West Lothian four-piece, The Snuts, have made seismic waves in the UK’s music scene over the last fews years. Emerging from the Scottish circuit and bursting into the mainstream, their ascent has been swift and assured.
Even as the industry found itself strangled by the grip of the Covid-19 pandemic, they still found ways to spread their vintage rock sound. The band released an incredibly well-received EP prior to the first lockdown, and managed to maintain this momentum as the world spiralled into chaos, soundtracking Strongbow’s summer advert with their cover of The Lovin’ Spoonful’s ‘Summer in the City’, and providing their soulful single ‘That’s All It Is’ to FIFA 21. And another thing – they have announced a huge UK tour scheduled for 2021.
The Scots even managed to spend plenty of time on a tour bus, despite live music being absent for most of the year.
Bassist Callum Wilson explained: “We’ve been gigging properly in the band for four or five years now, and last year was the first year we could afford a tour bus.
“You have to pay in advance and we’d just paid for the tour bus when the pandemic hit, so we were in credit to this tour bus company.
“So basically, we’ve been taking the tour bus to anything we’ve been doing. We’ve got two days of it left and we’ve been considering using it for a party, parking in a car park and having a wild one for a couple of days.”
With their schedules being slightly less hectic, the band spent the bulk of 2020 working on their debut album which will hit the shelves (or websites) this March. Titled ‘W.L.’, it documents the past years of the band’s work.
“The album is a collection of songs that span from us being 16/17 then right up,” Callum said. “The most current one on it was finished four months ago. For me, I’m just really excited to get the new ones out that people haven’t heard, because we’ve released quite a few singles already. It’s only really your core fanbase that have heard those, so you want to get them out to the wider world as well.”
It will feature a blend of tracks old and new, and it is the prospect of giving light to the new ones that excites Callum.
He said: “The first song on the album is fucking amazing. The first verse was written when we were 16 or 17, but Jack (Cochrane, the band’s frontman) could never finish it. We finished it in the first lockdown.
“There’s another song, ‘Somebody Loves You’, which is more of a poppy venture for us, but I’m really excited to get that out to show the world we’re not just a one trick pony, and that we’ve got more in our arsenal.”
Although The Snuts’ camp is brimming with excitement over the upcoming release, the band are still yearning for the chance to perform live again.
“You don’t realise how social people are until it’s been fully stripped from them, we’ve not had the chance to be with each other and at gigs, there’s a certain sense of togetherness that I don’t think you get anywhere else in the world,” Callum said, “There’s no other place in the world where you get 1,300 people sweating their fucking tits off, throwing piss and loving every single minute of it.”
Their 2021 tour will take them across the length and breadth of the UK, but Callum admitted that the North of England holds a special place in the band’s heart.
He explained: “Genuinely, in the north in England, the reception is second to none every time. The only people that they can be rivalled by is the Scots, but I am a bit biased there.
“It’s a different world when you go down south, they’re much more reserved. I think it’s because the North and Scotland have a working-class musical heritage. Sheffield have obviously had bands like the Arctic Monkeys, Milburn, Pulp, Reverend and the Makers – proper working-class bands.
“When you are a working-class band, it’s like they can smell it on you, and they give you so much energy. It’s hard to pick between northern cities because they all just go off every time.”
The Snuts’ four members come from mining villages, and Callum believes that politics has played a part in developing a connection between the band and certain English tour stop-offs.
“It’s different cultures, a lot of the towns up North are industrial towns and we’re all from mining villages. When political parties were making cuts, we all saw it from the same side, seeing a parliament which was down South and how detached they were from people. We shared that experience and the aftermath of that, so it’s very similar.”
The wait for an album has been agonising for the band’s fans, but the eagerly anticipated release date of March 19 is now creeping closer.
Callum said: ““We’ve certainly taken our time, but we’ve finally got there. We’ve had the bones of an album since we were 18, but we’ve chopped and changed it so many times.
“We now finally feel like this is The Snuts in its purest form.”
The Snuts’ debut album, ‘W.L.’, is set to be released on March 19.
