever? And
we're like, but and so we were kind of like, okay, maybe.
And then in the in the interim, we went home
for Thanksgiving to his mom's house and she literally satus down.
It was like, there's this new show that I love.
It's so good. You have to sit and watch it
with me. And she had like t vowed all of
the first season, and so she made us sit and
watch it. And as we're sitting there, I goes, isn't
(23:22):
this the show that wants a song? And then she
says in Spanish she.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Stops and she was me, who, I've never asked you
for anything your whole life.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
Here it comes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
You have to do whatever Chip and Joanna asked me.
Speaker 6 (23:35):
And so we got on the phone with them and
immediately we're like just kindred spirits. You know, I think this,
you know, working together with your spouse, having little kids
and dragging them around like we just Actually at the
time when I met, when we first started talking to them,
I was pregnant with our first so I.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Was like, how am I going to do this? Tell
me everything?
Speaker 2 (23:50):
And we just you know, have become We just marked
our ten year anniversary of friendship, and they said, we
have a little playfully a little shelf in our studio
for all the trophies that we haven't won yet and uh,
and so they send us one for the trophy shelf
that said to the hottest couple and happy ten years
of friendship.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Chip and Johanna. So it's actually like a really nice thing.
I want to paint it. I think, I don't know, they're.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
One of the few people that I root for their success. Yeah,
after they've had ridiculous success exactly. You know how because
you watch some people you're like, oh they've changed. They
don't seem like they've changed.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
That they are.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
I think it was Jamie Fox has said you stop
aging the moment you become famous. I think they just
got just to the right age to become famous because
they were at their coolest and they are just exactly
the people you think they are. The things they've done
that nobody knows about. I think they've done for my family,
like for my mom, just taking care of people. They
are some of the most generous. If anybody should be
famous and successful, it's Chip and Joanna gains something no.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
No, but we cat to stay at their place for free,
which is, let's go, let's go to our theater over
here in jam. Let's do it all right, all right,
Johnny Swim coming up,
Broadcasting live across the world. Right now. This is the
John Jay and Rich radio program. In the studio, we
got Johnny Swim. Thank you so much for coming.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
In honor to be here absolutely is kidding you take
time out of your day to hang out with us.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
I love this well. Can I give you the backstory
of why these guys are here? Yes, in fact, I
demanded so.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
First of all, like yesterday, yesterday, and one other day
a couple of months ago, I worked out to your
one of your albums, which is.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Never heard that before. That's not something I've actually never done.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
That, So let me let me give you the backstory
on that. So I don't know how long ago it was,
but like, I work out of this gym. My doctor
owns the gym. Wow right, and so my doctor it's
a cool place. It's a cool gym. But sometimes if
you're a patient there and you're working out, she might
need to come in and say, hey, we need to
get your blood drawn right now.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
So it's kind of good that to me. I would
love that, by the way, Yeah I would not, but
she would.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
So some other people I've got to know work out
that gym. We become kind of friends. Two of those
people are the ones over there. Yeah, we love them,
Tara Smith and Justine Smith and you know, and they
we talked. They know what I do for a living
and what they do for living in the one day
there she was like, I think Tera came in. She's like,
have you heard of this band? And she just starts
wearing your clothes. She got your bird jacket, She's got everything.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
She got a dope jacket, actually she does.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Then she went to Nashville to see you and went
to the Bluebird Cafe, which is the legendary.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
We did a whole weekend the Bluebird, the Ryman, like
all the spots like you performed at Ryman. Yeah, Friday
night was the Bluebird. Saturday night we did a place called.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Third Lensley, which is a legendary kind of live radio spot,
and then Saturday night we did the Ryman.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
I've been to Ryman and I've been to Bluebird, but
those are like just know that you guys performed there,
Like they don't just let anybody perform there, they don't, right, right.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
We had Amy Grant with this at the Bluebird. Don't
know if you know Amy Grant. It was that was
like my mom that was like my childhood.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
That's all she listened to.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
It was her literal child. I Amy Grant, and I'm
dressed in drag. I look like I looked like a
del I've never heard before.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Lots of unique sounds happening to I don't know any
of these words. It's amazing.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
So anyway, so Tara is like, hey, they're coming to Phoenix,
and I'm like, if they're coming to Phoenix, I go,
maybe we can get them in the studio.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
So then the whole email exchange happened, and then hear
you guys, Oh, it's amazing. I just rolled off the
bus with a cup of coffee.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
And is this the first night of the tour?
Speaker 5 (02:26):
No, it's a first it's second week of the tour.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
First night of week two.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
I have no idea what day it is, to be
perfectly clear, I think it's the first day of the week.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
And you guys travel with your little kiddos too.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Don't have them ten six and five? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (02:40):
How do you? How do you function?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
My sister God, his sister's a saint, is how we function.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
My older sister raised me. My parents came from Cuba
in nineteen eighty. Everybody had many jobs, you know, that
kind of classic refugee story. And my sister, who was
a little bit older than me, was the one that
took care of the house, me and my other sister,
and so she take me to school. She's the one
that you know, she had all these things that she
would yell at me when I was little. I now
hear her yelling at in I flinch, but it's actually
at my son.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
To watch out. That's gonna be trouble.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
That's exactly right. So we're really blessed to have her.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Man.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
She takes care of the kids.
Speaker 6 (03:10):
For me, and like it's at the point where like
I was trying to put you know, there's not a
lot of nights on tour where we can put the
kids to bed. You know, the time works out, we're
on stage whatever. So last night we had a day off,
so I was like, I'm gonna put the littlest one
to bed right because the other two were like to
read to go to sleep. So I crawl in her
bunk and I'm like, we're having her back. I'm trying
to get her to go to sleep. But at some
point she just turns around. She goes, can you go get.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
T tea, What are you done with me?
Speaker 5 (03:33):
She goes, you don't do this right.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
And I was like, well, teach me how to do it.
She's like, you need to do it harder, to do
it hard. She goes, Mom, that's too hard.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Just continue.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
I love you. I'll see the morning. It's like, did
you grow up in Miami?
Speaker 2 (03:45):
I grew up in Jacksonville, just north Jacksonville, Florida, nine
four Dovolca.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Where did you grow up?
Speaker 5 (03:51):
I grew up in Los Angeles and New York and Nashville.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
We have really similar backgrounds, to be honest. My family
came here with the clothes they were wearing on a
boat that was over overpopulated with people in nineteen eighty.
She's royalty, So you know, we came up really differently
the same A.
Speaker 5 (04:07):
Few generations back. My people came the same way.
Speaker 6 (04:10):
That's true, before they were forced on the belt from
Italy and Africa.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
So guy, you guys meet at church? Is that where
you met?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
We met because of church? There's a really there's a
true story that's kind of awkward.
Speaker 6 (04:23):
So I go to this church. I'm like, you know, teenager,
I think I'm a freshman in college. No, I must
have been a sophomore and my parents are there.
Speaker 5 (04:30):
It's in Nashville.
Speaker 6 (04:31):
I go in, you know, jeans, t shirt, super chill,
just rolled out of bed, you know, kind of like today,
and I.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
See this guy and he stands up and I think, oh,
he's so cute.
Speaker 6 (04:40):
He also looks like he could be my brother, which
is weird, right, those two things together.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
We will unpack all that.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, we can pack. I'm in therapy. I don't have
a brother, arapist.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
See him stand up and I think he's cute.
Speaker 6 (04:52):
And then I see this like flock of girls who like,
you know, came to church ready you know, they've got
their extensions and there they are ready, and I was like, well,
if he likes those girls, he's never gonna like me,
because that's not something I do.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
I don't have that switch, you know.
Speaker 6 (05:05):
So I just got And I also just thought, well,
he's probably trouble because those girls were like, you know,
I don't want to say talk trash about anybody, but
they were trouble and they didn't like me, and I
didn't like them. So I was like, well, if he's
to a friends with them, that's that's it for me.
So later he tried to come talk to me, and
I just was like, nope, I rolled my eyes and
I just turned around before he could even say hi.
But I did have a crush on him still because
I'm not an idiot, and so I would kind of
(05:27):
like stock him online and like hover early.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
You know, we're on MySpace and stuff.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
Did she know? Did you know he was a musician?
Not at all? Not no, I mean because the guitar
is the great equals, right, yes.
Speaker 5 (05:38):
So we finally meet at a coffee shop.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
You can tell this part and then I'll jump back in.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I'm gonna start from beginning again one more time from
my side. So I go to church that day because
I was seeing this girl and she said, we can't
keep seeing each other unless you come to church with me.
My pastor says, if I'm gonna keep seeing you, got
to come to church with me. I was like, I
guess we're going to church. Let's go to church tomorrow.
And so go to church the next day. That morning
we're at church, I see Amanda across the church stand
up as church is letting out, and I say to
the girl that I'm with, that's the girl I'm gonna
(06:04):
marry and I thought I thought those thoughts, but I
said it like apparently. I was like, that's the girl
I'm gonna marry, and so I got a quick elbow
to the ribs. I was broken up with on the spot,
and that was my last breakup in life. I walked
up to say something to Amanda. She rolled her eyes
at me, so I cowered back into my seat. But
it really like psychologically messed me up. I was like,
if I can have this kind of intensive a feeling
about a stranger across the room, there's something kind of
(06:26):
real that I should be probably mindful of and waiting
for it.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
For God exactly, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
And so it was four years until I ever met her.
A friend of ours songwriter who was my roommate at
the time, named Matt Carney.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
We went to a.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Coffee shop at like Harney yeah artist too, Yeah exactly,
it's brilliant.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Yeah yeah, well you guys want Matt Carney. Yeah dah.
I love Matt Carney. My wife and I fell in love.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
So when Nothing Left to Lose came out, Matt and
I were roommates and a man and I were dating
at the time and this is a little trash talking
about Carne. I love you, Matt, forgive me. We came
home that day and he was packing a U hole
by himself. He was dragging his big bed into the
U haul and we got out. We had dinner and
we're like, Matt, what are you doing? Like, well, tell
us that you're moving. I knew you were moving at
some point, but help I help you pack. You just
had his first big hit song. He's like, dude, I
(07:16):
just don't know who my friends are anymore.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
And we're like, where are your friends, Matt, mattress.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Your friends? Bro, you got one radio hit. You're gonna
be okay. He did something with Matt Carney.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Yeah we did, I think in Colorado.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah, Colorado, Mat Mat, Matt Amanda. He's amazing and he
was honestly a big brother to me. I was telling
somebody on the bus the other day he was a
big brother to me. Songwriting wise. We were living in
the same house for years and I remember writing a
song and playing it for him I was really proud
of and he listened to it. He's like smoking a pipe,
you know, wise old Matt, and he's like, I just.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Think he could do better. Man and like broke my heart,
but it was the right thing.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
About your songs, and yeah, yeah, exactly, this is what
WHOA you had a big hit.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
But honestly, he was right and it was the energy
I needed.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
But we went to a coffee shop that night and
Amanda was there and he goes, Amanda, you know my
roommate Abner and we had never met. It had been
four years since that fateful day.
Speaker 6 (08:07):
So the first thing is that he ever said to me,
the first words that Abner ever said to me. He
turned around and he saw me and he said, I've
been waiting to meet you for so long. And I
was like, excuse me.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
What a song? I've been waiting to meet you for
so long? I haven't written that.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Song specifically, but I feel like we're five albums in
writing songs about it, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (08:28):
The title I've been waiting so long? Yeah, it sounds
a great song title.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
First on social media, I mean I kind of.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Sorry when you say she's from Royalty, Can you explain
that for audience?
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Yes, so my family not Royalty, but really amazing humans.
Her mom was done a summer and she grew up,
you know, between l A and New York and whatever.
I grew up on the west side of Jacksonville, Marietta,
so it's like the very too, all the different things,
but ultimately we were raised the same, which is the
craziness of it.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
I'll never forget that.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
My dad, when he found out I was dating Donna
Summer's daughter, he called me me, Hey, hey, tell me
the truth.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Don't lie to me. Do they know you're poor?
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (09:19):
My god, By the way, Donna Summer, I believe, I
honestly believe that I do what I do right now because.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Of your mom.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
The first forty five I owned was on the radio.
Oh that's sweet.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
And I would go to my neighbor's house and we'd
listen to it as a record player.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
It's so funny.
Speaker 6 (09:36):
We have we have a song on the new album
and I we change the lyric. It says Bowie's on
the radio for most of the song, and then at
the you know, the down chorus, it says Donna's on
the radio. And so every night I get to sing
Donna's on the radio, and which makes me happy.
Speaker 5 (09:50):
But the first night of tour, we're at Chili's because.
Speaker 6 (09:52):
It's somehow become a tradition that our our band and
crew go to Chilis.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
We have to ride the Dente.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
You guys know, the Presidente Margarita at the Dent.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Our kids like, this place is amazing. Okay.
Speaker 5 (10:04):
Anyway, on the radio came on while we were there,
and we were all.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Like, the first night, She's got one thousand songs, but
that one to me, hits home.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah time that one, I don't know, Yeah, that's cool.
That was we got a tattoo for after she passed.
I used to always make fun of the song MacArthur Park,
like what we were talking about juice and so down
a passed. I got tattoos for everybody, like my dad,
my mom, a few for a man, to all my kids,
and I got a cake.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Melting getting rained one and melting.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
And we had a busy day and I was just
pulling up real quick my tattoo artist that I love
at a new shop. I didn't know where it was,
and so I'm kind of looking down at the directions
to find a parking spot.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Boom, whatever, we're here.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
I look up and it was this huge sign literally
right in front of my parking spot said welcome to
MacArthur Park.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
That's where I was getting by MacArthur Park, you know. Yeah,
so are you going to get a tattoo of like
a raft?
Speaker 6 (10:53):
Actually, that's actually a great idea. That's actually one of
the first presidents you're gonna tell it.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
You know.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
I try not to like throw my mom under the bus,
but my mom loved a prank. She loved to like
joke with people, and it was usually like politically incorrect
to some degree, especially now. But yeah, our first Christmas together,
you know, we've just been dating a couple of months,
and so she's like, she's like, I have a gift
for him, tell him to come over. So I'm like, hey,
my mom's got a present for you, need to come over.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
And I'm driving Volks so I can go off.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
They can barely get up the driveway, you know, big
royalty house, and.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
He's like, oh my gosh, it's so sweet.
Speaker 6 (11:27):
Well a little while and it's this huge box all
wrapped and he opens it and it's it's like a
life vest in an ore and she said, for.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Your trips back and forth to QBA. Yeah, she was
crying laughing.
Speaker 6 (11:40):
So and you know, obviously like they knew each other
well enough at this point for her to make that joke,
and so the joke kept going, kept going, and he
kept buying her gifts, she kept buying Haing gifts, and
that was.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
So, yeah, it should be an, it should be an.
That's great, I'll do that. Oh that's great.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
That awesome your your mom like such sonic impact, like
and for somebody to get studio and be able to
hang with streisand yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
We played a show.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
We played a Clinton Foundation fundraiser the other day the
other day, like a year ago, and we always do
this bit it wasn't hear or whatever it was. We
always do this bit where we sing a song and
we stand on a table and it's always like a
little not it's off putting, but kind of in a
cool way.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
The only time she wouldn't let me do it.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Was at a party where it was like a glass
table and they were like white anyway, was in front,
in the front table. We're playing the thing and it's
barber and her husband are sitting right at the front table,
and she's not paying a lick of attention to au Scott.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Bless her.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
She's a legend. She's amazing. But I'm like, I'm gonna win.
And I do this most nights tonight. I'll do it
at the at the show tonight. Yeah, man, you're I'll
pick somebody that seems like they're here because of their
significant other as a fan, and they don't really care,
and I'm gonna win that person.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
I'll focus.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
So at this event, I was focused on striisand I
was like, I'm gonna win Striisand so we jump on
the table last song of the set, and I stand
like inches from her plate, and I'm just standing right
in the middle of table, singing off the mic, shouting
the song, giving it everything I got. And when I
tell you this wonderful lady did not look up from
her plate the time.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Is I'm right here.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
She's that unaffected and she.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Just doesn't care. Her husband once yeah I forgot his name.
Her husband is Thanos's dad. Yeah, yeah, exactly, that's right.
That's right. Yeah, get spanking.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
So how do you like? I can't And I think
this is a good thing. I can't genre your music
at all?
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Pop?
Speaker 4 (13:22):
Is it jazz? Is it singer songwriter? Is it R
and B?
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Like?
Speaker 4 (13:26):
It's hard? Is it even Christian? Like? It's hard to
pit it down? But I know that, I instantly feel warmth.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Oh come on, man, I think that.
Speaker 6 (13:36):
Honestly, it was my mom who is the one who
was like, you know, early on, especially when before we met,
when I was just working on my own music, there
were so many people that were like, oh, we're going
to make you the next dance queen, like we're gonna
take that name, and I was like, no, I don't really,
that's not the kind of music I write. And it
was always kind of like a struggle. My mom would
be like, just write whatever you want, because truly she
you know, got famous because of Love to Love You,
(13:57):
But that wasn't really like a song that she meant
to write for herself.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
She was writing for somebody else.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
It's Georgio Morano.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yeah, with Georgio and so.
Speaker 6 (14:04):
And she always felt a little bit pigeonholed, and not
that she was like, you know, ungrateful or anything like that,
but for us, she was just like, write whatever songs
you want to write. Just write what the people that
need your music and I'm going to find it. So
write what you want to write. Like you don't need
to fit into anybody's.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
You can hear in the song just like you can
hear your mom over eight minutes of disco beats, you
can hear her guts in there.
Speaker 6 (14:24):
Yeah. So she was always always really encouraged us to
just write whatever. And so now when people say what
kind of music do you write, we just go regular
because we're.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
Like, you know, regular.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, but it makes it, it's making an impact because
you have this massive following.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Yeah, and Rod Jimmy Kimmel not that long ago too,
a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 6 (14:39):
Yeah, but yeah, it's just it's nice for us because
we never feel pressure.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Whenever we have an album coming up.
Speaker 6 (14:45):
We don't sit there and go, okay, well we need
to write something that's like this or like that. We
just kind of go, okay, what are we feeling and
let's just go with whatever our you know, our guts
telling us to goe a direction?
Speaker 4 (14:54):
Do you strip it down? And even after that, because
when I hear's some of your songs, they're so organically
like simple, and yet there's like there's intricacy to it.
But it's like you're not building a lot, you're building
a soundscape. But it's still kind of Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
So I think what I've experienced as a musician for
the last several years. Is this change in digital sounds
right where you have access to everything. If I wanted
to make a Georgia Moroder song, if I wanted to
make a whatever, I could literally just type in the
name Drag and drop into a session and be on
my way to create the thing. And for me it's
created a lot of confusionist to like, I don't even
know what okay, I want the nineteen seventies snare I get.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
I don't know what I want. I just want the
song to be right.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
And so it's made us kind of reverse in time
and instead of getting using all the digital resources possible,
we want, as we say, all the sounds to have eyeballs.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
So our music director.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Jonathan Grant Berlyn, who's a brilliant multi instrumentalist, and a
few of our other friends, we'll just get him in
a studio and we'll play the songs for him, send
it to him just acoustic vocal a week before. But
we want everything to be on purpose. I want everything
that we lean into to be a guy that played
a thing, a person that played something that was like,
oh yeah, yeah, more of that.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
It's vibe. I mean, let's let's go to that.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
And it's kind of the antithesis of of I think
what what most modern production is right now.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
It is even every country song I hear has got
auto tuned to deafit it. Yeah, exactly, it's the opposite
of what you know of country music that you grew
up listening to.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Did you guys happen to watch the Genius documentary with
Kanye No, because I think it's phenomenal, But it's go
They have footage of back in two thousand when you're
putting together college drop out here and put together the
music and how he does it right. It's just I'm
talking about Kanye now.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Right right, right, right, right, old Kanye.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
By the way, speaking of music and movies and documentaries,
wasn't there a documentary in.
Speaker 6 (16:36):
Your mom My sister director watched part of it. Yeah,
it's great HBO still.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Of course it is a lot of it like a
couple of years ago. It's cool. There's no talking heads.
Speaker 6 (16:48):
It's just you know, it's like, you know, we all
did interviews, but it's all old footage.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
She like she literally for seven years just like dove
through all.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
This and what I love that Brooklyn did to her sister.
Brooklyn is.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
You'd imagine a director making a documentary about her mother,
they'd make it really they'd polish it really nice, like
all the sweet stuff and then take out all the
bad stuff. But Brooklyn was really brutal, like with the
honest truth of Donna's upcoming and it was all really
coming in.
Speaker 6 (17:11):
And also how funny she was, Like I feel like
only people that really knew her intimately could know how
funny and silly she was, and it would be hard
to show otherwise if you didn't know her. And so
she did a really good job of showing how kind
of silly my mom was, which I love.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
You know.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Also, when you think about music and videos, she works
hard for the money was one of the biggest. I
remember that video that you couldn't turn on MTV. Have
seen that video right, little but really she was like
you know, and she was in a waitress.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Out the album cover.
Speaker 6 (17:39):
Yeah, I think I think I was in the womb
when she recorded it. And it was a little baby
when it came out.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Wow, dang.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Actually in the documentary there's video of you as a
newborn and she's singing it and that song yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
Probably like one did you go on tour? Like you're
taking your kids on tour. Yeah, very much, And so
you've made it comfortable for your kids too.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
Know any different, They're not going to know any different.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Every time I get a little sad, like, all right,
they're away from their friends for three weeks, we're gonna
send them home.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
But do you think they're cool? She's like, maybe they're fine.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Yeah, I've done you anyway.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
Yeah, absolutely, home is where we are.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
You know, you guys are cool going to our little
studio performing in so stoked to you kidding?
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Yeah? Okay, so let's head over there. Ready to go
on your name yet, let's go.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
I had a little conversation with someone in that back
room yesterday about what Johnny Swim.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, where does it come from? Johnny Swim is less
of a name, and it's more of a feeling. It's
more of like a spoken aura. Johnny Swim is extential
while practical. Johnny Swim is everything while being nothing. At
the same time, When I think of the name Johnny Swim,
I think of a name that I made up one
time on the spot and have been asked for the
next twenty years of my life what it.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Means, and it has no meaning. At all. You're gonna
be one of those ways. Because there's another band that
won't tell Oh who is it? Five?
Speaker 3 (18:52):
I think no, No, the other one Dragons that Dragons
would tell us why they.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Came to the real stories. We were sitting with the
publicist one and she was like, well, what's the name.
You can't just be admirer Amanda as a duo. You
have to have a band name. I was like, okay,
we'll just pick a name. Then she's like, no, it
has to be really important, like this is this name
is the front facing marketing piece of your future. The
band name has to mean something, so literally, on the spot,
I say, you go, our band name is Johnny Swim
and she goes, that's a horrible name. I go, well,
(19:18):
and then I make up a story that is as follows.
We a man and I met in England. Actually our
friend was trying to do long distance swimming. He had
never learned how to swim as a child. He learned
how to swim as an adult. And I was standing
next to this beautiful woman who happened to be friends
with our friend Johnny, and we had the same sign
up and said swim Johnny Swim and our buddy Johnny,
who had self taught swimmer, was self taught long distance
(19:39):
swimmer actually died on that swim and our romance began
after his demise, and we wanted to honor his legacy
forever with our band name. And she was crying and
she says, that's a that's a great name.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Well it is now.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Because I thought, you know, it's funny. I was nervous
about you guys coming in here. So I we've had
I can't tell you how many guests. Justin Bieber sat
right there, Miley Cyrus is right there.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
He was in my dream last night. Weird the Katie.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Perry Switch people, and I've never I just come in
to do the interview, and I was so nervous because
my friends helped set this up that you're the first
artist ever that I kind of like did a little
research the research because I said, we were working out
yesterday listening to your album and I was like, you
know where the name Johnny Swimm came from?
Speaker 1 (20:22):
And ters like, it's a Native American.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Yeah, I'm like, I think it says named after the goldfish.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yeah, that's right, that's that's my favorite one. That's great.
You can't up stories and over. The truth is we
made it up and there's no reason.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
That's awesome, by the way, because it's weird that because
you guys have been around, you' been Johnny Swimm for
a long time. So then then Teddy Couples comes up, Yeah,
like what.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
The hell, No, I don't care.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
I do wonder if he thinks we copied him, though,
because there's people like, we've been a duo for so
long that people thought it was weird to be a duo,
Like what are you doing? They all break up, like
it was before we were Johnny Swim, before the civil
wars were civil wars, and like when the wars started
to happen, and they're like, oh, so you guys are
copying some wars. Like no, what's funny is you do
it long enough, You guys must feel this way. You
do it long enough, people think you're copying whoever the
(21:08):
hot person is in a moment. But then you look
over a certain amount of time and you realize you're
the only one that kind of lasted that.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
Long war of the roses that was ours. Ryan Seacrets
does did all these other people do it? But it
was us?
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, you get it? You know what? What's it? Just
hit me right now.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
And I may be wrong, but the last artist that
we had in the studio was right there was Teddy
swim Hey also something Else and a big band of
Teddy swims kyl the record. When I was I was
researching it, it was did you guys do a theme
for it? She's they're friends with the people that you love.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Oh, I can feel it, like actually one of our
best friends.
Speaker 6 (21:44):
Know what?
Speaker 1 (21:44):
You could you look like you could be sisters.
Speaker 6 (21:47):
What's weird is I just bought this hat two days ago,
and I mean that's such a compliment, by the way,
because she's just like always studying.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
And drywall. She's studying always.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
And I put this hat on and I was like,
I just looked in the mirror and I thought, I loo,
but you guys.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Do the theme?
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, we're the theme song Fixed Upper, so we holme
is the song. It's a theme song Fixer Upper. We
had a long standing rule of no music on reality TV.
I'm gonna tell it really quick. Yep, we have no
music on reality TV because we had done this deal
with VH one. VH one was putting our songs on
everything and it was really cool. I tuned in one
day to watch the Johnny Swim song on VH one
and there was this breakup happening between a guy and
his side chick. He was breaking up with the side
(22:27):
chick because he wanted to get back together with his wife.
And he's like, I told you always gonna be a
side chick. You always like yelling at her all this stuff.
And then, by the way, you left this at my
house and he throws panties across the room and in
slow motion, the panties are flying across the coffee shop
and Johnny Swims playing in the background music by Johnny Something.
So we called her agent that day. We're like, no
more reality TV.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Ever, ever. Ever.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
So this little show called Fixer Upper was about to
start filming season two and they wanted one of our
songs as the theme song. And we said no, literally
about six times before it even got to us. Finally,
their agent calls us, this couple is really determined to
have you, guys be the theme song. Can you just
get on the phone with them and tell them yourself
that you won't do the theme song?
Speaker 6 (23:02):
WOA, Yeah, they just want to talk to you and
talk to you why they want the song whenever? And
we're like, but and so we were kind of like, okay, maybe.
And then in the in the interim, we went home
for Thanksgiving to his mom's house and she literally satus down.
It was like, there's this new show that I love.
It's so good. You have to sit and watch it
with me. And she had like t vowed all of
the first season, and so she made us sit and
watch it. And as we're sitting there, I goes, isn't
(23:22):
this the show that wants a song? And then she
says in Spanish she.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Stops and she was me, who, I've never asked you
for anything your whole life.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
Here it comes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
You have to do whatever Chip and Joanna asked me.
Speaker 6 (23:35):
And so we got on the phone with them and
immediately we're like just kindred spirits. You know, I think this,
you know, working together with your spouse, having little kids
and dragging them around like we just Actually at the
time when I met, when we first started talking to them,
I was pregnant with our first so I.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Was like, how am I going to do this? Tell
me everything?
Speaker 2 (23:50):
And we just you know, have become We just marked
our ten year anniversary of friendship, and they said, we
have a little playfully a little shelf in our studio
for all the trophies that we haven't won yet and uh,
and so they send us one for the trophy shelf
that said to the hottest couple and happy ten years
of friendship.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Chip and Johanna. So it's actually like a really nice thing.
I want to paint it. I think, I don't know, they're.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
One of the few people that I root for their success. Yeah,
after they've had ridiculous success exactly. You know how because
you watch some people you're like, oh they've changed. They
don't seem like they've changed.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
That they are.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
I think it was Jamie Fox has said you stop
aging the moment you become famous. I think they just
got just to the right age to become famous because
they were at their coolest and they are just exactly
the people you think they are. The things they've done
that nobody knows about. I think they've done for my family,
like for my mom, just taking care of people. They
are some of the most generous. If anybody should be
famous and successful, it's Chip and Joanna gains something no.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
No, but we cat to stay at their place for free,
which is, let's go, let's go to our theater over
here in jam. Let's do it all right, all right,
Johnny Swim coming up,
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