On Falling In Love With Music All Over Again: An Interview with Nicolle Swims
By Rivka Yeker
Photo by John Puschock
Black Ends’ guitarist and vocalist Nicolle Swims exudes passion through abrasive yet beautifully strung together chords and melodies. The band is an unexpected surprise, mostly because there is no accurate way to pinpoint them — they exist in the peripheries of genre, and aren’t asking to be contained. Their most recent EP, Sellout, takes the essence of rock and squeezes it til muck comes out. Except this muck vibrates with sound, and is good for your soul.
Hooligan spoke with Swims about their own devotion to rock, DIY as a community and what it takes to make the sound you feel in your bones come to life.
You're a classically trained musician, which comes out vividly in your work. How does that influence your approach to songwriting?
Classical guitar kind of changed everything for me. From the way I listen to music to how I make it. I feel as if it was the missing piece to everything for me musically and also for bettering my life in general. As much as I like to incorporate what I’ve learned into my music, I also try not to think about things too technically when I am writing so to not overthink things.
I know that you're deeply influenced by grunge... in what ways do you incorporate the era/genre/style into Black Ends?
I actually don’t feel like grunge is my main influence at all. I do enjoy grunge to an extent; Nirvana is one of my favorite bands of all time and I have been deeply and incredibly influenced by them and a few other bands that could be labeled as “grunge” but I feel like it is not what has impacted me deepest. Growing up, I’ve just admired Kurt Cobain's songwriting and the way he was completely unhinged in the way he did things musically. He just really fucking cared about music and making it as catchy as possible & even if it was a mess, he embraced that. I loved the way those guitar parts made me feel.
The way the music could be so fucking hard hitting yet so gentle all at once; it just left me inspired to write catchy rock tunes like that. The kind that spits in your face and pats you on the back whilst doing so.
What are the types of instances that inspire you to write a song? Do they come out of conflict, happiness, sadness?
I think anything could inspire a song. It can be as simple as stepping on a crack and feeling paranoid and worried about my mom for a few seconds or hearing my cat meow when I get up in the morning.
It can also be the big things like despair, isolation, abandonment, feeling lost and tiny on this floating hell sphere. Anything can inspire a song for me, really. Even if I think I’m out of music and I’ve got nothing left to give, that feeling can be a real burst of inspiration. I’ve just got to feel that feeling genuinely in order to get it all out.
Right now you're in the Seattle DIY community, but I know you've struggled with it as a whole. How do you think Seattle DIY can improve? DIY in general?
That’s a great question. I think I’ve kind of gotten more comfortable here in this scene as time goe’d and have seen so much support from the a lot of the DIY community in Seattle as a whole and I am truly grateful for it and the people making art here. I also think it could be greatly improved & a lot of people here are trying really hard in order to do just that.
Things like Video Bebop, The Zoid Fest, Freeze Fest and so many house venues popping up all over town, people care about art here and many people give love to the art they like and even the art they think is only just fine.
Improving things in any DIY scene honestly means just trying harder to elevate art in your community. Go to your friends’ shows (I’m guilty of not following through with this as often as I should), promote your friends’ shows & their bands, start a house venue, even just picking up a new instrument and writing a song and playing it for a few friends in your kitchen is contributing to the scene as a whole.
The most important thing is not losing yourself in your successes when they come to you when you find your art is going somewhere good.
You're originally from the South, though. Has that inspired your work at all?
I was born in Oklahoma. Lived in California for 6 years, Germany for 3, Washington for 7 , Idaho for 1, SF for 6 months & Alabama for 6 years. Moving so much really hasn't inspired my art as much as what I experienced living in all of these places.
You describe Black Ends as "gunk pop", which essentially means (according to you) combining technical guitar with traditional pop riffs. Is this a style of music you've always leaned towards playing, or does it come out specifically as Black Ends?
I think what I mostly leaned towards with “gunk pop” was writing a good, catchy pop song with big guitars and earworm-y riffs but I also wanted to make it as disgusting as I possibly could. Well, as disgusting as one could make a pop song.
I think this comes out in my music as a whole. I’ve always leaned towards music that sounds like a gorgeous mess of grit and beauty. Leonard Cohen or Tom Waits are both great examples of this. Their voices dirty up their songs in a way I want my guitar to dirty up my songs. You know? Black Ends is basically just a very warm and comfy blanket with crusted snot and piss stains all over it.
In what ways do you work to defy genre or expectations of "rock"?
I just don’t want it to be stale. I want to make music with care and creativity. I want to make something I want to listen to. Something with passion. I work to just create a musical world of my own I can do anything in. No rules. Just good rock music and letting go. A lot of rock can be stale if you don’t get creative or innovative with it. It can be so dull sometimes. I don’t think I’m defying any genres or doing anything more creative than the next person but I want to fall in love again. Fall in love with hearing a guitar riff that changed my life and made me want to pick up a guitar in the first place. If I’m going to use this weird piece of wood to tell my story, I’ll make it my priority to tell it damn well.