Abner and Amanda Ramirez, the husband-and-wife duo that comprises Johnnyswim, aren’t afraid to explore their inner struggles to create music.
“Being vulnerable out loud is the clearest path to moving through something that you’d rather avoid but can’t,” Abner said during a Zoom interview. “Ultimately, what we’ve learned in therapy is that oftentimes, it’s the very thing we’d like to avoid. You can’t ever get around a defining moment in your life unless you visit it verbally. The greatest benefit of vulnerability is growth and healing.”
Johnnyswim’s latest album, “When The War Is Over,” is an 11-track folk-pop introspection that journeys deep into the crevasses of the couple’s hearts, offering an honest glimpse of their tussles with trauma. The new music, along with hits from their catalog, will be part of the duo’s headlining performance at the House of Blues Anaheim on Friday, March 29.
“We essentially journaled much of this album and a lot of our songs,” Abner said. “One thing that we discovered in the process of writing songs together over decades is that often we don’t have the words to describe what we’re going through or explain how we feel about something until we write a song about it. The songwriting in this album has been an act of self-exploration as much as anything else.”
Amanda added that the duo’s approach to vulnerability isn’t new but rather an everyday practice shared between lifelong friends and at home with each family member. Their previous music has a vulnerable tone that was inspired by the hardships of friends and others in their support system. With the latest album, though, she felt like “It cost more” because it dealt with more personal battles of mental and physical health.
The song “She Checks The Weather” delves into Amanda’s dealing with an unknown chronic illness that lingered after two stints with the coronavirus. During the early months of her battle, she dealt with profound and debilitating exhaustion, leaving her mostly confined in bed, isolated and fearful that her day-to-day life was slipping away. She said the song was written in one sitting, with her husband playing the piano part and her immediately singing the title, a reference to having her daily check-ins with her body while delicately balancing hope and reality.
“I felt like an island unto myself, and the night before we released this song specifically about me, I just cried,” Amanda said. “I’d never had that experience before releasing a song, but I just felt so overwhelmed with emotion. Then, as soon as the song came out, this kind of community of people came to me and said, ‘I know what that feels like,’ and it was the most rewarding thing to watch myself be absorbed into this community with the release of this song. It makes it easier to continue to be vulnerable when you see its fruits.”
Her husband, whose lively, upbeat attitude is often captured live and in interviews, found himself battling mental anguish, captured in the song “Psilocybin.” The song was named after the naturally occurring psychedelic compound found in species of mushrooms that, according to the Food and Drug Administration, may be beneficial in treating depression by helping the brain explore new thought patterns. It also serves as a metaphor for embracing change within a relationship, allowing it to evolve organically and choosing to love it in its new form.
Amanda sings about the noticeable changes in her husband but reaffirms her love, singing, “Maybe it’s all just the season/Or maybe now you’re something new/Well if you change, I’m changing too/Yeah if you change, I’ll change with you.”
Abner also explores his own battles associated with his family’s lineage in Cuba. The album features the back-to-back tracks “I’m Alright” and “Cuando Salí de Cuba.” The first song includes a line about being the first family of color to move into an all-white neighborhood in Jacksonville, Fla. He recalls his mom working four jobs at one point and his father taking on several others to save up to buy a home, part of their American dream.
When they moved in, local members of the Klu Klux Klan put letters in their mailbox demanding they leave, but the family remained unfazed. One night, Abner recalls hearing screams from his sister’s room, and when he got up to see what was happening, the family saw that there was a burning cross on their front lawn.
Their mother came out of the house in her nightgown, hosed down the cross, kicked it over with her chancletas (flip-flops), dragged it to the trash heap and went back inside to send everyone back to bed. He said that to this day, they’ve never talked about it, but the memory remains etched in his mind.
“What was amazing to me is that the burning cross is such a symbol of hatred, of not belonging. It’s supposed to put you in your place of inferiority, and it demands fear from you, but it was the last thing that my mom gave it,” Abner Ramirez said. “What I remember from that story is the power of that woman, not the power of that symbol. The symbol that’s burned in my memory is the strength of my mother.”
He said that when he asks his parents, who grew up in the communist revolution in Cuba, to rank the wildest experiences of their lives, a burning cross from the KKK on their first home is not something that cracks the top of the list. Both of his parents were exiled from Cuba for being anti-communist and anti-revolutionary. In turn, he and his family are not allowed back into the country.
“Cuando Salí de Cuba” (When I Left Cuba) is an ode to his father, who used to sing the phrase and write poetry about a home he could never return to. Abner realized that his heart was tied to a place he’d only experienced vicariously through his father’s words. The song serves as a reminder of the emotional weight he carries while yearning for home.
“I think some people being exiled this way would be like, ‘I don’t need to go there. Forget about it,’ but because it’s a place that my father would be so passionate about, somewhere in my bones, I feel like Cuba’s a part of my story, not just of my past, but my future.”
The duo said they are excited to perform their new music on tour with a full band and play other songs from their catalog with a refreshed instrumentation. They’ll tour through the spring in the U.S. and then go to Europe in the fall, where they’ll use their talents to write a musical.
“We can’t tell you any specifics, but it’s taking up a lot of our creative energy right now, and we’re really excited about it,” Abner Ramirez said. “If you like Johnnyswim and what we do on stage with our storytelling, I think you will absolutely freak out about the musical.”
Johnnyswim
Where: House of Blues Anaheim, 400 Disney Way #337, Anaheim.
When: 7 p.m. Friday, March 28.
Tickets: $48 at Livenation.com.