Emmet Swimming

Emmet Swimming formed in 1991 while students at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. Emmet Swimming is Todd Watts on vocals and guitar, Luke Michel on bass, Erik Wenberg on guitars and vocals, and drummer Derrick Decker, who replaced original drummer Tamer Eid. The band named themselves after a young black boy, Emmet Till, who was shot in a small Mississippi town for whistling at a white woman and became one of the many martyrs of the American civil rights movement. "The idea of the name was basically that a 14-year-old boy should be swimming in the river, not dying in it," Watts recalled. Emmet Swimming comes from a similar collegiate culture as fellow mid-Atlantic roots rocking jam bands as Hootie And The Blowfish, Everything, and Dave Matthews Band. Like many in the genre, Emmet Swimming built their following through years of touring, especially in Washington, D.C. The band also played the H.O.R.D.E. Festival during the summer of 1998.

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