Teddy Swims: Dripping with Artistry

With ink covering the bulk of his skin, Swims is no stranger to the tattoo gun. Bedecked in a mixture of tattoo styles, there’s practically no limit to what he’ll allow to be etched on his canvas. He pays homage to Chris Farley with a tattoo of his likeness dressed as Han Solo and to Carl Weathers as his “Happy Gilmore” character Chubbs Peterson; an angel lays resting under his left armpit and Simba from “The Lion King” is proudly displayed on his right bicep; and countless words and expressions, such as “Patience” and “Home at Last,” cover his physique.

Born Jaten Dimsdale, the “Lose Control” crooner made waves in 2019 when he began posting cover songs, like Shania Twain’s “You’re Still the One” and Michael Jackson’s “Rock with You,” on YouTube, shining a dazzling light on his vocal diversity and impassioned delivery, which led to his lucky break: a record deal with Warner Records. Since then, Swims has teamed up with stars like Meghan Trainor, Tiago PZK, Thomas Rhett, Coco Jones, and Givēon, affirming his vast vocal range and musical intelligence.

And there’s a high probability Swims will be donning new ink soon on the spaces in between while on his “I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy” concert tour, which will continue into the fall of 2025, since tattooing backstage has become a fairly common practice for the “Guilty” singer.

Glancing out toward the Pacific Ocean at Aviator Nation Dreamland in Malibu in the spring of 2025, Teddy Swims joined Inked’s Jayme Foxx for a candid discussion about the singer/songwriter’s touring life, therapy, and massive tattoo collection.

I want to start this off with a congratulations because you’re about to be a daddy.

Yeah. (The Inked team) had the little Inked T-shirts with the fake sleeves on them for the baby. I was freaking out about that. How cute is that?

Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?

We’re having a little boy.

Do you have a name?

Not yet. We’re in between a few ideas, but she’s like, “When we see his face, we’ll know” because every time we get something, she Googles it, and then in some other country, it meant something terrible. Or then she goes to numerology, and then it’s like this name means “a five,” and she’s like, “I don’t want to have a five.” There’s always some way to talk yourself out of it. I’m like, we’re never going to decide if you keep Googling for something terrible.

What was your first tattoo?

I got a tattoo right here (taps on left bicep). I got it covered up later on, but I got it when I was 16. In Florida, with parents’ consent, you can go. So, I was out there with my niece… we went to Disney World for her first time out there, and I got this — so stupid — it was just a cross with my last name and a banner that said “Dimmesdale,” and then another banner that said “Established 1992.” Such a corny 16-year-old tattoo. I was cutting the sleeves off my shirt like, “I’m tattooed, yeah!” And by the time I was 18, I was a completely different human being and wanted it covered, and I just got something to get something. Not that I’m ever the guy to take tattoo advice from, but maybe 16-year-olds shouldn’t make lifelong decisions, you know? I think it was too early for me to try to just get something, and so I hated it.

What did you cover it up with?

Right now, it’s like some cool tiger with some “thing” on it — something my buddy drew. It doesn’t have any real significant meaning, but it’s way better.

Do you have any recent tattoos?

I’m so lucky now that when, as we travel, people hit me up all the time on Instagram, and so I’ve kind of just gathered tattoos as I’ve gone. They’ll be coming to the show anyway, and so I now get them to design whatever they want, and then just do signatures. I got a tattoo machine, so I’ve just been having everybody on the tour tattoo their names and tattoo little pictures on me and stuff. My buddy Jesse did this little penguin (points below left knee). I’ve been filling up the rest of the space with signatures of all my friends.

Can I tattoo you? Do you have the gun here?

I don’t have it, but I would love to. I should have brought it. I should have thought about it.

I would have done it.

I would have been down.

What do you prefer more when you’re touring, America or traveling outside of America?

I’m the kind of person, I don’t really travel as much as I like being somewhere else, you know? But I do love being in America. Australia is one of my favorite places, probably my favorite place in the whole world, but the tough thing about that is you’re flying to every one of those states. And then, in North America, you always get to be on a bus, and that’s my most consistent bed for three months at a time.

Your tour is called “I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy.” So, have you tried therapy yet?

Yeah, I’ve been in therapy, and me and my girl have been doing couples therapy as we’re kind of getting ready to bring the baby into the world, trying to be in our most communicative, most healed place.

It’s kind of funny; she really kind of finessed me into doing therapy myself. I kind of got tricked into it, I feel like, because we were doing therapy together, and it was so much easier for us to talk about our problems. To go into therapy without this fear of talking to somebody you don’t know and having her there as we did it together was kind of easy to just open up about everything. And then sure enough, I found myself like, “Hey, can I do something a little solo on the side?” And now we both will do that as well. We finally met (our therapist) in person a couple days ago at our little baby shower, which was so crazy, because it’s been over Zoom this whole time.

Do you feel that therapy has brought things to the surface where you’re like, “I didn’t think about that,” or “I haven’t processed that?”

I wouldn’t say in that sense, but yeah, in a lot of ways it’s made me reflect on things differently or think of things differently than I used to. I would say, I’m learning to process things differently… I think I processed things, but just maybe not in the most healthy way.

Do you think going to therapy now will affect your next album and your music in a positive way?

Totally, but I also think there’s some level of “unhinged” that I need to remain, you know what I mean? I have to go on a camp somewhere, and lock myself away with some guys for a couple days, and just go on a tequila bender, and then get to the real core of the problem, you know? So, I think there’s got to be some level of unhinged that has to happen when I’m in that space, but I don’t know if that’s healthy, but that’s what it is.

When you get a tattoo, besides going on tour and having all your friends tattoo you, what’s the process you have with the tattoo? Do you wake up one day, and you’re like, “I want a frog on my nose,” or do you think it out?

I think the funnest thing that I’ve done is I’ll have the tattoo artist design something, or if they already have designs that they’ve drawn, and something that means something to them that they haven’t tattooed… because I know that there’s so many tattoo artists that are probably tired of putting “Blessed” under some girl’s titty, you know what I mean? And there’s some things that they really care about and want to do.

I think so much more about carrying that artist or that memory of that time in my life, rather than it is something so specific about my life that already happened. And I think it’s better, too, because I know if, in my experiences, as I was coming up from doing covers to now doing my own original tunes… and I still love singing a cover, of course, but there was always those people that were just like, “Your songs are all right, but, man, we love when you sing Shania Twain.” I can appreciate that, but I have things I want to say, too. I don’t want to (just) sing covers.

Every time you bring that Etsy tattoo into a tattoo artist, it’s like, “But I have my own art, too, that I want to do.” And so, I think I understand that in a way that I always want to give them the shot to really express themselves, because that’s what they started doing it for, right? Same with me. I don’t want to just bring them “Blessed” under my titty, you know I mean? Nothing wrong with anybody that does that, I’m just saying, me personally.

Do you have any new tattoos you want to get next?

I don’t have anything I’m thinking of currently, but, like I said, I’m down to get whatever. I’m just trying to get covered up at this point. Somebody asked me the other day, “What are you going to do when you’re finally covered?” I’m like, “Be fucking done getting tattooed!” I don’t like getting tattooed. I like being tattooed. You know what I’m saying? I want to be tattooed, but the process of getting tattooed sucks. The older I get, the more it hurts, and the worse and worse and worse it gets. I just want it to be done… I think I got to save a spot for my kid or, you know, if there’s any more… But maybe I’ll just save my butt cheeks. We’ll see. I don’t know.

What’s your favorite tattoo that you have?

There’s this tattoo I have of my best pal Derek Parkey (points to right calf). He did this tat, so much of my tattoo on my head. There’s so much of my body that you could see the kind of growth he had over a few years.

It was his mom’s birthday, maybe three or four years ago now… He was kind of in this place of, like, he’s such a good artist, but he didn’t want to do portraits, and was like, “I don’t know. If you fuck up a portrait, you might really fuck something up.” So I was like, “Well, why don’t you do a portrait of yourself on me? And then you’re not going to make yourself look stupid on me.” So, he crushed it, and ever since then, he’s done this Dave Chappelle (points to left inner thigh) for me, too. He’s gotten really, really amazing at doing some portraits and stuff, and is just out here killing it. So, I always carry him with me.

What’s your favorite song to sing on stage?

There’s this song called “Some Things We’ll Never Know,” and it’s the first song on the “I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy Part One,” and that song is just so healing for me. I know I always can just get a cry out and sing that song every night. It feels good.

Do you ever conceal your feelings when you’re on stage?

No, never. That space is meant to be that safe place, and also, I think I’m so lucky that I get to have a safe place to dump my trauma on strangers, you know? As I say all the time, I’m just giving them what I’ve gone through… I think it sometimes can also create that safe place for them to dump, to laugh, to cry, to feel the way they feel, and I’m so lucky I get that space to do that in front of thousands of people at night. It’s saved my life.

For your writing process, besides locking yourself in with your friends and having a tequila bender, is there anything specific you need?

No, another thing therapy’s been good for is knowing that you don’t have to be in a constant place of turmoil to write about pain that you’ve gone through. You can access certain things that you’ve been through — I don’t have to be currently in a heartbreak to write something heartbreaking. It just is easier to do when you’re heartbroken. But I think there’s always a way to tap into some emotion that you’re feeling and really try to break down that wall and get there. There’s always somebody (who) comes in with a concept or somebody comes in with the perfect chord, and that’s all we need. I think the thing starts revealing what it wants to be after a minute. You got to just tap into the thing of whatever that thing is: the muse.

When you collaborate, is it the same kind of process?

Sometimes you write with the person and write that song with the person, but most of my collaborations have been like, they’ll send the song or… (The song) with Givēon, he had heard the song and I was like, “Well, here’s a second verse free, you write a second verse.” It kind of just came together that way. But we didn’t actually meet until the day we were filming the music video. That happens so often too, where you worked with someone and you don’t really meet them until it’s time do that. The working remote thing is so different now.

If you could tour with any person, dead or alive, who would it be?

I’d probably say Otis Redding. For me, he’s the best.

Who’s your favorite artist, male or female?

If he’d come back and do anything again, Frank Ocean is always somebody for me that I think is such a different thinker and such an incredible writer. There’s a bunch of stuff that was leaked years and years ago under his original name, Lonny Breaux, and there’s this whole series of music that was maybe 50, 60 songs that are so incredible that really, truly inspired me. So, I would say Frank Ocean, but he hasn’t dropped anything in 35 years.

I heard that your parents have been really supportive of your career and growing up, and they’re like your main people.

I was in cosmetology school, and when I was 19, he’s like, “You know, man, if you want to pursue music and you think that’s what you should do, then don’t ever go back to school and drop out and really put your energy into it.” I always say that permission to follow my dreams was ultimately what lit the fire under my ass to do it. I was in shitty metal bands at the time too. He didn’t even like the music I was making, so I don’t know why he said that. It’s like, “Baby, if that’s what you want, go for it man, but you got to go for it.” It took a long time, but we went for it and we got it.

When did you realize, “Oh, I can sing!”

Hopefully next week (laughs)! I don’t know, I think everybody to some degree kind of hates their voice a little bit. I think I’ve done a lot of studying it and learning it and perfecting it the best I can to a point where I know technically, or dynamically, I know I’m good and I know what I’m doing. I know there’s nobody that can listen to it and say, “That guy can’t sing.” That guy clearly knows what he’s doing, but for some reason I think I did that so I couldn’t argue with myself that I suck because I’m always like that in my brain. I’m the worst critic. If I ever feel like “I’m really good at this” there’s really no learning left, I guess.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

Raising a 10 year old, I guess (laughs). Hopefully a couple more. I don’t know, we’ll see. But I try not to think about… Where I’m at right now is what I thought I was going to be at like 22, 23. Now it’s 10 years later than that, so it’s like 15 years after high school. I’m where I want to be, of course, but I want to be like (swooshes hand up and around). I try not to think about 10-year plans. I think I’m so fortunate, too, that there are people in my life that are planning everything for me. I’m right where I’m supposed to be and be present in anything I’m doing to just not ever be like, “What do I want?” because there’s only a way to exceed that or be disappointed. I just try to be right here all the time.