SNFU: 30 years on
Canadian punk rockers celebrate landmark album with live dates
In December of 1984, five young punks from Edmonton set out to record their first album in Los Angeles. SNFU’s landmark debut ... And No One Else Wanted To Play on BYO Records, was released in 1985. The skatepunk album is a warped blast of breakneck guitars and black humour.
Chi Pig sings and screams about breakdowns, ( Broken Toy), suicide ( Loser At Life/ Loser at Death), death ( The Grave Digger, Bodies in the Wall), and the objectification of women ( She’s Not On the Menu).
SNFU eventually relocated to Vancouver, broke up, reformed, etc. One by one, the band members — bassist Jimmy Schmitz, drummer Evan C. Jones and guitarists Brent and Marc Belke — went their own way.
Yet, the album stands up as one of Canada’s best. In 2000, it was ranked No. 56 on Chart magazine’s list of 100 greatest Canadian albums. ... And No One Else Wanted To Play is now marking its 30th anniversary.
Pig, with his latest version of SNFU, is celebrating the milestone with dates across Canada and Australia. A tribute to the album is also in the works. We talked to Pig, Schmitz and his replacement on bass, Dave Bacon.
IN THE BEGINNING
Schmitz: “We had played with Youth Brigade. Mark and Shawn ( Stern) of Youth Brigade were the owners of BYO Records. We played a show with them in Calgary, and they liked us and invited
THE TUNES
Pig: “I wrote some of those songs when I was 18 and we recorded that album when I was 22. Broken Toy was one of the first I wrote.”
STUDIO BLITZ
Schmitz: “We recorded in a studio called Track Record on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. We were there from 7 a. m. to 7 p. m.
Pig: “We recorded ( the album) in 10 days. Monday to Friday, we recorded. Saturday and Sunday, we’d play two shows, come back and do five more days of recording, then two more shows, and that was it.
COVER CONTROVERSY
Pig: “We waited so long for this opportunity to finally have a record out and I wanted to call the record Vinyl- ally. Then I saw a ( Diane Arbus) photo of the little kid with the hand grenade and I’m like, ‘ That’s a broken toy, right there.’”
us to Winnipeg to record a song for their compilation, Something To Believe In. “So we went, recorded our song ( Victims of the Womanizer), and based on the feedback they got when the album was released, they wanted SNFU to record an album.”
Schmitz: “We thought we’d also use the photo as our album cover. A few months after the release, we got told by BYO Records that they had been contacted by lawyers to stop using it ( due to copyright infringement). So that’s when we changed it. We had a friend draw the second cover.”
THIS ISN’T THE END
Bacon: “I think (... And No One Else Wanted To Play) is a great legacy ... SNFU were always so close in taking it to the next level, but they could never quite get there. They influenced so many people, so many bands along the way.”
Pig: “We made a connection.”