Photo by Andrew Lyman (@andrewlymanworld on Instagram)

On their way to Knoxville, Tennessee while on tour, Sword II and I shared a conversation over the phone about their roots, their songwriting process, and what’s next. Sword II is an up and coming band from Atlanta that is making music like you have never heard. Their use of electronics, their 4 singers, and their story-telling through their song structures sets them apart. With music that ranges from sludgy indie rock to electronic ambient tones, there is no other band like Sword II. The band is quickly gaining traction, having toured with Toner, DIIV, and soon Beach Fossils. I had the honor of seeing them play live in San Francisco this summer at the Great American Music Hall (we bought tickets to SF before they announced an LA show), and I’ve been addicted to their music ever since. The band is made up of 4 members: Mari, Certain, Frio, and Travis. We dove straight into questions as the van traveled to its next destination.

What’s the story behind meeting each other and what’s the story behind the name Sword II?

We’ve had a bunch of different names. It used to be Evil Sword but now it’s Sword II. And we just started playing music together. We were all already friends and hanging out a lot so it just kinda became a band. And it just kept going. We had other band names first. It just ended up this way.

We got to talking about their San Francisco show where I had been lucky enough to see them perform for a Smoked Out Vol. 3, an event to celebrate 8 years of Smoking Room Records. They played with Toner, They Are Gutting a Body of Water, Enumclaw, and Hotline TNT. An energetic show filled with lots of stage diving and moshing, Sword II put on a mysterious performance starting their set with the lights dimmed almost completely. 

I saw you guys in SF when you played with Toner. I’m dying to ask. I bought a tape from you guys. Half of it was your guys’ music and the other half was children’s songs about Jewish holidays. Was that on purpose? I thought it was the funniest thing ever. I’m Jewish so it felt like you guys were sending me right back to my childhood.

Well, we get the tapes from thrift stores and then we dub over them. Our album is only 26 minutes long so if the tape is longer than 26 minutes, then we just leave whatever else is on there. Sometimes it’s classical music, sometimes it’s pop music. I guess in your particular instance it was some Rabbai’s tape he made. Most of them are usually “The Best Hits of Boston Orchestra” or “Arthur Fielder ” or stuff like that. Old school, 70’s, they-made-a-million-of-those-records type that end up at the thrift store and we just tape over them and sell them. It’s a good way to make money because you don’t have to pay for the materials 

We then began to uncover the backstory of their album cover, Between II Gardens, and the band’s creative mediums.

I saw your guys’ social media, the cover to Between II Gardens. It looked like it was part of a larger photoset. Are you able to delve into that backstory how it was shot or the story of how you guys chose that photo?

That’s a photo that Trav took. It’s a photo from around the time of Halloween. There were some other photos from that day. Just one other photo from that moment. I like it because they’re both these trickster little kids. They’re both really scary even though they’re both obviously children. I don’t know if it comes off that way but I liked that about it. Evil Kids.

We were all taking photos a lot around that time. It was on some random camera. So I just took a photo and that was one of the photos that looked super cool. And then just put some text over it. It just kinda happened.

You were saying that you all took photos around that time. Is that something that you guys are into, photography?

Yeah, for sure. Its a struggle to keep not fucking up the camera, not losing the camera, having enough money to get film, having enough money to develop the film, having the digital camera not fuck up, it’s just a constant thing.

That’s why that photo [of the Between II Garden Album cover] looks like that. It’s because it’s an old film on a broken camera I got at Goodwill. That’s why it looks so weird. 

Next, we explored the band’s style of creating and writing music. Having a lot of singers in the band can hinder some people’s artistic ideas, but not for Sword II. We talked about the process of writing with so many people as well as the local music scene of Atlanta.  

When I saw you guys play live, I saw you guys had a lot of singers? Was it 3? Is that right?

We have a lot. We have 4 singers. Frio also sings on the drums. 

Yeah, when I saw you guys it kinda reminded me of Nick Rattigan from Current Joys where he sings while playing drums. What’s it like trying to write songs when you have so many vocalists? How do you guys shape the song with that?

I feel like it’s way easier. It just flows. The empty parts of the song, it’s like “Oh, it can go to someone. Just throw some shit down”. It also just sounds cool. I feel like everyone agrees that it sounds cooler. I feel like it’s not really that difficult, at least I try to remember writing [our album] Spirit World Tour. It wasn’t really that difficult. At least for me.

I think it makes it easier too because it’s more people that can think of a part. The beat will come and then it’s like, “Okay, who’s going to go over it?”. And sometimes someone isn’t feeling it, or is feeling it. 

I know that you guys have some Spanish in your lyrics. What inspired you to add that to your music? In San Diego, there’s so much Spanish music, but I’m not sure if that’s the case in Atlanta.

It’s easier for me to think in Spanish and write things in Spanish sometimes. I think English is obviously great. But it’s easier for me to write pretty things in Spanish, like rhythms and melodies, in Spanish than it is in English sometimes. 

When I heard you guys at first I was hoping you were from San Diego. I was a little disappointed that you guys were from Atlanta. But that seems to be a theme lately, really good bands are popping out of Atlanta. 

What’s the Atlanta scene like? I know here in San Diego we have some venues that are almost like a rite of passage for bands to play. Are there any memorable venues in Atlanta that all the local bands play?

Right now, after covid, a lot of the DIY venues shut down in 2020. Some new ones have popped up though. A lot of bands play at this place, South Bend Commons. It’s kinda a community space, like DIY, underground, anti-capitalist shows. There’s also this place called No Tomorrow that is a DIY venue. A lot of new bands will play there. But a lot of bands will also just play outside generator shows. That’s become a much bigger thing over the past couple years. Parking lots, parks, stuff like that. People will just bring a generator and speakers to a park and just set up there. It’s honestly a huge pain in the ass, especially in Georgia because the weather is either really hot or really cold. It’s cool that bands do it though. They just want to have a spot to play.

Do you guys have a most memorable venue that you’ve played at?

Honestly the spot we played last night. We played at the Orange Peel in Asheville. It was sick. It was really really nice.

What made it special?

It sounded really good and they have this huge wooden dance floor that’s really nice. Everyone in Asheville is really cool. We also played in this town, Arcada, in California. It was a generator show. By Humboldt County. It was mad cool. We played in this place that was sort of an abandoned trailer park that had been evicted. Our friends set it up really nice so that we could have a show there. A lot of the people who had gotten evicted from the trailer park pulled up to the show to watch. It was sad that they had gotten kicked out but it was sweet to talk to the people and see them in person,

As a band that has been to so many places, I was curious what the band had up its sleeve.

It seems like you guys have been all over the country. I wanted to know what’s next for you guys. I know you’re going on tour with Beach Fossils but are you working on music while that’s happening?

We’re trying to take a break from shows after this next tour and focus on writing. We just want to make new music. We’ve been playing the same set kinda all year. We want to focus on the writing and incorporating that into the live aspect. With covid, we kinda wrote a lot of the music on the computer so it had to be transcribed to a performance setting. So we’re definitely trying to think of having it all in the same process. Still having elements of everything we’ve been doing but just in a new way.

In this interview, we embarked on a journey with Sword II, a remarkable up-and-coming band from Atlanta. Their distinctive blend of electronics, four vocalists, and a narrative-driven song structure set them apart in the music scene. Their captivating live performance, featuring dimmed lights and energetic stage presence, left a lasting impression on fans. With their 4 singers, Sword II has mastered the art of collaboration, creating a sound that stands out in its complexity. The band had one last thing to say before the end of the interview.

We also want to shout out to our friend Victor today. Victor Puertas. He is in ICE custody in Stewart Detention Center, which is in South Georgia. It’s an ICE detention center. He got put there by the state because they are trying to essentially squash all dissent against Cop City. He’s a victim of the process of the state trying to smash all protests in the US. We wanted to give a shoutout to him and his struggle. If you type in Victor Puertas on the internet, you can hear about what he stands for and everything. He’s been locked up for 5 months now. He actually got locked up at a concert that we were playing at in support of the Forest Movement to stop Cop City. We want this to be part of the interview. We want the readers to check out that and check out his story and the movement. 

Keep living, keep loving, keep fucking, keep fighting, keep rocking, keep listening to the music. Sword II, we got more coming for you. Thank you.

Thank you to Sword II for their time!