Artist Profile: Black Ends

When Nicolle Swims first moved back to Seattle with the intention of starting Black Ends, “gunk pop” was the indeterminate label they etched out in their mind that would guide the band’s sonic output. In reality, though, that term was primarily a way to idealize the nebulous blend of punk, DIY, and psych rock ethos that permeated Swims’ demos.

But as time has gone on, and the band has logged multiple EPs and a full-length album into their discography, that label has expanded to include the whole breadth of the group’s influences— with each track, a new fold or wrinkle is discovered in their never-ending experimentations.

Swims’ musical journey, even before they first picked up the guitar, began with a quiet obsession (and a saxophone). Swims’ father was a DJ who specialized in soul and funk music, and the sounds of their father’s record collection populated their childhood. Combined with their mother’s willingness to take them to concerts routinely throughout their childhood, music was always omnipresent in Swims’ life.

When they first wanted to pick up an instrument, though, guitar wasn’t the obvious route. They had a clear ambition to play music in a group— namely, in the school band— and saxophone was the open avenue to doing so. But Swims never fully got into the saxophone; the allure of guitar, and the intrigue of their favorite rock bands, was too powerfull.

After a short time in the brass section, Swims picked up an electric guitar for the first time.

As Swims got older, music more and more became their primary fascination. A taste in metalcore and emo bands in middle school and evolved into a partiality towards The Strokes and Nirvana in high school. Swims ultimately attended college for music in Idaho, where they met bassist Ben Swanson for the first time.

But when Swims’ time at college ended, they struck out on their own to Alabama— and in the semi-isolation they encountered there, their sonic horizons expanded exponentially.

“I would just listen to music constantly and hone my taste… Growing up, you really start figuring out what you really enjoy. I feel like I wasn't really loving music until I sat down and [knew that] this is what I like. This is it for me, you know?”

Swims moved from The Strokes and Nirvana to the more out-there sounds of Brian Eno, Roxy Music, Sly and the Family Stone, Elliott Smith, Miles Davis, Melt Banana, Einstrürzende Neubaten, qne Captain Beefheart, infusing their already grunge and punk-inspired taste with some of the more plaintively experimental moments to be found in rock. They also began carving out their own demos during this time, using the classical guitar they had purchased while in college and layering effects on GarageBand.

The isolating creative environment Swims was in in Alabama could only provide so much, though. When Swanson reached out and asked Swims to move back to Seattle and start a band, Swims jumped at the opportunity— there was finally an avenue to realize what they had envisioned all along in Black Ends.

Black Ends’ debut EP, 2019’s Sellout, was composed of four fleshed-out demos from Swims’ solo writing sessions before their move to Seattle. But with the input of Swanson and their other bandmates, the tracks took on a new, fuller sound than Swims could’ve ever envisioned.

“[Ben’s] really good at translating [tracks] into a band setting. I feel like it was a little difficult sometimes just because I was like, ‘Hh, these songs don't sound like they do on the demo.’ I had a lot of demo-itis— a lot of it… But I kind of just had to accept that it's not going to sound like that. It's going to be the same song, but it's going to sound different.”

After the band recorded that EP, they set out to make their name in the Seattle scene as a live act— and it’s difficult to overstate how successfully they accomplished that goal. They’ve played over 200 gigs since that EP came out, and as the band has continued to evolve and become more comfortable in their live sound, their recorded output has reflected that fact.

Their 2020 single “Monday Mourning” leans even more heavily into Swims’ intoxicating vocal delivery, spraying twanging guitar through both channels while the scattered rhythms of the drums manage to hold the track in focus while allowing it to dart between its psych-rock and punk-inspired alternations. When taken into consideration with some of the more experimental tracks contained within their 2020 EP Stay Evil and the proceeding singles, a clear throughline develops.

Black Ends wasn’t just interested in pursuing the ‘gunk’-inspired sound they ventured into on their debut— their zeitgeist was continuously expanding, incorporating the blues rhythms and the fragments of genre-motifs that continued to populate Swims’ and Swanson’s sonic atmospheres.

By the time they arrived at their full-length debut, 2024’s Psychotic Spew, the creative chemistry between Swims and Swanson had finally found a settling point. They were interested in whatever natural expression their improvised songwriting sessions took on— no matter how weird or how deliciously formless the final product was.

“I feel like we were getting into it back then; we hadn't really written songs together until I moved here. I think we've gotten better at writing together… and it helps a lot. And more than that, [Ben] did a lot on Psychotic Spew. He played keys and f*cking wrote cello parts.”

If the christening of the band as ‘gunk pop’ was merely the self-definition of a sonic idiom, then Psychotic Spew is the first full realization of that. From the pavement-encrusted grunge tones of tracks like “Bent” to the tantalizingly suspended vocal sequences of tracks like “Suppin’ on Strange” and “When I’m Alone”, Black Ends’ sound on the record is as continuously amorphous as it is strangely magnetic. Psychotic Spew, in many ways, feels like Black Ends’ ‘coming of age’ party— it’s a testament to the years of work they put in to understand and harness their natural creative impulses.

Now, almost two years removed from that record, Black Ends is back in the workshop, and as Swanson makes clear, they’re primarily interested in continuing to expand the experimentations that have steadily become their calling card over the years since Swims first etched out those demos in their bedroom in Alabama.

“I want to do more experimenting. Because I feel like we did experiment with Psychotic Spew— we haven't done that many overdubs [or used] such a range of different instruments. I just want to keep going with that and see what else we can do with it.”