Swell Foop Talks Femme Solidarity, Reinvention, and Tiktok Edits

Swell Foop’s music is tender, gritty, and painfully honest. Their songs often begin with soft instrumentals and sharp lyrics, eventually working their way up to cathartic release— which is characterized by a surge of the electric guitar and a drum pattern that works its way into your bones.

In concert, Swell Foop’s magic is on full display. The group’s comfort with one another is apparent in the way they trade knowing glances between songs. Their dynamic is addicting, and shines through in their recorded tracks. After forming as a college band at UC Berkeley, the band has cemented themselves as a rising force in the indie rock scene.

We spoke with Sophia Shen (vocals, guitar), Miranda Loyer (vocals, bass), and Tiena Elias (drums) to discuss the femme identity, live shows, and the state of artists today ahead of the release of their debut album “Most Likey” which will be released later this year via Broke Records.

How do you think your gender and identity inform the music that you create?

Miranda: So much of our music is about femininity and what it is like to be a woman, or not to be a woman and how that feels. It affects the way we move in the music world and the kind of music we make.

Sophia: We’ve been doing all femme lineups for maybe four to five months now, and it’s been so nice. I'm always trying to make connections with other femme identifying musicians because I think that it can be so isolating to try to navigate the music industry and the music scene on your own when you're assigned female at birth. We’re always trying to reach out and create opportunities to spotlight femme performers.

Tiena: Yeah, I agree with the importance of finding community within the rock scene and the band scene. I grew up playing in a lot of all male bands and being the drummer. I’m kind of starting my own term of femme bands. Sometimes there’s a girl on bass or a girl on drums in my case, and I think that they also deserve a shout out. Respect to all girls in music and all non-binary, trans musicians.

What has that process of writing your new album looked like? Where have you been finding inspiration?

Miranda: We usually write separately and then we’ll send ideas back and forth. It can be incredibly fulfilling, because you end up completely drained by the end of the day, but it’s also exhausting. We’re very much in the middle of that right now, so we’re very studio-brained. We’ve been listening to a lot of Dutch Interior and Julia Jacklin.

Sophia: When we put out our Debut EP, “Don’t Spare Me,” that was the culmination of three years of writing together and being a band and playing shows, not having any idea where it was going to lead. We didn’t know whether this was going to be a short-term college band or if there was something more to it. So those were all songs that we had already played live, we had worked out the arrangements for everything and then just took it to the studio and banged it out for like 48 hours, which was insane. We’re trying to be open to more ideas. With our producer, Ivan, he’s been really helping us with the writing, and Tiena is bringing amazing drum parts to the table, which have added so much character and depth to our songs. We’re just really excited for the new direction this is going to take us in.

Tiena: For influences, I’ve been listening to a lot of Paramore lately, and Zach Farrow, the drummer, just has really creative and unique groves that I’ve been appreciating. I’ve also been checking out the drummer, Anika Nilles, who the band Rush announced she’s going to be their new drummer, filling in for Neil Peart, who a lot of people say is the best drummer of all time. So everyone was freaking out because there was this German girl. And everyone was like, who is that?

Miranda: What do German girls know about music? Turns out a lot.

Tiena: I love that story of her taking the world by storm. Those are just two of the influences I was listening to in order to come up with my own drum grooves for the album.

Is there any song from your discography that you all are particularly proud of or really resonate with you in some way?

Miranda: There’s this [unreleased] song called “Your Love,” I love that song so much. Sophia wrote that song and I may or may not have made a Heated Rivalry Edit. And that may or may not be making it on Tiktok at some point, but it will. I’m really excited about that one. I think people are going to love it. We love Perfume Genius, and I think this is our Perfume Genius inspired song.

Sophia: For me, I’m also really excited about “Your Love” because I think that song totally epitomizes our current stage of taking aspects of our songwriting that we’ve used in the past and turning them into something different or readapting them for where we are now as people and as musicians. We’re pulling elements from different genres into this hodge podge that is our sound.

Tiena: “Dress Song” is still my favorite, and it was my favorite from the beginning, because it was the first song Sophia sent me a demo of. Sophia sent me this song before I had joined and I was very blown away.

Sophia: That song also happened in a whirlwind. As we were recording for my solo project, we all went into the studio to work on it and Ivan was like, let’s try to do something else, Swell Foop needs to release a song. We had this song so ingrained and so kind of last minute we decided to put it together. The way that song turned out was like “Dress Song” awesome version. This is “Dress Song” if it was cool and badass and sexy. It somehow got even better. I feel like that was important for our confidence, making that song, because it unlocked something else. It indicated what we were capable of.

How do you think Swell Foop has changed over time and how do you think that it’s going to continue to evolve and change?

Miranda: That’s a good question. We talk about our evolution all the time because we feel like we’ve grown so much as songwriters. When I started writing, I was writing songs that would encapsulate everything thought that was running through my head at one moment. I love those songs, they’re very sweet and very personal. I feel like this album is the most artful that we’ve ever been and we’re really thinking about what we’re saying and how we’re saying it.

Sophia: We talk about writing things that are simple but specific, intentional. We [Miranda and I] also both studied art history, so we think about what it means to make art in a lineage of other artists and make art that responds to other art. I think it’s truly amazing that we’re so influenced by each other and we’ve grown together and supported each other.

Tiena: Swell Foop has evolved a lot from when we were all in college to now, especially because of the scope of what we are trying to do. The fact that we have some legitimate fans has been really wild because I feel like I have a lot more responsibility that people are actually listening and watching. It’s been stressful, but also something that I’ve dreamed about as a kid and I’m happy to give to other people.

Lastly, how do you all feel about the future of musicians and bands in this country?

Tiena: I’m very concerned about AI damaging the music industry. I also think that there’s a lot of conversation starting about streaming, which gives you so much art and music for free but at the cost of musicians having to work super hard in order to have enough money to survive. And [the conversation about] people who are less willing to support artists directly since it’s less convenient. It still makes me happy to play all these small shows and see how many people are willing to come out to a random location to see live music and have community. It’s very important right now to preserve that when a lot of society is getting very disconnected and a lot of art is being consumed remotely.

Sophia: I’ve been thinking so much about social media and music lately. Since graduating, I’ve definitely realized we need to lock in on Tiktok right now. All of us have been trying to make an effort to grow our online presence because it feels like no record label wants to sign artists who don’t have a crazy Tiktok profile. The persona [of an artist] has shifted so much to the forefront because of social media. We’re doing this for the first time. We don’t know anything about our visuals, our content, or a posting schedule. It adds so much more work that we have to do on top of making music and going to the studio and working our asses off. So, it’s definitely a double-edged sword, because it’s brought us this far, but also the weight of needing to keep pace with everyone else has been a lot. So follow us on Tiktok though!

Miranda: I’m definitely worried about the use of generative AI and how platforms like Spotify continue to allow AI creations, slop, on their platforms because it's completely empty, completely devoid of any artistic merit. The way that streaming services pay their artists is so shitty because there really is no payment, there’s barely any. It’s not possible to make a living wage off of streams these days. Those are things that we’re thinking about. We’re grappling with that as a band and figuring out how to navigate and learn and progress in this industry.

Find Swell Foop on Spotify, Instagram, and Tiktok.

Swell Foop’s Debut Album “Most Likely” will be released via Broke Records in 2026