A week after I met Cole Becker, he invited me and a few of my friends to his house in Piedmont for “Bundt Cake Tuesday,” a tradition his mother started years ago where their family will invite old friends over for dessert to meet one another. On this particular Tuesday, we were sitting at a long dining table with the Becker parents, Cole’s younger brother, and a family friend visiting from Greece. We played guitar, sang songs, and spoke about where we came from and where we wanted to go.
As we sat there eating cake and homemade Greek food, it struck me how uniquely warm and inviting the Becker family is—particularly Cole, who made us a part of this family tradition after knowing us for little more than a few days.
But Cole’s unabashed personality doesn’t stop at the dinner table. He’s used to entertaining guests, whether close friends or not. Usually, however, this entertainment comes from stage performance: Cole, along with being a student at UC Berkeley, is also the lead guitarist and vocalist for local band SWMRS. Formerly known as Emily’s Army, SWMRS has been on tour eight times and released five EPs and two studio albums. Another album is set to drop in March 2016.
Growing in the public eye rapidly since its inception, SWMRS has racked up a following of over 56.9 K on Twitter and 29.8 K on Instagram—not to mention worldwide admirers from Warped Tour to Burgerama and everything in between.
Throughout the hype and growing stardom, Cole remains humble and welcoming. When asked about forming the band and why he’s in the business, his usual response is, “I like to play music with my friends.” Those friends he’s referring to are fellow SWMRS members Joey Armstrong (drums), Seb Mueller (bass), and his brother, Max (lead vocals/guitar). His bandmates are spread out across the States: Max is recently back from Cal Poly, Seb studies Chemistry at Tulane University, and Joey is taking drum lessons all over New York.
Now 19, the lead vocalist has little time between school and music, but he’s doing his best to keep his head above water. Cole is currently double majoring in Film Studies and American Studies, working as both a student and professional musician.
Caliber Magazine: Why UC Berkeley?
Cole Becker: I always wanted to go to Berkeley. I wanted to be the mic man at the football games—you know the ones that wear the ties and lead cheers? I really wanted to do that. I grew up going to Cal games because I’m from Piedmont and I’ve always been a huge Cal fan, but I never thought I’d get in.
It also helped that I was a spring admit because I signed up to do a couple of tours in the fall—no other schools would let me do that.
What was the spring admit transition like for you?
It was so smooth for me, but I feel kind of guilty about it. I know so many people here—family, friends, and people I grew up with—so I already had connections and never felt lonely. [For] other spring admits I know, [the transition] is hard. I was really, really thankful for my experience.
How did your band get together? You are all childhood friends, right?
Max is my brother, and I met Joey through my parents because my dad designed his house. Our moms were pregnant at the same time [with our little brothers], so we always hung out and had playdates because our moms were always commiserating. Jacob and Cade, our little brothers, were born 10 days apart.
Anyway, Joey and I were hanging out one day and School of Rock came on TV, and we watched it and thought, “Shit. We need to be in a band. These kids in the movie are our age, right? And they’re doing such cool stuff.” And even though it was fictional, it was so inspiring for us to see kids making music. We thought, “we need to start a band too.”
We became Emily’s Army when I was 13. We played a lot of music before that, and we called ourselves the Raining Souls, which was tight. We did a cover of “Blitzkrieg Bop”—hey ho let’s go!
My sister had a birthday party when she turned 18, and she asked us to play. Well, I don’t know if she wanted us to play, but my parents were like “you should have your little brothers play,” so we played at my sister’s 18th birthday party. That was our first gig. That was Emily’s Army.
Where did the name Emily’s Army come from?
My cousin Emily has cystic fibrosis, and that’s the name of her foundation. We wanted to spread the word and have an altruistic band name.
With Emily’s Army, we did a bunch of pop-punk stuff, but we didn’t want to get lodged into the pop-punk [mold]. We wanted to just be our own thing, you know? But our record label really pushed our connection to Green Day. Emily’s Army started to become just Green Day Jr.
How did Joey feel about that?
We wanted a clean break. I mean, we all love Green Day. Even if Billie [Joe Armstrong] wasn’t Joey’s dad, we’d all be listening to Green Day because we’re angsty kids. It was weird when the record label signed us, because they just wanted to exploit our connection to Green Day to sell records.
I think we were all unaware that was what they were doing, but that changed when they became really shitty to us. We eventually said, “Yo we don’t want to do this anymore,” and so we had to buy our way out with the little money that we made. We bought our way out with two grand—more than they ever paid us, which sucks.
But then we started fresh, as SWMRS, because we wanted to cultivate an identity that was not dependent on Green Day.
Where did the name SWMRS come from then?
We had an EP called “Swim” when we were Emily’s Army.
Because of [tour complications under the name Emily’s Army], we booked a bunch of secret tours under the name SWMRS. We had to create a fake Instagram and everything—the only way we would accept your follow was if you had a fish emoji in [your profile] description.
We were booked as Emily’s Army in Australia. The first time we played as SWMRS was with Rise Against. We were booked as Emily’s Army but we said, “We’re SWMRS, it’s whatever,” so we played all SWMRS songs.
People were saying, “What happened to Emily’s Army?” because we had the SWMRS backdrop, too. And they thought that everyone had billed the wrong band. Luckily, the guy in charge of the billing wasn’t mad.
After that, we officially became SWMRS. It became an identity. We all had colorful ocean hair.
So, what’s with the hair?
I had always been into the sea punk look—really faded, dyed hair. But I didn’t have the balls to do it in high school. I did it in middle school a couple times, because I was way edgier and cooler in middle school. I was super duper vanilla in high school.
Then I got to college and thought, “Oh, I’m gonna branch out.”
We were trying to define ourselves both aesthetically and musically. The thought process behind it was, “Well, I’ve always wanted to have dyed hair. Why don’t we dye our hair, Max?” It’s funny; since I dyed my hair in February, I’ll hang out with some people and later look on their Instagram or something and they’ll have dyed hair too. That’s when I started to know [colored hair] was an important branding move. SWMRS fans started to dye their hair. At shows, that’s a visible sign of support.
What’s the craziest thing to ever come out of the SWMRS experience?
When we were in a legit fashion show. That was trippy.
In March, we played at Burgerama in Santa Ana. That’s a super hip festival. The head designer is a really passionate photographer, and he approaches all these hip-looking kids to be his models. It’s a very image-based scene down there. Everybody has to look good, but still in a very hip, grungy way. It’s very curated. Nothing wrong with that, it’s just a thing.
He saw Max and me—we had bright green and bright blue hair at that point—and said, in a French accent, “Who’s this band? I want to take pictures of them.”
So he hit us up through our lawyer, and a week after school got out, we went down to his studio in West Hollywood and he took pictures of us in our normal clothes for his diary, which is actually his website that isn’t related to [Yves] St. Laurent [the brand that the designer works for]. It’s just for his photos.
What was it like to work with Hedi Slimane?
He’s so artistic and so genius, but he’s such an artist. He’s so far removed from anything that isn’t his craft, which is awesome. I wish I could do that. And he has the resources to be able to [create his vision]. All he has to focus on is the lighting… and he has people setting his exposure and lighting for him, and he just tells them to take the picture. How nuts is that?
He knows how to do everything—he can hire people to do it for him.
But then he also asked us to write his runway song—which was crazy for us, because that’s 15 minutes and we only write 2.5 minute songs.
If you watch the St. Laurent Spring 2015 Men’s Show, it’s the full song, and it’s called “Harry Dean Stanton.” We’re putting the first third of that song on the album, but there are two other movements that won’t be on there. They’re really cool. It was a really fun experience.
We didn’t know how to approach it, so we got drunk in Joey’s basement and wrote the song—and then we recorded it about a week later. It was a very small amount of time, because we had to get it done.
Then they called us up and said, “Hey, why don’t you guys model, too?”
So Max and I got flown out.
What were your thoughts at that point?
[Basically,] “What the fuck is happening?”
I went first to model for their photo campaign, and I wore a jacket with a sunset on the back, and you could see the back of my head—my green hair [and Max’s profile]. Then they put us up in a hotel for three days, just to be at the set for 45 minutes to take that picture. Endless room service. It was tight.
That was the first modeling gig—and then they hit us up again to model on the runway, and they said, “We’re also going to fly out Seb and Joey, so they can hear the song. Bring Taifa.” [Taifa was] a friend of ours who sells merch for us; he was just there at the time because he needed a ride to So Cal.
They flew us all out there and put us up in hotels. That was so nuts. That was the weirdest shit that ever happened.
Hedi Slimane. The most beautiful man. He’s great, I really like him. And his whole crew are just really sweet people.
And, strangely enough, while we were getting fitted, all of his assistants were just beautiful women. They weren’t like the models—[they were] very full-looking and of all sizes and all of them were so beautiful.
What’s been a low point for you as a band?
In November we went on tour with Pennywise and Rise Against—which was awesome. It ended up being the greatest experience and a defining moment for us. [At that time] we were trying to be more mellow, like Vampire Weekend, and went from being a punk band to writing slower songs. So when we played in front of the Pennywise crowd, we got booed.
Does your band have any pre-show rituals, aside from dyeing your hair?
A lot of times we do yoga and push-ups to get the blood flowing. If we have our own dressing room, we’ll get down in our underwear and just jump around.
Joey would listen to Danny Brown and Taylor Swift back to back to get pumped but also mellow-out.
I like to have green tea before shows.
One time I got wasted before a show—it was a house party—but I played so poorly that now I don’t do uppers [except] caffeine because I need something to keep me in check.
What do you think makes you guys unique from any other sea punk boy band?
“Emotional Boy Rock.”
We’re all best friends first, which I think is really important in bands because you know how to deal with conflict on another level. We fight, just as much as any other band. We fight like brothers—and we resolve things like brothers. A lot of times, you don’t know how to approach a situation with someone who’s a lot more like your business partner, you know? But we know how to talk to each other in any situation, which is great.
We tried to be in a couple of different scenes, including the Warp Tour and Burgerama scenes, but what sets us apart is that we have this huge, huge range of interests.
Max likes pop-y songs. I like hip-hop. Joey loves The Strokes.
We all bring a different element to our sound; it comes together especially when this record comes out.
Like a nice little cacophony. I really like that. Do you have any advice for people starting out in music?
“Just do it.”—Nike.
It’s really hard to put yourself out there. Art is a really personal thing for me. Fuck classical artists who are curated. Do it for yourself.
It’s really important to put yourself out there and work at it every day. I try to write songs every day. The more I write songs, the better I get at it—that’s just the nature of writing. There’s something unique about everyone […], but the more you write songs, the more they’ll sound like your own.
So that’s really important. To keep doing it. I know it’s discouraging sometimes. I quit playing guitar for a while because I wasn’t as good as I wanted to be. But if you just keep with it, it just comes naturally. And any chance to play a show, you should take. If you’re starting out in college, make some friends who throw house parties, and then play at their parties. If you’re in Berkeley, like most of [Caliber’s] readership must be, there are great DIY spaces all over the Bay, such as 924 Gilman, 1-2-3-4 GO!, Rock Paper Scissors Collective, and the Honey Hive Gallery in San Francisco. They’re all so good!
I interviewed Gerard Way one time and he told me to “find the others”—there are other people who feel the same exact way as you. The more community you have, the more support you’ll get, the more you’ll bounce off each other.
What is the biggest thing you’ve learned throughout all of this?
This might come off cliché, but to know yourself and to love yourself. The biggest thing I learned in this past year was to love your flaws. In high school, I suppressed the stranger parts about me, because that was just the environment that my high school was. But embrace your flaws and your idiosyncrasies, because those make you you, you know?
And if you don’t have any flaws or idiosyncrasies, I don’t believe you.
Images: Lana Cosic
This article was featured in issue 12 of Caliber Magazine.
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