Local artist SWISS. dropped by Baydream last week to talk to BFF.fm DJ Apple Gomez about her (literally) shiny new music video for “So Well,” getting inspired by Green Day at age 13, whether jumping was ever a thing or not, and her favorite Bay Area artists. SWISS. kindly curated an incredible playlist for the occasion, which you can find at the bottom of this post, too!

Tune into the entire episode of Baydream to hear why SWISS. selected these tracks and more. Watch the “So Well” music video and enjoy a few conversational snippets below:

The main reason why we came here today was to talk about the “So Well” music video. I love all the shiny gold and the shiny silver, and I was wondering about your creative process, what your favorite part about shooting a music video was, and if there's anything you wanted to share specifically about the video?

Yeah! So, the silver and the gold, I mean, that's just such a cool mix. Everybody's always like, “Don't mix silver with gold.” That's like a fashion thing or whatever; it’s stupid. So we decided to make a whole music video about bringing silver and gold together [laughs] Ummm I honestly didn't have much say or input in the color scheme of it. That was Morgan Embry's idea, the producer of the music video. I met her at our first show at the Rickshaw Stop. She’s a friend of a friend of Jules, my bassist. She came up to me and was so excited about our set and our music, and I was like, “Oh my god, yeah!” Just so excited to have a new fan, not knowing that she's an incredible lighting designer and she goes on tour with all these big acts and does their lighting. She was like, “I don't know what we're gonna do together but I want to work with you!” I was like, fantastic. This is a fucking dream. This doesn't happen in real life. Like, somebody cool and creative wants to work with me!

Morgan really wanted to do a music video to get her feet wet in the world of, like, art direction. …[We started] going back and forth about what the theme would be and what we were going to create, and it was a lot of just weird texts and messages back and forth, just random things. I would be like, “I want liquid dripping down somebody’s body.” [Laughs] Sorry, gross! [Laughs] “I NEED LIQUID DOWN A BODY!” [Laughs] Or, I wanted it to be kind of like fighting myself or fighting my brain. Or your mind being your own worst enemy, but also your bestie. So I would tell her all these ideas, and she'd be like, “Okay, well we can't put liquid down a body, but I wanted to get an umbrella. Why don’t we put liquid down this umbrella?” Then her partner Titus made this silver goo, and we put it down an umbrella. It was kind of like something abstract turned into something tangible and, like, this is how we can do it.


What you're saying about fighting yourself, that reminds me of the scenes where you're at the desk, and the people dancing around it. I can definitely see that.

Those people are the demons–or not the demons, they’re the nicest people in the world in real life. [Laughs] But you know, they were, like, creating the chaos. And I was just constantly trying to bring it down or make things my way. That was the premise of it, just trying to control things but when you just let it all go, then you're better off and you have a good life.

What is SWISS. up to these days besides the new video?

I just went to the East Coast to record a couple new songs, so that is definitely a new endeavor that's been going on…could come out soon maybe? So working on that, and working on just trying to get better shows [laughs]. I’m, like, emailing and stalking people. You know, cause it gets weird. You start a band, and you play whatever you can get, and then you get to a point where you're like, “Okay, I want to play the bigger venues now.” Then you just have to start harassing everyone. [Laughs] And, you know, seeing who's coming and if the band wants you to open up for them, but it's, like, so much work.

What are some of your favorite venues in the city, not just to play but also to go to in general?

I think this just popped in my head because I was probably gonna say The Chapel, but the Greek Theater is the best venue ever. That’s my favorite, I think. I mean, the Bill Graham isn’t great because it’s so big and it’s so weird. It’s just like a big block; it’s not pretty. I saw Green Day there, it was one of my first shows. Offshoot story, but I kind of snuck out to go see them when I was like 13. Like, I said I was gonna spend the night at somebody's house but then her older sister drove us to see Green Day. And it changed my whole life because–I don't know if they do it anymore—but they invited three people on stage to play a song of theirs. Like, “Who plays guitar?” “Who plays bass?” And I was like, “I'm going to learn guitar, and I'm going to get called up by Green Day!” I started after that.

So Green Day inspired your career! What other artists inspired you or still influence your music?

I guess in the beginning, I was really inspired by just like 90s rock, like grunge and stuff. Nirvana and whatnot. Arctic Monkeys really inspired me when I first heard them in their first album because it all sounded so different. It was like a proper rock album, but the songs didn’t sound the same. They could really be unique and different in each song, and I liked that. I loved their first album. Nowadays, I'm inspired by Sir Chloe lately.

What is your favorite part of the music scene in the Bay Area?

I guess how nice everybody is. It was, like, kind of weird because I grew up here but I moved to the city only in 2019, and I wasn’t really playing music then. Then the pandemic hit. So like 2021 is when I really was like, “Hey, guys, I'm gonna play music in this city. Does anybody want to play music with me?” Yeah, and that's kind of weird. I was just doing the same thing I'm doing with these bookers of these venues, like I'm just like, “Hey guys, do you want to be friends? Do you want to play music together?” And everybody was so nice. I met a lot of the people [on the playlist below] like that. Like, Tell Me Tell Me Tell Me I met through going to a Treasure show. They opened up, and I was like, “Wait whaaaa this is the best band I’ve ever heard in my life!” After that we started playing shows together.

Enjoy a selection of Bay Area favorites curated by SWISS. below:

Listen to the whole interview to hear SWISS. share what she loves about these tracks and local artists, more on early concert experiences, figuring out which venues in SF are the big ones, and more.