Up what all about
BY RICK FULTON
The Snuts’ new single Coffee & Cigarettes is out today. Their Mixtape EP, which includes Fatboy Slim, will be released on March 13. They play Corn Exchange, Edinburgh on May 9.
Oasis, Libertines, Arctic Monkeys, your favourite song has already been written – so we are always in the studio trying to challenge ourselves. We wanted to give a feel of that Fatboy energy. Hopefully he hears it and likes it. The song references Oasis, Knebworth and the Rolling Stones. Are they inspirations? They made live music inclusive, huge and full of energy. A lot of gigs by guitar bands I go to now have a real lack of atmosphere, vibe or energy. It’s just people who are doing well, playing their songs and the crowd are just listening.
There should be so much more to what a live concert should be. People say guitar music is dying a death and it’s because of that. How did it feel to sell out the Corn Exchange in six seconds? I thought we were biting off more than we can chew. But it’s a testament to our fans. When we play Scotland, we want to make sure it’s an event and it’s worth coming to see. Do you remember your first gig at the Corn Exchange? Me and the bass player went to see Razorlight about 10 years ago. We were that young, my dad had to stand at the back of the hall. But when we saw that show we knew we wanted to play music.
Glasgow, Edinburgh and Fife have all been the centre of Scottish music – why’s it now West Lothian where you and your pal Lewis Capaldi are from? It’s always been easy to write off the Scots but there’s real ambition in the music scene. Everyone believes they can take it further.
Seeing Lewis do well is superinspiring for us and we get messages from young bands looking to support us.
It’s awesome what Lewis is doing. I texted him after the Grammys when Alicia Keys was singing his song, saying, “Your life is absolutely outrageous”. He came back, “Well, so is yours” and I was like, “Not quite on your level”. How are you feeling about playing at Gerry Cinnamon’s Hampden gig on July 18? It’s a real honour to be part of the occasion. For Scotland, it’s like Oasis at Knebworth. Tell us about new single Coffee & Cigarettes? It’s Bob Dylan meets hip-hop meets gospel choir. When we recorded it, we were like, ‘Is this too much?’ But it’s so hard for us and so hard for guitar bands to get to even the level we are at nowadays. Now we are here we are constantly pushing ourselves.