Name: JOHNNYSWIM
Nationality: American
Members: Amanda Sudano, Abner Ramirez
Interviewee: Abner Ramirez
Current release: JOHNNYSWIM's new album When the War is Over is out via Mr and Mrs Swim.
Recommendation For Los Angeles: LA is so great because you could be in the mountains or on the ocean, going to the opera or eating at a Michelin taco truck all on the same day.
If we had to pick one thing, we’d have to say go to Los Feliz and hike from Trails Cafe to the observatory, and then after get lunch on Hillhurst. Since the fires, many of our favorite Malibu locations are closed or gone, but spending time at the beach is always a great LA day too.
Topic we rarely get to talk about: (Amanda) Abner got his pilot’s license over covid and he could talk aeronautics for seven hours straight. I should know.

If you enjoyed this JOHNNYSWIM interview and would like to know more about their music, projects, and upcoming live dates, visit the duo's official homepage. They are also on Instagram, and Facebook.  



Do you think that some of your earliest musical experiences planted a seed for your interest in writing lyrics or poetry? How and when did you start writing?

I was 7 years old when a traveling tenor came to our little southern baptist church in Florida and sang a few songs on Sunday morning and did a concert that night at the church.

I asked my mom if she could buy me his cassette (yeah ... I'm that old) and as we were waiting in line at his merch table I turned to her and said “It’s just so crazy that he is so good at singing and still has to go to work tomorrow” to which my mother responded “oh no honey, this is his job”. That was the last time I ever thought about what I would do for a living.

Amanda was raised by a family of songwriters who played a hand in changing pop music for ever… I'm sure that maybe had something to do with her path as well.

Entering new worlds and escapism through music and literature have always exerted a very strong pull on me. What do you think you are drawn to most when it comes to writing?

It’s always felt like water to us. I never felt writing songs or lyrics was an external thing that I was interested in learning more about. We always saw the need to write as a living thing inside of us that we wanted to take a closer look at.

We’ve learned, over the years, that often in life we don't even have words to express how we feel about a tragedy or triumph or stress or joy until we write a song about it. And in the moment of writing we discover how we really feel.

What were some of the artists and albums which inspired you early on purely on the strength of their lyrics? What moves you in the lyrics of other artists?

Donna Summer (obviously) Beny Moré, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Stevie Wonder, Dave Mathews.

We’re all influential songwriters to us. We love when we can see ourselves inside someone else’s song or story.

The idea that I feel so deeply or that you’ve painted such an interesting picture that I no longer see you living in your song but myself … is magic.

Have there been song lyrics which actually made you change (aspects of) your life? If so, what do you think, leant them that power?

I remember hearing my father sing (poorly ... he was tone deaf lol) an old Cuban song “Cuando salí de Cuba” and after years of hearing this song regularly, the song suddenly connected with me in a deep way.

It felt in that moment that a lyric had become a Time Machine. I saw my own life differently and my heritage differently.

I think God gave songs that power.

It is sometimes said that “music begins where words end.” What do you make of that?

I think that’s a great lyric. And truly I think songwriting is a language to itself.

I have always considered many forms of music to be a form of poetry as well. Where do you personally see similarities? What can music express which may be out of reach for poetry?

I’ve seen too many poets get mad at this comparison for me to say music is a form of poetry.

I think it has many clear similarities but wouldn’t consider myself poet enough to give an undangerous answer to this question.

The relationship between words and music has always intrigued me. How do you see it? In how far can music take you to places with your writing you would possibly not have visited without it?

The way we write songs we find that often the emotion of a lyric will inform where the music should go next and vice versa.

For us the interplay of lyric and music is so deep that I'm not sure I’d know how to separate them.

What are areas/themes/topics that you keep returning to in your lyrics?

I mean this honestly … whatever we are going through at the time.

Our goal as writers has always been to create little time capsules of our souls in any moment we are writing.

Do you tend to start writing with what will be the first line of the finished lyrics? The chorus? At a random point? What are the words that set the process in motion?

Often we start humming. Sometimes it's a line in our diary. Sometimes its a phrase in conversation.

Really it's a feeling that finds its way into vocabulary. The road it takes from feeling to revealing itself as a lyric can vary wildly but in a very broad sense that is always the journey.

I'd love to know how you think the meaning or effect of an individual song is enhanced, clarified or possibly contradicted by the EPs, or albums it is part of. Does the song, for example, need to be consistent with the larger whole?

I think whatever shape a song takes will always affect the shape of the project as a whole. I really think this only matters to people whose jobs rely on that project being listened to. An artist's job is innately risky.

Art for commerce is a wild thing. Whatever you make you make and what the individual song does to the shape of the whole is its own art.

When you're writing song lyrics, do you sense or see a connection between your voice and the text? Does it need to feel and sound “good” or “right” to sing certain words? What's your perspective in this regard of singing someone else's songs versus your own?  

We have only ever recorded one song that we didn’t write and it's actually in our latest album. The song “Monte Carlo” was written by a dear friend and long time collaborator Britten Newbill.



I’ve never consciously thought about this while writing but I also don't know where the line is between changing something because I wanted to say something else or changing something because it “felt wrong” is.

It’s like riding in a river… we’re just flowing man. God knows why the river turns.

I would love to know a little about the feedback you've received from listeners or critics about what they thought some of your songs are about – have there been “misunderstandings” or did you perhaps even gain new “insights?”

Once a friend said they loved a song so much and mentioned a specific lyric. They heard the lyric wrong but what they thought it said was better … we changed the lyric to the misheard one.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing song lyrics or poetry is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Yes I think writing songs is different than making coffee. You cannot drink a song literally.

Though I guess you can’t drink a cup of coffee auditoraly either.