MEET THE BAND*
TODD WATTS — VOCALS, GUITAR, LYRICS
- Background
Born 1967 in Middletown, KY - Hometown
Paeonian Springs, VA - Gear List
- Gibson, Norman and Guild guitars
- Hughes & Kettner 20-Watt amp
- Ibanez Tube Screamer
- What was your weirdest fan encounter?
A couple of years ago I was on a conference call with a new client. I get introduced to the Chief Marketing Officer and he says “You aren’t Todd Watts from emmet swimming are you?”
ERIK WENBERG — GUITAR, VOCALS
- Background
Born July 22, 1968 in Falls Church, VA - Hometown
Burke, VA - Gear List –Too many guitars to list – favorites are a 90’s American Standard Strat and a Gibson ES 335. Vox AC 15 amp and more effects pedals than I really need.
- What was your weirdest fan encounter?
We played a frat party one time where some guy asked me if he could come up on stage and sing. I politely (I swear) said something to the effect that it’s not usually a good idea. I’ve had people ask me that before, but this guy wouldn’t let it go. He kept asking and asking. So finally I had to just get a little mean and say NO! Then the guy got really pissed off and had to be dragged away by his fraternity brothers.
SCOTT BROTEMARKLE — BASS GUITAR, VOCALS
- Background
Born July 1971 in Philadelphia, PA - Hometown
Springfield, VA - Gear List
- Musicman Stingray
- Fender Deluxe Precision
- Fender Jazz ’62 Reissue
- Eden WT-800
- Eden 410XLT cabinet
- What was your weirdest fan encounter?
Saw a girl I knew fairly well in high school at an emmet show a few years ago after I had joined the band. I approached her to say hello after the show. She said she hadn’t seen me in the club and asked if I was upstairs. Her friend just started cracking up. Come to think of it, maybe it wasn’t exactly a “fan” encounter…
TAMER EID — DRUMS, MORE COWBELL
- Background
Born September 1969 in Cairo, Egypt - Hometown
Fairfax, VA - Gear List
- Blue Pearl MLX 5-7 piece (Road Warrior)
- Burnt Orange Baltimore Drums 7-piece custom drums
- Zildjian cymbals
- What was your weirdest fan encounter?
Crazy Amber at Bluefield College in southern Virginia. She wanted to keep the sweaty towel I used during a 2 hour show and kept smelling it when I gave it to her.
Eric Battersby Podcast Interview
with Emmet Swimming
* – MEET THE BAND excerpts from EmmetSwimming.com
EMMET SWIMMING & THE STORY OF EMMETT TILL
Emmet Swimming’s name is actually a misspelled reference to Emmett Till, one of the key, and inadvertent, inspirations of the Civil Rights Movement. Emmett was a boy from Chicago who went to Money, Mississippi one summer to visit his uncle, and didn’t return home alive. He died after being shot and thrown into a river, although the story obviously runs much deeper than that. For the band’s name, however, singer Todd Watts put it best, “The idea of the name was basically that a 14-year-old boy should be swimming in the river, not dying in it.”
Director Eric Battersby has been a big fan of Emmet Swimming for several years now, but in addition to his love for their music, the relevance to PYRITE’s subject matter made his call to the band for a soundtrack collaboration an easy decision. In Eric’s own words, “Emmet was the first band that I called when looking for a new song we could include as our #1 on the PYRITE soundtrack. Everything fit together with the project, which at its heart is simply about humanity, as a whole, triumphing over racism. Their socially-conscious name choice, Emmett Till’s Chicago origins, our film’s purpose… it all tied together.
So I contacted Emmet, they said yes pretty quickly, and
a few months later we had SAME AS ME.”
To learn more about the tragic story of Emmett
Till, watch the videos below.
Emmett Till – 1955
This video is a mash-up of other videos and has a song playing underneath, which makes the audio a bit strange at times; however, it’s also one of the most succinct re-tellings of the Emmett Till story you can find.
Emmett Till – Part 1, Documentary on Civil Rights
NOTE: Jump to 4:40 in the video if you only want to see the Emmet Till portion, although the rest of the video is very much on point.
MUSIC SAMPLES
Same As Me – from the PYRITE Soundtrack
[amazonmp3 asin=”B002D61T04″]
[amazonmp3 asin=”B001U9QPOU”]
[amazonmp3 asin=”B0013AUZ5Q”]
