Johnnyswim, a folk, soul, pop music duo, consists of husband and wife duo Amanda Sudano and Abner Ramirez whose voices and musical styling blend perfectly (and they’re pretty freakin’ good looking if you ask us). Individually they are each talented singer/songwriters, and together they are a couple with undeniable chemistry that is seen in both the music they create and in the way they relate to one another.
The couple first met in Nashville, where Ramirez saw Sudano across a crowded room and declared out loud that she was the girl he would marry (to a girl he was trying to date at the time, no less).
After meeting up in a coffee shop with a mutual friend, the two got to know one another while writing songs together in Nashville.
“We started making songs before we started making out, really shortly thereafter,” Ramirez says.
When asked what it’s like to work with his spouse, Ramirez says that it’s so ingrained in the DNA of their relationship that he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Being gone so much, you’re always looking for a sense of home, and home is wherever she is for me. She feels the same way, I’m sure. She better,” Ramirez laughs. “I feel like it’s the natural step, we love each other, we’re dating, we’re getting married. It’s all one cohesive moving unit that I wouldn’t change for the world.”
Even though they currently reside in LA, the two still feel a deep connection to Nashville and the music community there.
“In Nashville you can count on writing with people, and the collection of musicians and songwriters there that do it because they absolutely love what they do,” Ramirez says. “So Nashville is one of the most inspiring places to work.”
That sense of doing what you love and writing lyrics from a deep and personal space is apparent in the music they create together. It’s also part of what attracts them to the music they listen to.
“I think with all the music I’m drawn to, is when you feel like the artist is being honest with himself, and I feel like folk music does that across the board more than any other form of music,” Ramirez says.
For Johnnyswim, a lot of the fun of performing live is when they get to improvise and play off of one another.
“We like to have fun and change stuff up and keep it alive. When you’re singing the same songs again day in and day out, the best way to keep it honest is just by having fun with it and making each night new somehow, and the best way to do that is to have fun with one another, keep looking each other in the eye and play like you’re in a garage,” Sudano says.
“In its own way it’s a conversation we have, every day it’s a little different. It’s always alive, there’s always intention behind it, and it’s always a kind of connection with us,” Ramirez says. “I would never want to be an actor if all I was doing is reciting lines, just memorizing stuff to say. In the same sense I would never want to be a performer if all I was doing is singing the notes that we rehearsed.”
“We have fun being together, we have fun writing together,” Sudano says. “It’s a dance, not an army march.”
Johnnyswim performs in Atlanta for the very first time at Smith’s Olde Bar this Thursday, May 8th.
