The Snuts’ leading man sits down with Deputy Editor-in-Chief Jack Murray to chat about growing up, new music, and joy in short moments ahead of the band’s upcoming fourth album.
It’s been a minute since we’ve heard from The Snuts. Or, it had been, until late January when two spontaneous stripped-back sets at Edinburgh’s Pianodrome were announced on the four-piece band’s Instagram. Partly an announcement of a new era, partly confirmation that they’d returned to playing in Scotland just over a year after their biggest headline show to date — The Hydro. A new single,‘Summer Rain’, quickly followed, continuing the expansion of the band’s sound becoming increasingly evident towards the end of their last album, Millennials.
Perhaps that’s why when staring down a camera lens into lead singer Jack Cochrane’s rehearsal room, the mood feels somewhat different to what you’d expect from one of the fresh faced indie-rockers to break out from West Lothian in 2021. Alongside expanding the band’s musical style, the new single seems to reflect upon his current state — composed after taking some time to head home and hit the refresh button, no mean feat in an industry and a world where life can move all too quickly.
If anything, the break seems to have consolidated the band’s assurance in their musical direction, and Cochrane’s sense of lyrical direction with their most personal release yet. A taster of the album to come, brave enough to tackle heavy themes directly as he fronts taking The Snuts’ ever-evolving ruminations on the meaning of life and indie-rock from Scotland to anywhere.
JM: ‘Summer Rain’ feels like a left-heel turn compared to an older track like ‘Glasgow’. You’ve talked before as well about how the Snuts discography has been “people-based”, but are you also starting to shift away from being rooted to a location and into more universal experiences?
JC: We’re at a stage in our lives where you have to start working out who you are, because your career won’t define you. What you put out and the energy you put out is what defines you, I think. For us, being on the road can be quite difficult working out where you fit into everyday life. Emotionally you kind of have to come back and catch up. Maybe it’s a blessing and a curse but the level of success we’ve had hasn’t taken us away from who we are and where we’re from, so coming home to make this record has been a bit of a wake-up call for us to be like “wow things are happening and people are going through stuff and maybe I’m going through [stuff]”.
JM: Talking about going through stuff, the single covers post-natal depression which only came about for you relatively recently through fatherhood, but even lyrically, did you need the first few albums and a break to grow in the confidence required to directly tackle such a heavy subject?
JC: Yeah, it was always through experience, and I think all songwriters are always digging and it’s almost like trying to get to the end of the rainbow. There’s always a level of satisfaction in again, exploring your own journey, your own values, your own meaning. So this was just another trail on the yellow brick road because this is my way of understanding these things and dealing through them. I think noticing that over the last few records is you’re just digging and trying to get a wee bit closer to the bone and in doing so you do manage to connect more and maybe more intimately to different people, and you get to spread things a bit wider. I think being at home really, I’m quite big now on just writing what you love, I think that’s what I can offer as a songwriter so there’s been a lot of focus on that with this record.
JM: I was once talking with Brooke Combe about how most artists to emerge from Scotland come from Glasgow, and being from West Lothian – was this added pressure at the start that you’ve pushed past after taking a break and going home?
JC: That was like a driving force behind it, I think [when] we were young there was a bravado to [how] we were not from Glasgow and we won’t get that opportunity, so we need to carve that out ourselves and we need to kick the door down ourselves. I think that was the key to a rise for us as a band, we would never take no for an answer growing up and we were almost bitter, like aggressively bitter for opportunities that other bands were getting. Going back, I’d prefer to not be aggressively bitter!
It was what’s driven us, that chip on the shoulder was important growing up. But you need to make your piece with that. This [album] I don’t think is a reflective piece, it’s more of a very in the moment, very in motion, very “this is how I feel, this is where we are, this is how I’m living, this is exactly where I am”. That’s quite nice for us, for me as a writer that feels new. I think sometimes you can be exploring your feelings in hindsight a lot, and this time round I feel everything I’ve been writing has been exactly where I am. I think there’s a bit of comfort if you can write where you are, then tomorrow feels exciting.
JM: Is there an unreleased lyric that you’re particularly proud of?
JC: Oh. I’ll need to have a think about that, man. There’s one we just finished for the record and it’s probably the first thing I wrote down at the point where I didn’t even think it was going to be a record. I thought it was going to be a project, and I just wrote a thing down: “Joy in short moments”, maybe that could thematically become a thing. I’ve made at least 10, maybe 20, demos that are called that and I’ve tried to use that lyric, [but] nothing was working. We did a session [recently] trying to finish the record and wrote a new song and that fits in there rhythmically perfect.
I just love that idea because I’m big on taking in things that are happening that are good. There’s a lot of terrible stuff going on but honestly something joyful happens every day when you’re looking for it – I think across the record there is a real appreciation of the joy that is in our lives. We live quite normal lives, believe it or not! We love that [and] we find comfort in it. Joy in short moments.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. Special thanks to Warren from Chuff Media.
