The Snuts in Interview: On Their Comeback, Finding the Balance and Their Upcoming Album
The Snuts are back! After taking some time off, the band kicked off a new era at the beginning of the year with “Motherlands” and “Summer Rain”. And rain during summer is nothing new for them, as band members Jack Cochrane, Joe McGillveray, Callum Wilson, and Jordan Mackay all grew up in Scotland. Having been a band since 2015, they have released three albums together, all of which charted within the Top 3 of the UK album charts, with their debut album W.L. even reaching the top spot in 2021.
In an exclusive interview with THE UNSEEN Magazine, Jack talks about the band’s upcoming fourth studio album, finding balance, and much more.
HERE'S THE FULL INTERVIEW:
I see you are in the studio right now.
Jack Cochrane: Yeah, I've got a studio at home, so I'm just in here 24 hours a day.
Is this where you record all your music?
Jack Cochrane: This is where most of the music starts. I always do a lot of demos here. I do a lot of the tidying up of the record, little bits and extras and vocals and stuff. It's nice to have a spot where I can just come out and do my thing.
After some time off, your band, The Snuts came back at the beginning of this year. What's the most important lesson you've learned in your time off the spotlight?
Jack Cochrane: Just finding a little bit of balance, I would say. That's one of the big themes across some of the songs on the record: just making sure you live as well. I think we started out as a band very young, and this is now going to be our fourth record. All our records were made symbiotically with touring. So we'd be making a record while touring, and then when we were writing the next record, we would be touring. We'd be writing in hotel rooms and on tour buses and in car parks and stuff.
After a little bit of reflection, after six, seven years of doing that and constantly burning out, we just made the decision to try and find a bit more balance in our lives. For me as a writer as well, it felt really important to just reconnect with life off the road and my family and my friends and some of the kind of warmer things in life that you maybe take for granted. So I think just finding more balance and finding more reasons to be grateful outside of your music and with the experiences that your music brings, and just to live a little bit more.
Fans have gotten a taste of the new album already, as you recently released “Motherlands” as well as “Summer Rain”. How have the two releases felt different compared to the older albums?
Jack Cochrane: For me personally, I feel way more confident and way more in control of the music and the way that it appears to the audience and the way that it's presented. I feel for the first time we can be truly authentic and truly ourselves. There's no pressure at this point, I think.
All the pressure happens in the studio and in the writing and in the music. And after it's something we feel really proud of and really excited to put out there. There's no fear of judgement, I think. And that's a really refreshing thing as an artist. I think that's when you can be at your most free. It's been kind of nice this time.
Have you got a favourite song from the new album already that you can't wait to play live?
Jack Cochrane: A few, actually, there's a couple in there. I think this has been a really nice introduction to the record because we've been playing live quite a bit now. For the first time in a long time, we've been able to play new songs, songs that are work-in-progress versions of the song and really gauge that instant human reaction to a song.
Sometimes now, as an artist, you feel like the only validation that you can get from your music is to be constantly kind of pushing on social media and stuff like that. Whereas this time around, we've been able to actually gauge the reaction. So we've been playing a lot of unreleased and new tracks on our last tour. That's been really nice.
There's a track called “Get Up, Get Out”, and that might not be a single, or it might be, I don't know, but it's just been really nice to see people reacting and singing along before it's even out there. That's probably one.
You are playing some shows in Europe over the summer, like Amsterdam, Cologne, Paris or Lollapalooza in Berlin. Are you excited?
Jack Cochrane: For sure, we love going to Europe. It's one of those tours where we get to just be friends and travellers and just get together and go and visit these amazing cities. I think touring in Europe is quite unique like that. A lot of the kind of touring that you can do as a band can feel quite labour-intensive, quite a slog.
It can feel quite tiresome. But getting out to Europe, we do get to just get together and be best friends and be in the city and have a nice time and meet new people. And you always, I think, when you're a bit further from home, especially in Europe, you feel really grateful that people have taken the time to put their hand in their pocket and come along to the show and travel to the show.
Something I have to work on is my accent and just being understood in Europe. It's quite tough for me.
There's often this debate of who has the worst accent throughout the UK. What's your opinion on that?
Jack Cochrane: The worst accent? This is maybe controversial, but I think that some of the more posh southern accents, some of the kind of more like, yeah, just the more, the wealthier accents in the South, I think, not because they're hard to understand, but because I think they can sometimes sound quite condescending.
As your audience becomes more international, do you feel any tension between, you know, staying rooted in Scotland and appearing globally at the same time?
Jack Cochrane: I wouldn't say so. I think as a guitar band, something that we really feel internationally is there seems to be almost more of a demand for guitar music internationally than sometimes there is here in, say, the UK.
If we go to Japan or places like that, there's this crazy demand for guitar music. And I think audiences are very appreciative to see a four or five-piece guitar band. It's something that we actually are really grateful for, that there's still a big guitar presence in some of these markets. It's something we're more grateful for than anything.
What's something about being in a successful band that people often underestimate? Do you have any tips for people who want to start a band and can you give us some insight?
Jack Cochrane: I think travel is very intense. When you're first starting out, it's super exciting, and as it piles up, it becomes very tiresome. But I think the main one would be just their relationships. And I think, you know, especially if you travel with a band who you're very close with, you've got to be very understanding of everybody and what's going on in their lives. And before you jump down their throat, and before arguments start. But yeah, I think relationships is a big one inside, I would assume, the entertainment industry as a whole. And when you're travelling, and you're away from home a lot, there is a lot of added pressure on relationships in general, whether at home or within the band or within that ecosystem.
And that's something I think you can only learn to navigate by going through it and being in it and sticking with it as well. I think it can be very easy to give up now as an artist. And not because artists particularly want to.
I just think the demands of an artist have grown rapidly in the last decade, from when an artist's responsibility was the art and the performance and how it comes across. And now artists are kind of asked to be social media managers and influencers, personalities. And I think that's something that artists really struggle with as well.
Have you discovered any new hobbies or do you have an outlet that you use to balance it all and not go crazy?
Jack Cochrane: Yeah, for sure. I think as we've got deeper into this journey as a band, we've all kind of tried to find things that we can do that aren't artistic, I think, because it's important, because art will drive you crazy. I do a lot of running and stuff like that, especially on tour, because it's such a privilege to kind of get up in the morning and see that you're in a new city or a city that you really love, just putting your shoes on and go and do a big long run. So that's something that I do.
I think it's just beneficial for the health side of things as well when you're on tour, and you don't get the food and the nutrition that you really need as a human.
After your first album, W.L. went #1, did you feel more confident or more cautious about your next releases such as Burn The Empire, Millennials or even the next record? Was it harder for you to release music after that or was it easier?
Jack Cochrane: I think the thought of it, the idea and the planning of it was probably quite nerve-racking. But yeah, just more exciting, because I think if you were to look across all our records so far, they're all very different from each other, and we're very deliberate in not repeating ourselves and making the same record twice. So I think that's one thing that really keeps us on our toes and excited about the music is how can we make this one a little bit different and keep ourselves interested, keep ourselves excited about the music and make sure we're putting as much of ourselves in there and not just copying someone else.
We've always been very cautious not to just copy ourselves as well. So yeah, not too much. This is the bit I love.
I absolutely love making records. It's everything else I struggle with, but the making of the thing is just such an incredible privilege, and I think we know that and we use that.
At THE UNSEEN Magazine, we have curated a playlist with artist recommendations where we ask different artists to recommend a song that we put in a playlist. What would your additions be to that playlist?
Jack Cochrane: There's a band in Scotland who just came on tour with us last month called Brògeal. They put out an incredible record at the start of the year. They have a song called “Tuesday Paper Club”, they're awesome. I love them.
I've been listening to a lot of the latest Bon Iver record. On that record, I really love “Everything Is Peaceful Love”, it just puts a big smile on my face.
What else would I say? I love Parcels as well. Their album is called LOVED, that was out last year maybe? Got a few songs, “Yougotmefeeling” by Parcels, amazing.
I love this song by an artist called GoldFord, it's called “Easy Does It”. I just think it's a beautiful melody in the chorus. When the sun comes out in Scotland, which is rare and doesn't happen often, but it was out yesterday and this song came on in the car and it was a beautiful, lovely addition to the day.
Andy: Amazing, thank you so much Jack for taking your time today to speak with us. I can't wait to listen to the album, I'm excited.
Jack Cochrane: Amazing, thanks so much, thank you so much for your time.
CHECK OUT THE NEWEST RELEASE FROM THE SNUTS "Motherlands" and "Summer Rain" HERE:
INTERVIEW BY
Andy
(Live) music is one of my biggest passions, which is why I enjoy exploring pop culture in my writings. From analyzing albums to reviewing concerts. I'm especially interested in fandom culture, which often comes through in my work.
