FEATURE:
Spotlight
The Snuts
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I have not included many…
Scottish bands in my Spotlight feature. Today, I wanted to throw some love at West Lothian’s The Snuts. They are a band I have been listening to, though there is a timelessness to featuring them now. Not only is there talk as to whether Rock is dead and whether there are young bands that can excite; The Snuts are definitely proving that there is ammunition and diversity in the Rock scene. To be fair, The Snuts mix in Indie and other sounds so one gets this incredible brew. A more important reason for including them now is that their debut album, W.L., is out on 2nd April. It was meant to come out two weeks before but, due to potential freight delays caused by the pandemic and Brexit, this is the new date. You can pre-order the album. This is what Rough Trade wrote about the album:
“The Snuts release their raucous, hook laden debut album, W.L. on Parlophone Records.
Hailing from Whitburn, West Lothian, The Snuts have well and truly found their stride on W.L.. Produced by Tony Hoffer (Beck, Phoenix, M83) and recorded at the Firepit London, the album encapsulates the band’s journey from four working class kids growing up with a dream in Whitburn, to becoming one of the UK’s most exciting and vital bands of the new decade. The album opens with the poignant ‘Top Deck’, winding through a voyage of genres including the raw, rousing, hip-hop driven ‘Elephants, heart-wrenchingly honest ‘Boardwalk’, the undeniable pop banger ‘Somebody Loves You’, the hauntingly heartfelt anthem ‘Always’ and the main stage festival ready hymn, ‘All Your Friends’.
Adored up and down the country for their uninhibited, sweat-drenched live shows, the band have also announced a UK tour for May/June 2021 – totalling over 25,000 tickets, including a dream show at Glasgow’s Barrowlands on 11th June”.
You can get the album in a range of different bundles. I like how much choice the band are giving buyers. I think that, when venues open and festivals kick back off, The Snuts are going to be among the chasing back when it comes to the most exciting British bands. I am going to bring in a few interviews before I wrap things up. The Mic spoke with The Snuts’ lead, Jack Cochrane, last September and they discussed the complexity of performing live during a pandemic and keeping momentum going:
“When asked about the logistics of performing in the pandemic era however, Cochrane admitted that it had been more difficult to stoke an atmosphere. “Connection with the crowd is such a big factor,” he starts, “but it’s actually 50/50 between connection with the crowd and connection with the rest of the band.” After months of quarantine, he professes how joyous it was to feel that on-stage bond with his bandmates once more, and how that carried them through perhaps their most unusual gig to date.
Cochrane has long been praised for the infectious energy he brings to live shows, but the frontman speaks candidly about being “a lot more reserved off-stage” and “turning on-and-off his on-stage persona.” In fact, the Scot never intended to be a frontman, being perfectly happy playing the guitar, but having tried numerous singers whom he dubbed “pretty awful,” he realised that keeping his 14-year-old dreams of being in a band alive meant being the lead singer. “I started off awful but the important thing to realise is that not all people just open their mouth and god-like stuff comes out,” he laughed.
“We realised the hard way that as soon as you put boundaries and rules on your music then you’re only going to end up with what you started with.”
With a turbulent few months on the horizon, such optimism will likely be needed to maintain The Snuts momentum and keep the band inspired. “We’re always trying to do something different from our last release”, Cochrane divulges, “I don’t know whether that hinders us or not but it’s something we enjoy.” “We like to try and break that stigma around indie music that it’s all washed-up and regurgitated,” he continues shrewdly, “we’re so conscious of making sure that we’re always developing, challenging each other and challenging our sound to see what we can get away with.”
When asked how he sees the band’s sound developing in the future, Cochrane admits “nothing would surprise me.” “We realised the hard way that as soon as you put boundaries and rules on your music then you’re only going to end up with what you started with.” Collaborations are one avenue the frontman seems open to exploring, sharing that he has been recently listening to a host of female singer-songwriters who he “is certainly inspired by.” “There’s so many I’d love to do a song with,” he remarks jovially, “although collaborations have never been something we’ve really looked into in a lot of depth”.
Last year, Far Out Magazine talked with Cochrane about the band’s Mixtape EP and looking ahead to the release of their much-anticipated debut record:
“At the start of 2020, I caught up with The Snuts before they shared Mixtape EP, a release that should have acted as the final teaser before unleashing their debut album. However, like all those working within a creative industry, the global pandemic would put their plans on ice. Almost twelve months later and news of the album has finally arrived, a project entitled W.L. that will be made available on March 19th, and The Snuts are determined to make up for the lost time in 2021.
The record is an encapsulation of the formative years of the band. It begins with the impressive stripped back ‘Top Deck’, a track that was penned by frontman Jack Cochrane when he was just 15-years-old then, without warning, W.L. erupts into the group’s emphatic single ‘Always’. The album showcases a myriad of styles throughout the record which not only makes for a captivating listen but, also documents the growth of a band that is refusing to link themselves with one sound intrinsically.
The Snuts have been sitting patiently on this record throughout 2020, releasing more snippets from the album then they would have liked for fans to chew on. Releasing the record is something that they have been edging towards for years, and now that moment is finally here.
To celebrate the release of the album, the band will be finally returning to the road and travelling across Britain before returning home to Glasgow for a raucous sold-out three-night residency at the world-famous Barrowlands. Just a matter of hours after the hometown dates sold-out, frontman Jack Cochrane logged into my Zoom meeting, and he was understandably situated on cloud nine.
“It’s been a big goal for us since day one. It’s always felt like a venue that would be a milestone for us as a band so selling three out in one day? It could be worse,” he gleefully said. This is a venue that played a pivotal role in his musical upbringing, although Cochrane semi-jokingly admits, “I’ve probably been thrown out of more gigs there than I haven’t been. I’ve seen The Libertines, Babyshambles and Pete Doherty probably the most there and all these classic childhood indie heroes. There’s just something so iconic about The Barrowlands.”
Managing to maintain that youthful spirit whilst not being those same exuberant kids who recorded ‘Glasgow’ all those years ago is a task that The Snuts rise to on W.L. and is a poetic way of drawing a line in the sand under those early days of the band back before it was a job.
The title of the record is another nod to their youths, but not to West Lothian, as Cochrane joyfully corrects me. “Naw man, that’s a common misconception, but it’s actually after ‘Whitburn Loopy’. We’re from a town called Whitburn, and every town in Scotland has what we call young teams, but it’s basically gangs. It’s a nod to how we started out on the streets and in the forest, playing the guitar, drinking cider and stuff like that. I feel like because the record is such a progression, it’s nice to name it something that meant a lot to us back then.”
While the Whitburn Loopy days are held in the fondest of memories by the band, their rise has taken them from youth team members to a group with a platform that they are using for good by trying to help the music industry get back on its feet. They have been ardent supporters of the #LetMusicPlay campaign, an organisation which is trying to help the crew members who work behind the scenes in live music and don’t get the plaudits from fans but without them, everything would fall to pieces”.
I think that the buzz and hope surrounding The Snuts is justified. There are a lot of bands that get hyped - and you feel that they will not be able to live up to the expectation. When it comes to the Scottish band, they are definitely ready to deliver. The final interview I want to grab from is an NME piece from April of last year (I am writing this on 24th March, so I am aware there may be new interviews online between this time and when the feature goes live). At the start of lockdown and a troubling time, it must have been stressful for The Snuts - given how they hoped to perform live and get their music out there:
“When we first wrote the song it had a classic rock sound, something like The Rolling Stones’ ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ and even a bit of Primal Scream,” frontman Jack Cochrane told NME. “So we were keen to not ignore those influences, but also make sure it still sounded like us. It isn’t a carbon copy, but we wanted to get the same reaction that Primal Scream always get at those huge festivals and gigs.”
The EP, meanwhile, arrived at the beginning of the UK’s lockdown – which has forced the group to postpone their biggest show to date at London’s O2 Forum next month. However, Cochrane insists that the band will come back stronger when the crisis finally comes to an end.
“What’s been great for us is just having a release during the madness,” he told NME. “It’s been nice to take people’s eyes and ears off the news at the moment. We’ve been able to put something positive out in the world, which has been a blessing for us. We’ve kinda been able to ignore the madness.”
He added: “It’s just one of those things. There are people in a lot worse positions than us at the moment, and we know the show is just postponed. When live music comes back, we’ll be there at the forefront to bring it back with a bang. We’ll be adding dates to sold out shows, bigger venues and try to make the best of a bad situation. We’ll be providing a positive when we get out of this tunnel”.
I am looking forward to seeing where The Snuts head next. Their debut album is out very soon so, if you check out the band and like what you hear, go and get their album. It could well be a contender for a Mercury Prize nomination! Keep an eye on their social media channels for gig news because, if they are playing live near you then go and see them. You most definitely…
DO not want to miss out.
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