Chris Hess and Adam Winn moved to Los Angeles from the small (but excellently named) town of Space Coast, Florida, to try to make something of their band, SWIMM, and their second EP—the site-specific Beverly Hells—is heavy with the kind of swishy, dreamy pop that you’d imagine listening to while reclining in palm-tree shade in a kind of West Coast idyll. But real life isn’t like that, and the insistent nudging of the basslines across Beverly Hells demand that you sit up and pay attention to what these guys have to say.
In the group’s recent appearance on the At: Guitar Center webseries, Hess talks about the creation of the song “Shoulda Coulda,” a spacey, washed-out funk track taken from Beverly Hells. “It was all of us together, jamming it out,” Hess says. “That song’s more of a vibe song than anything, and I think we just tried to capture a certain vibe.”
The germ of the song apparently came from Hess’s messing around with a new effects pedal, and, true to form, the song’s wide, gentle brushes of wah’ed guitar lend it its character.
You can watch SWIMM’s episode of At: Guitar Center—which includes the chat with Hess and a live performance of “Shoulda Coulda”—below, and more episodes of the webseries (including appearances from J. Mascis, Twin Peaks, and Eagulls) here.
