This is Alex Eichenberger. She's a badass. But creeping out from amidst the distorted dirty-blues riffs, is a softness. Her lyrics show a tenderness that would otherwise remain hidden behind long, black and turquoise hair. Her voice allows for a vulnerability that humanises her otherwise flawlessly indeliberate cool. This is Alex Eichenberger. Alex Eichenberger is Swampmother.
Where did Swampmother come from?
It's kind of ridiculous. I have never thought, in my life, of writing songs, I spend my time playing other people's songs - it's my job. I found a guitar in the street. It was just this little Squire Tele, it was just up the road from my house, it had the little sign on it that said, "Please take me, just needs work" and I thought, "I'll have that, alright". Um, I can't play the guitar. So I brought it home and my friend, Tim, bless him, he ripped it all to pieces, put it all together, built me a guitar, and then I didn't know how to play it and so I thought I'd write some songs, to learn. And that's what happened. That was it. I just thought I'll stick it in a silly tuning and I just kinda mucked around. I thought, "Oh, well I like blues and stuff so I'll just try and do me one of them". And that was that. And then I kinda wrote another one and another one and another one, and then JD [Smith] booked me a show at the 12 Bar, and I thought, "Oh shit, I've actually got to do it in front of people now! Hang on a sec, I haven't really thought about that". And that was the birth of it. It was just a bunch of ridiculous circumstances, I didn't really plan it.
And where did the name come from?
It was only ever a working title. It's just because my hair gets in front my face when I play and I can't get it out of the way, my friend and I were chatting once and he told me I look like that girl in The Ring when she crawls out of the well. I realized that all the domain names and twitter and stuff, nobody had taken it, so I was like, "I'll have that". And I told my mum and she said "It's okay. I'm not sure about the swamp bit… Or the mother bit". But now she's totally embraced it. She sent me a Christmas card that said, "Dear Swampmother, der-der-der, lots of love from the Swampmother-mother". That was quite sweet, bless her. The whole thing has just all a bunch of silly circumstances, nothing was pre-ordained. Lots of fun though.
You snagged Sound Cloud, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, your merch stuff (which is awesome by the way), not tumblr, though, that's somebody else's.
Haha - Some other bugger who actually put up... oh god, what did they write? It was something really funny, cos I'd taken all the Swampmother domain names. I went to get tumblr and it just said, "Hands off, bitch, it's mine".
You're a classically trained musician, are you fighting against that with this dirty-blues sound?
I never went into this thinking about writing any particular style. I just thought I'd just try and write ANY song. It wasn't a conscious decision. It's just because I like heavy music, I like blues-based music, I like that kinda thing anyway. I wouldn't say that's my only influence, I listen to as much classical music as I do non-classical, so I suppose from the classical you get a different sense of harmonic possibility. You've got this chord and this chord; thinking as a popular musician you say, "OK, I'll go here…" but thinking as a classical musician you go, "We've got ten options". So that influences how the songs come out melodically, harmonically, maybe not so much structurally. It's just born out of me, as a sum of all of my influences, it's not born out of trying to do something specific. I suppose the whole vibe has come form having fuck-all expectation about the whole thing. I didn't think anyone would listen to any of it, let alone like it.
And you've got a drummer now?
Yeah, that was kind of always the intention. I always wanted it to be heavier than what it was at the beginning, but I didn't want to compromise, so I thought, "Fuck it. I'll just do it louder on my own for the minute". Then I found a drummer that happened to play the right way for me. He's actually fucking wicked. And that was that.
Tell me about your songwriting process because I understand you're a bit of a musical genius?
Well, songs are born in a million different ways aren't they? There are the ones that are born out of… “I've got this one line, but it's just a sentence”, and you build an entire song around this one line that you wanted in there because you thought it sounded good. Most of the time it's born out of… ah shit, there's so many ways of doing it. There's the one where you're mucking around with a guitar and you come up with something cool and you think, “OK what is this? Is it a verse or a middle-eight or a chorus or a riff?” And then you assign it a role and you build something around it, and then you just muck around vocally and eventually come up with something that sticks, and then you refine it and you tweak it. These people who write songs and go "I have written this song and it is gold, here, World, take it" without contemplating as to whether it might actually be any good, it just bemuses me. You see these people doing gigs and you just think, "Where in Christ's name is the quality control?" You know just a little bit of looking at your own work and going, "Ooh I'm not sure if that's as good I can honestly, honestly make it" wouldn’t do any harm. About the first 70 percent of the songwriting process for me is fairly quick, whatever the approach, the first 70 percent, the basic melody, chords, structure, it’s easy. The last 30 percent is the analysis bit where you go, "Yeah sure, it's ok. It starts and it finishes and there's a bit in the middle, but is it actually any good? Are those words actually anything more than just stuff out of a newspaper?". You might as well try and make them interesting. I don't like letting these things leave the house until I think they are the best I can make them.
There's a lot of resonance to personal situations and I'm an emotional person at the end of the day, so I put that stuff down. But for so long I was so funny about the sound of my voice. The idea of being a singer… Never EVER! I did a demo of 'Battles' and sent it to my mum and she said, "Aren't you afraid of sounding vulnerable?" I don't mind telling people how I feel. The feelings in the songs aren't pretend feelings, they are real feelings, they just might not be associated to that particular scenario. The whole thing is born out of real stuff. I couldn't make up how I feel about all these things, it is all born from experience, but it's put together in a different way, for the song's sake. If you can put ‘Battles’ next to ‘Hidden’, I don't think ‘Hidden’ sounds vulnerable, and contrast is good. Not everybody's sane and good all the time, so why can't I put ‘Battles’ in there, and be vulnerable too? I'm not ashamed of how I feel. It's the same with ‘You Ask Too Much’, I've go as many quiet songs as I do loud songs, it's a case of balance, but I'm not ashamed of writing songs because I don't feel so cool all the time, and I'm not gonna hide from that. I'd rather just write a good song. If you can get across how you feel in a simple enough way that people can relate to it in one way or another, but in such a way that they haven't thought of expressing it, you're on to a winner.
What I'll usually do, if I can, is record some scratch demos, even if it's just a chorus guitar part on my iPhone, and work on them from there. My laptop is full of voice memos, absolutely full to the brim, little bits and bobs here and there. Bits where I've woken up in the middle of night and sung into it, a riff that makes no sense to anybody. Literally there is one, where I've woken up in the middle of the night, bleary-eyed and gone, [whispers] "do-do-doo, ba-do-do-doo" but in my head that translates to [shouts] "DA-DA-DOW, BA-DA-DA-DOW", on its own it sounds ridiculous. I suspect I take a more theoretical approach then some people to writing because I'm classically trained, and that's just how my brain works. It seems to be working ok. I'm just happy these songs are getting finished. I counted up before christmas and, Christ, there's about 60 songs, half-done. I think, "What am I going to do with you?". Triple album.
Are there any plans to make an album?
Oh my god, I would love to! Beyond belief, if someone just said here's enough money to not have to do any other work, pay your bills and feed yourself, make a record – I’m all over that shit, I would love to. And there's enough material now to make an album. There's enough to make three. I would love to do that more than anything, but it's about practicality and money and time. So the theory is to try and do a digital release of ‘Hidden’ within the next few months, we haven’t decided if it’ll be free or paid-for, quite possibly both, so people have the choice. I'm not in this industry to make money, Christ no. I'm in this industry to make some songs that I think are good and if I were to make a record and someone were to buy it, that'd be sweet. I'm not gonna try and rinse people. I'd rather put stuff up for free and have people know what kind of music we're making. That's why ‘Battles’ is free at the moment. But the idea of doing something bigger than a little EP, feasibly, you know money-wise, I just don't know how we'd do it at the moment. It's a case of trying to use pre-existing recordings to get somebody somewhere to give a shit. Or win the lottery or take out a loan, you know? That's really the only other way it's ever going happen. So fingers-crossed for anybody giving a shit about ‘Hidden’.
What's the best show you've ever done?
It was at 12 Bar, it was the day that they announced what the closing date was going to be. It was a really weird atmosphere, but really cool. Loads of people turned up, I think partly it was busy because they just announced the demise of this brilliant place, so lots of people just showed up and thought, "Fuck it, I'll have a drink". Plus, because it was the first two-piece show lots of people came down to check that out, which was nice. And it's such a little place, we split a few ear drums, which is nice, I think. I was proud anyway. In the grand scheme of Swampmother, I still think that was probably my favourite. It's nerve-racking when you do something like that because it's not so much that I'm nervous because I'm playing, I'm nervous because I've got this thing that I've made that I'm showing you and I'd like you to like it. Doing the very first Swampmother solo show was a bit like that, and then at 12 Bar as a two-piece was like, "I'm presenting it in a different guise now. I've got a drummer. Oh, please don't all run away". But it was great, it was really cool. I think that was my favourite.
And didn't you end up doing a random solo show supporting Lucy Rose?
Yeah, I did in Frankfurt. I play keys and samples and all sorts of odds and sods with Lucy, but we turned up and no one had booked a support, so I ended up doing it. A guitar I'd never played and a bunch of pedals I'd never used, but it was kinda nice. First gig out of London was in Frankfurt. Looks good on the CV doesn't it? It was alright. There were people there. They clapped. Honestly, if I can get to the end of a gig and they haven't all run away, I still see that as a personal victory. If people come up to you and they are kind to you about your music after a show - how often do we do that? Just say, "That was wicked". I can't remember the last time I did that? Nobody's obliged to say anything. So you do a gig in Frankfurt, no one knows who you are, but still people are in the room, they stay, they come and talk to you afterwards, they are really nice about it, they are asking the sound guy who that was playing.. It's little stuff but it does matter, it's nice to know that people can be bothered to say a nice thing, you know, even in fucking Frankfurt.
When you and Lucy are on the road, do you get into lots of trouble?
I am tour mum. I am purveyor of plasters, gaffer tape, Berocca. I am not the crazy alcoholic one. It happens rarely on tour that I get pissed, cos it's my job, you know, so I try not to screw it up. On the night that we headlined Fieldview, people were passing us whisky on stage and stuff. I got lead back to the van on account of being so drunk I could't stand up, it was only midnight, it hadn't taken long. So they put me in the van and I'm feeling alright, then I'm like, "Oh actually am I gonna be sick? Oh I'm gonna be sick". So I go outside, I was sick, fell asleep, outside, in the mud, in a ditch. Re-awoke the next day, still a bit drunk, we all drove home. I had no idea that one half of my body was completely covered in mud, so we stop at a service station and these women were looking at me like I'd just been molested and left in a ditch. When we got back I was so hungover. I'm vegan, and there's loads of stuff I don't eat, I don't eat bread, all that bollocks, but I was in need of hangover food very desperately. I went to Sainsbury’s, bought a massive loaf of tiger bread, sat on the sofa and cried watching Jennifer Ellis win fuck-loads of Olympics stuff. [Sobbing] "Oh she's so good…", "Oh god...Look at her tummy… it's amazing". It was very emotional. I just ate loads of bread being sad watching Jennifer Ellis being awesome. I'm not a very exciting person. I don't get smashed on tour, I don't do anything particularly mental, because I see it as… Well, if I was 18 and I was going on tour I'd probably be like "I'M GOING ON TOUR, MAN!" and I'd probably get smashed all the time, and that would be fine. But it matters if I do my job well because it's not my project. So it makes a difference if I go on stage and don't do my job right, if I sing bad, if I play bad, if I fuck-up, if I do the samples wrong. If you did any job badly anywhere and you turned up smashed and couldn't do your job properly, you'd get fired eventually. And I have a sweet job. I get to play for Lucy, I write string parts for emo bands, and I'll play cello for anyone that will give me money.
What's the emo thing?
Oh, its just the last two bands I did were 'Lonely the Brave' and 'You Me at Six', so I'll be making emos cry, which can be satisfying. But I do string arrangements for loads of bands.
Any other notable/famous people?
Lots for Lucy's second record which hasn't come out yet. Err... who else? Nobody massive. One of my big plans for this year is more of the string arranging cos it's loads of fun and I can do it on my laptop whilst I'm away with Lucy, cos you do end up sitting in the van a lot. I've taken it upon myself to make people cry. That's what I go for, I figure that's what strings are for.
Yup. Watching a bunch of 17 year olds being sad listening to my strings. It's what I've been planning all along.
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