Alice Baxley / submitted photoOakland, California, surf punk band SWMRS, formerly Emily's Army, will perform with Melissa Brooks and The Aquadolls at the Domino Room in Bend on Monday.

The last time Emily’s Army performed in Bend — back in 2011 at the now-closed Madhappy Lounge — none of its members were old enough to drink.

In fact, the band’s members, whose ages ranged from 15 to 17 at the time, weren’t even allowed inside the 21-and-older venue.

“We had to wait outside until it was our turn to play,” said Max Becker, who at the time played bass for Emily’s Army. “The place we played actually had a window — it was like a bar or something. We had seven fans that showed up that couldn’t come; they couldn’t go inside, so they watched through the window, and it was really awkward.”

The band still managed to get into some trouble later on, though.

“I’m not gonna say which member of the band, but we stayed in this motel and one of the band members accidentally bought a bunch of adult films — like, you know how you can buy those on the motel TVs?” Becker said, speaking while on the road in San Francisco. “It was awkward because it got charged to the card that we were using, and at the time it was our parents’ card. … It was so embarrassing.”

Fast-forward to Monday night, when the Oakland, California, band — now going by the name SWMRS (pronounced “swimmers”) — will perform at the Domino Room with fellow Californians Melissa Brooks and The Aquadolls. With the exception of Becker, 22, the rest of the quartet is still underage.

But the band has grown where it counts. After releasing two albums as Emily’s Army with drummer Joey Armstrong’s father (and Green Day frontman) Billie Joe Armstrong producing, the band has retooled its lineup and sound, injecting surf-rock and power pop into its snotty East Bay punk.

“I honestly think it’s one of the most important things we’ve ever done, at least with the name change,” said Becker, now the band’s lead guitarist. “You start off as a young band and you kind of get labeled as a young band. You can be good, but you just don’t get taken as seriously; you just get seen as a kid band, and that’s the last thing you want if you want to go for the rest of your life. I don’t think we had to change our name, but it was kind of like, we were at this point where we weren’t big enough to where it would be the worst thing in the world.”

In September, the band dropped “Miley,” a crunchy, catchy (and hilarious) tribute to the former “Hannah Montana” star Miley Cyrus and the first single from SWMRS’ upcoming debut album “Drive North.” The band was also tapped to record the soundtrack for fashion designer Saint Laurent Paris’s Spring/Summer 2016 Presentation, and expanded its song “Like Harry Dean Stanton” past the 17-minute mark.

The transition didn’t happen overnight, however. In 2014 the band released the EP “Swim,” its final release under the name Emily’s Army and last with lead guitarist Travis Neumann. Becker moved to guitar, and he and the rest of the band — vocalist and guitarist (and Becker’s younger brother) Cole Becker and Joey Armstrong — recruited bassist Sebastian Mueller and hit England for the Reading Festival and a subsequent tour with Rise Against.

One problem: The tour’s promoters wouldn’t let the band play its own shows in between tour dates. But the band decided to do it anyway, and Swimmers (later shortened to SWMRS) was born.

“We decided to have this underground Instagram organization called Swimmers. It was a private account and the only way you could get accepted (as a follower) was if you had a fish bio (on your page),” Becker said. “We ended up getting 600 British kids following us around England, and we weren’t allowed to promote these shows. We literally rented out clubs and promoted shows secretly, and we still had at least 100 kids at each one. And at that point we were having so much fun that we decided, you know, this could be a new direction for us. … This could be kind of our stepping stone to a different thing, to a more professional sound.”

In keeping with that goal, the band broke with producer Billie Joe Armstrong for “Drive North,” instead opting to work with Zac Carper of L.A. skate punks FIDLAR. The handful of tracks released on the band’s Bandcamp page showcase a more pop-oriented sound on “Figuring it Out” and “Uncool,” at once rawer and yet more panoramic than the thrashing Emily’s Army records. Becker hinted at even more electronic elements on the finished album.

“Basically, Zac Carper is awesome. He definitely changed our sound; he was very crucial to how our sound changed,” Becker said. “He pushed not trying to be just a rock band. On the new album, some songs — and hopefully this doesn’t depress anyone — there’s not even instruments in two of the songs, but it works.”

“Miley” is on there, too. The song’s bouncy melody and chorus proclaiming Cyrus to be a “punk rock queen” have garnered the band national attention, helping to break it out of the elder Armstrong’s shadow and away from the “young band” stigma.

But the track also inspired fan backlash, so much so the band posted a response on Facebook that read in part: “We just wanted to let you know that our song Miley is not intended as a sweeping intersectional feminist statement and in no way reflects an alignment with the more problematic things that Miley says.” (Among other incidents, Cyrus was recently blasted for perceived racist comments and cultural appropriation at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards.)

“She’s a free spirit and she tries to do very progressive things, but she doesn’t really have the background knowledge to actually say what she’s saying, so sometimes she says stupid stuff,” Becker said. “Our point with the song was that — calling her a punk rock queen was the fact she just doesn’t give a f—, and she’ll say stuff that she thinks she believes and all this stuff (that causes) crazy controversy, but she doesn’t really care. We envied that as young rock ’n’ roll musicians because that’s what we kind of strive to do, really try not to care about what people are saying and just express yourself.

“It was controversial because Cole goes to Berkley, UC Berkley, and that’s a very progressive, liberal school, which is awesome. But then you would get (people) from his classes commenting saying, ‘I can’t believe you support Miley Cyrus.’ … So Cole had to write this really long explanation.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7814, bmcelhiney@bendbulletin.com