A brief conversation with Damon Tutunjian of Swirlies
Emerging out of Boston’s alt-rock scene in the early 90’s, Swirlies have retained their status as one of the most renowned bands in the indie-alternative community throughout the past few decades. Cited by the likes of contemporary outfits such as Julie, They Are Guttung a Body of Water, and in nearly every subreddit for your favorite east coast band, their impact is undeniable. We caught up with founding member Damon Tutunjian on tour in Sacramento.
What’s it like going on tour after what I’m assuming was a relatively large break?
We did a tour about 6 months ago, but yeah we don’t play at all. We met up together in Texas, we rented a space and played for a few days, and then we essentially had to work everything out on stage haha. Hopefully tonight things are stable, but yeah its a little weird.
Do you find that the passion for your music is as stong as its ever been?
Oh yeah we have tons of fun, everybody in the band is friends… everybody’s there to have a good time and get along and be silly.
What about from fans? What's it like seeing the excitement from fans who are relatively new to Swirlies?
For some reason, maybe its like bands like Nothing and stuff like that, its a lot of kids at our shows, so its making it super fun. Because I would say, 10 years ago, it was 45-year-old dudes, which is fine! Great! Ya know thats fair, we love! I mean, 10 years ago I was a 45-year-old dude, but when the kids come they go crazy. We think its great! Its so much fun, it was a huge surprise. It only started um, about a year, year and a half ago, suddenly it was kids.
When I think about a lot of young shoegaze and alternative acts, it seems a lot of them have either referenced your band or maybe some of your music, whats that like?
I’m not tuned into anything so I don’t see that. I know bands like Nothing, are super supportive of us and I’ve seen Julie drop our name. Yeah! Julie is kind of at the forefront of new shoegaze and alternative music, they’re super tapped in Are they like one of the most popular new shoegaze bands? I would say so, among Gen Z and all that, they just went on tour with Alex G… I have no idea what that is haha, I mean I know Julie through my friend Justice but I wouldn’t have known about it if I wasn’t pointed to it. Well I guarantee that a lot of kids that are making this music are listening to you. Well I can speak for all of us saying that we feel super lucky that younger audiences are listening, because then we can keep going longer too. I hear from my friends' bands that they don’t have younger audiences, ya know other old bands that get back together or whatever… I saw some post from a band saying like “hey how come Swirlies got the younger audiences!” So I don’t know, we feel lucky that people are listening.
