SchnarffSchnarff return to their hometown on the 28th of February to play Mad Hatters.
On their website when asked about what Myles Bonnar, lead vocalist for the band did when not with SchnarfSchnarff he said “I pretty much just think about the band and what I need to do to expose ourselves…haha…”expose ourselves”. With a slight anxiety we caught up with Myles to talk about the band, their home town and what they have in common with Biffy Clyro.
The band were described as “this working man’s European rock outfit howls with the spirit of Springsteen and wails with the grit of Grohl”. However Myles, and the band, have obviously given pondered on how to describe the music; “We have so many diverse influences so cannot pin-point a specific muse. However, I would say our sound is alternative-punchy-rock-indie fuelled by cynicism, existentialism and our experiences on nights-out.”
On introducing one of the band’s tracks Jim Gellatly said “Every week there is at least one track that comes through that stops me in my tracks…this final tune (Urrrgh) certainly grabbed my throat”. However it is clear that the band are developing more efficient ways of analysing their own material ; “We spend a lot of time criticising our own music. We had a bad tendency to complete songs and draw a line under them but now we have developed to become a lot more judgmental and manipulate our music until we know we have extracted what we want from the early versions of a particular track.”
However that does not mean that all tracks are more considered “some songs just click and from the day we write them, cut them up, re-work the structure etc. etc. we, every now and again, return to the original version.” Myles concludes that there is room for both “Some songs we discuss in depth, record, analyse and change, when others just tighten and click, even if we try to design them.”
Myles echoed that sense of learning, and developing, when he discussed recording; “We were delighted with what we did in two days at LaChunky Towers (studio) in Glasgow because we achieved what we wanted: a representation of how we play the songs live and evidence of what else we need to do to make the songs better. We accepted that they were demos and were eager to put them under the knife again.”
The chance to revisit the material came when they started work with Electric Honey, who were involved in the early careers of Biffy Clyro, Snow Patrol, Belle & Sebastian(click to read an article about the studio’s history), ” [they] picked us up and we began our pre-production/ production with Ken McCluskey (Electric Honey Records) & Stuart MacLeod (producer of the like of The Dykeenies & Amy MacDonald, to name a few) which was an amazing experience.”
The resultant EP wil be released in Spring, Myles explained “we want to make sure we release the record in our home-town as well as Glasgow. Therefore, we are planning playing the Easter Showcase at the IronWorks on the 20th April and coupling our release with that great event. There are irons in the fire for a release in Glasgow on the 19th April also but we will most likely be officially unleashing the EP at the Electric Honey Showcase at a later date”.
SchnarffSchnarff have a long history together, Myles explains; “All of us have been close mates for years. We mainly met in school, with myself , Brian and Richard, being in the same year at Millburn. Jamie is Richard’s older brother and we met Andrew (a.k.a Turtle) through Jamie and Richard’s cousin, Stuart MacKay (lead singer/ guitarist from the Australian band Nevsky Prospekt).”
“Since meeting each other, we have been mates and several us formed a couple of bands while growing up in Inverness.” As is the way with many young bands life gets in the way or “university, work & moving away” resulted in “putting making music on-hold”.
“Eventually they decided to form a new band and make a real push to make music we love. Richard, Jamie, Brian and Turtle started jamming in Glasgow & Inverness as Bi-Polar Bear (as they were called at the time) and I joined them to form SchnarffSchnarff in late 2012.”
The band make no attempt to hide their Inverness heritage, indeed it is clearly something that they hold onto very proudly, Myles explains; “Inverness is a massive part of us. We are all from Inverness, many of our family & friends live there and that’s where our love for music began.”
Myles is also very complementary of the local scene ,” We are, also, lucky the Highlands has a great scene and we have the platform to travel home, see our family/ friends and play in front of people who appreciate music. Inverness acts as a Highland hub for music and we hope we are considered a part of its ever-growing scene. We will continue to emphasize our Highland roots.”
Their last visit to their home town was in November, and Myles was understandably enthusiatic about the night “We loved that gig. We desperately wanted to play Inverness and when the opportunity arose we jumped at the chance. The venue was packed, the reaction was amazing and we got some beer money so a perfect gig, I would say. We just had to play there again and, thanks to the organisers, we secured the opening date for our wee Highlands-Edinburgh-Glasgow trek at Madhatters. Hopefully, we will be playing to a busy crowd and it’s a Friday….happy days!”
The trek that Myles refers to is a Mini-Tour (Madhatters, Cabaret Voltaire & then King Tuts, supporting SKATERS and DROWNERS). After that there is one thing on their min, Festivals.“Our main focus is to start playing festivals! We are making a real push to play as many festivals in the summer (T in the Park, Belladrum, Wickerman, etc. being a selection of our Scottish targets) and hopefully we will achieve this goal.”
Without any indecent behaviour we end the interview, safe in the knowledge that they will gain all the right kind of “exposure” in the future.
