Guest blog'Swim Deep has always been intertwined with my Liverpool fandom'

It’s February 2014, and Swim Deep are in Hong Kong for the last show of our first-ever tour of Asia. It’s a moment none of us want to forget.

After a year of promoting our debut album ‘Where the Heaven Are We’, we’ve made it to one of the most striking cities on earth, where we’re surrounded by jungle, sea and skyscrapers.

We’re in one of the most bizarre venues we’ll ever set foot in tonight: it’s an Italian restaurant, except they’ve pushed all the tables and chairs aside and erected a makeshift platform for us to perform on.

A few hundred fans pack the space, and I soon find myself in a massive predicament: my bandmates are heading out to kick off the show, while I hesitate in the pantry-turned-dressing-room because on my flatlining laptop, Martin Skrtel’s just scored a brace in the opening 10 minutes against league leaders Arsenal. And we’re on the attack again!

It’s a dilemma I’ll face again and again in this band. That show was memorable in the end – the crowd rushed the stage during our set closer, ’King City’; the live music equivalent of a pitch invasion. But we also won the game 5-1 – I know, because I remember frantically searching for a final score update in the break before our encore.

Looking back on 12 years of performing – from those halcyon days up to our 2024 tours in support of fourth album ‘There’s a Big Star Outside’ – I’m reminded of how closely Swim Deep has been intertwined with my Liverpool fandom.

It’s telling that the earliest tour photo I can find shows me getting a football on the backside at the France border in 2013 (LFC would be similarly unlucky that season, as Brendan Rodgers' boys miss out on the title by just two points).

Swim Deep are a bit of a mismatched bunch when it comes to football. We formed in Birmingham in the early ‘10s, and singer Ozzy and bassist Cav are both die-hard Blues. But our drummer, Tom, is a passionate Gunner to the extent that he’s often mysteriously ‘unavailable’ to rehearse when Arsenal are playing – which is funny, because he definitely used to support Tottenham.

In any case, football is a big part of our time outside of the studio, and for me that means supporting the Reds whether the team’s out of tune or top of the league (whey!).

LFC has coloured my years in the band in countless ways over the years. We were chuffed when our 2016 single ‘One Great Song and I Could Change the World’ was picked for the FIFA soundtrack that year – the one with Jordan Henderson on the cover.

Transfer gossip, on the other hand, has been a welcome icebreaker over the years – particularly with fellow Reds like Big Narstie and Adebayo Akinfenwa at music festivals and in TV studio dressing rooms.

But the memories that I’m really fond of are the ones from when we’ve been on the road.

For example, halfway through our 2013 UK tour, I bought a branded football from the official LFC Store to commemorate our show at Liverpool venue The Kazimier. It lasted three days before it was punctured on a fence during an intense game in Cambridge.

In June 2016, during a sweeping US tour, we woke at 6am in Boston to watch England versus Wales in the Euros. The only open pub was opposite the Red Sox Stadium – owned by LFC’s John Henry. I don’t regret the crack-of-dawn pints we had that morning, but we definitely all needed a lie down by the time Daniel Sturridge scored the injury-time winner.

And then there’s Bristol, May 2018 – the day the city confirmed itself as a bad omen for me. We were performing at Dot to Dot Festival on the same night as the Liverpool versus Real Madrid Champions League final. I sneak off after the show to watch us lose 3-1 on the telly – devastated, but thankful that I’m not fellow Reds fan Loyle Carner who, having delayed his show in Leeds to watch the game, now has to perform. Four years later, back in Bristol: same festival, same fixture. Liverpool lose 1-0.

We’ve bumped into plenty of Liverpool legends over the years as well. I’ll never forget the time ex-goalie David James dropped ‘Three Lions’ in a DJ set at Isle of Wight Festival in 2014 – and how we’d celebrated when we thought then-Red Raheem Sterling had scored a worldie during that evening’s big-screen World Cup broadcast.

Then there was unexpectedly meeting Jürgen Klopp in the crowd at a Robbie Williams show at the Roundhouse in 2019 (he was loving it!). In 2023, Luis Diaz was just hanging out on the street as we loaded our gear into Jimmy’s before our show at Liverpool Sound City.

And just last year at Glastonbury, I ran into indie-loving Liverpool legend Peter Crouch, in a massive kagoule and aviators, at 3am in a tent adorned with glow-in-the-dark paintings.

The point I’m making is — whether I’m fluffing my lines recording ‘How Many Love Songs Have Died in Vegas?’ in Brussels because Trent’s just scored a screamer against City, or sprinting from Shepherd’s Bush Empire post-show to catch the dregs of a 3-3 draw against Newcastle – Liverpool’s always there in the background in Swim Deep.

It’s a source of comfort and assurance amidst the chaos. So I’m thankful for all the times we’ve gathered around Cav’s phone in wardrobe-sized green rooms to watch a Liverpool-Swansea bore draw. For the LFC supporters’ pubs we’ve found in Dublin, New York and even Jakarta on tour. And for all the meticulously strategized Fantasy Premier League drafts we’ve been through in the back of the van on the M1 (current team name: Tsimikas Mobile Disco).

Last month, we were back in Liverpool to rehearse a new set of songs with producer Bill Ryder-Jones (a misguided Everton fan). And as we pulled into Lime Street, I was reminded of my past trips to the city for the football – from an Anfield pre-season friendly against Klopp’s Dortmund in 2014 to the 2019 Champions League trophy parade around the city’s streets.

Liverpool’s a place we all love as a band for its culture, working-class values and liberal philosophy. It’s got a pretty great musical heritage as well – from Echo and the Bunnymen to The La's to all the great stuff happening at YAWN Studios in West Kirby.

And in this 2025 Premier League run-in? I’m backing Slot and the boys to go all the way. With our fifth album sessions looming, I’m hoping Liverpool’s form rubs off and that maybe Swim Deep can finally land a number one, too.

• Swim Deep’s fourth album ‘There’s a Big Star Outside’ was released in 2024 via Sub Cat Records. The band perform live across the UK in 2025 - view dates here