Here’s one way to change up the formula for all of these nearly redundant, PR-job music-biopic blockbusters we’ve been inundated with over the past few years: make the movie about a modest indie rock band rather than a global pop star. Even if Adelaide’s Swapmeet have aspirations of becoming big enough someday to top Michael’s record-breaking box office gross through name recognition alone, Elvis and Queen and Elton John and Bob Dylan and every other figure whose life story has been revised lately to meet the approval of Academy voters surely didn’t begin their story with a synchronized dance as teenagers, á la High School Musical. Well, maybe that’s not totally accurate, but these things never really need to be.
Swapmeet landed on many of our radars earlier this year when the group signed to the Winspear label, the perfect outlet for releasing their scruffy take on bedroom pop that tends to land somewhere between the lo-fi snarl of Feeble Little Horse and the patient folk-pop of their labelmates in Teethe. The group quickly announced their debut album, Mount Zero, which arrives this week. It’s a far cry from the big-budget, emotionally manipulative fare they’re already ideating for a decade from now when they’ve become our human-race delegates for an intergalactic battle-of-the-bands showdown, though I’m sure it’ll lay the groundwork for some incredible character development.
Ahead of Mount Zero’s release this Friday—and Swapmeet: The Movie’s release 10 years from now—check out the official soundtrack for the unofficial movie compiled by guitarist/vocalist Venus O’Broin, bassist Joshua Doherty, and multi-instrumentalists Maxwell Elphick and Jack Medlyn below. You can also pre-order the album here. I don’t know that we’ll be using Fandango a decade from now, so there’s probably no use having them generate a pre-pre-save ticket link.
Calvin Haris feat. Frank Ocean & Migos, “Slide”
Opening scene: The film would start with a black screen with white text saying “Based on a true story.” The song would then play and it would show us sitting on the back of a convertible on Rodeo Drive in LA—palm trees, jewelry, real Paris Hilton spec. You’d then start to hear one of our names being called at a distance. The scene would then cut to one of us daydreaming at our desk in high school with a teacher shouting our name to get our attention, revealing that the scene was, in fact, not real.
Heavy D and The Boyz, “Now That We Found Love”
Initial meeting: This scene would show how we all first met as a band, with the end of the scene being all of us doing a synchronised dance at a school formal, High School Musical style. Once the dance finishes we all huddle and discuss what’s next, now that our high school years are over. Josh says “start a band” and Maxwell says “called Swapmeet.” We put our hands together and say “Swapmeet on three.” Hands go up and it cuts to our first show.
Pat Benatar, “Love Is a Battlefield”
First gigs/the come-up: The start of this scene shows our first gig—playing to about two people—to show that we’re really putting everything into it. It shows a sequence of all our shows for the next few years. More and more people are slowly starting to come. People are starting to dance more. The gigging life is now starting to wear on us, but we all know it will soon pay off.
Vistoso Bosses, “Delirious” (Soulja Boy Tell ’Em Version)
Meeting Jared Jones from Winspear for the first time: One of the first times we met Jared, he picked us up in his car with a whole bunch of burritos. This scene would be edited in the style of a 2019 thirst trap.
Teethe, “Magic of the Sale”
SXSW: This song would play during the scene of us meeting Teethe for the first time. Josh thought the song was called “Magic Is for Sale” the whole time, so I think we’d include an alternate version of the song where that’s the lyric—hopefully this creates some type of Mandella effect where everyone starts to think that’s the lyric. When borrowing guitars from Teethe, everything was tuned backward. This scene would then show us at our first show of SXSW trying to play the guitars left-handed and doing everything wrong. This didn’t exactly happen, but we have to make the movie interesting somehow.
Miguel, “Adorn”
Dance sequence: 90 percent of the film budget would go to dance lessons, just so this scene is the best in the whole movie.
Mura Masa feat. A$AP Rocky, “Love$ick”
London shopping spree: This scene is the excuse for us to try on cool clothes and do a crazy outfit sequence—our Confessions of a Shopaholic moment. The scene ends with us holding five bags each at the counter and our credit card declining.
Basement Jaxx, “Romeo”
Sports sequence: This would be the sweatiest scene in the movie. I think we’d play beach volleyball or table tennis in this scene (still undecided). It would be great if this scene had the same color palette as High School Musical 2, but with the vibe of Challengers.
Spacehog, “In the Meantime”
Final scene/intergalactic battle of the bands: The year is 2035; aliens have now invaded the Earth, and the only way we can defeat them is with music. The United Nations band together and decide to send the world’s greatest rock band to space. The scene cuts to us in spacesuits that don’t fit properly walking on a runway toward a spaceship. The movie ends. This scene is mostly just there to make it look like there’s going to be a sequel.
Girls, “Lust for Life”
Credits/where-are-they-now sequence: This would be one of those lighthearted movie endings, where the credits appear in some sort of scrapbook with a bunch of Polaroids of the cast.
