Ahead of their gig at Tooth & Claw in March, Myles Bonnar of Schnarff Schnarff chats to Chris Lemon of IGigs.
It’s hard to ignore the Inverness exiles who have certainly done good since their move down south to Glasgow town. With a stomping debut album, a bucket full of high profile gigs and a live show that truly deserves a ‘high octane’ description, Schnarff Schnarff return home as part of a series of Highland gigs in March. Lead singer Myles Bonnar took some time out to answer a few questions for us.
IGigs – The band’s personal interest on your Facebook page is “Global Domination”, how’s that doing for you?
Myles – It’s good to aim high and we still 100% believe in the music we write. It’s going great….we are continuing to write new tunes that we love and our confidence in what we produce keeps growing. The music gets better as more gigs come in….it’s a good place to be.
IGigs – ‘The Evil That We Do…’ has been out for long enough now for the band to digest both the process and the feedback from the album, looking back what do you take from your debut release?
Myles – We are still so proud of it and stand by the process. Working on those tracks over a long period of time, the months of pre-production and then the incredible experience of working with the forever wise Paul Savage is something we have no regrets about. We still sit and read through the lyric book and play the album with smiles on our faces.
Even if we had an unlimited budget, which is something every band would want added to their process, I don’t think it would change how much we put in and got out of this record, personally. It signifies a time in our life when we moved to darker music and content.
In regards to feedback, it is mainly been very positive, with the probably most critical being very complimentary of 70% of the tracks and mainly just not liking the band name…but it’s a bit late for that criticism. Judge the music, not the band. We had a range of great reviews, including Rocksound magazine, TeamRock etc. but we welcome the sometimes critical ones too. It is music and should connect differently to everyone. There are albums we love that have tracks that just don’t connect with you in amongst a beast track-listing…it’s music.
The process began with making the record like how we sound live! We did that and it has made a better record plus made us a better live band.
IGigs – One of the comments that you have consulted Facebook on, is that of your name (a reviewer commented ; ‘It’s not the best name and doesn’t represent their music, which is a shame because it could put people off even giving them a chance’). How do you feel about the name now?
Myles – Ha Ha – we ain’t changing it. No matter how daft the name is, judge the music…not the name. How many obscure band names are there out there and yet once you connect to the music you forget the meaning of the words. Then again, we like comments that spark a conversation and we welcomed that reviewer’s comments.
If you don’t like the name, you don’t like the name. However, we have had more good come from that name, than negative. On several occasions DJs have mused over the name and repeated it over and over on-air. If that is not good publicity I don’t know what is. Huw Stephens, Steve Lamacq, Edith Bowman and Nicola Meighan all repeated it over and over for their own amusement. It ain’t changing.
IGigs – You have a three song set, to impress. Which of your songs would you pick and how did you come to that decision?
Myles – Whictey, This Is How We Get Some & Urrrgh – the reason….the strange, the catchy and a “classic” in our eyes. Whictey has some many changes and ups and downs so that makes it for the diversity and unpredictability of the song. TIHWGS is just a banger from start to finish. And, Urrrgh means so much to us and is the song that gets people chanting. That’s our combo.
IGigs – You have described the Schnarff Schnarff live show as having “Aggressive, energetic, intensiveness!” how much goes into a gig, or is it about being in the moment?
Myles – We practice all the time. It is constant so we work hard to be so tight that we can let loose when playing live. We have our own place so we are in the lockup most nights….we keep it tame in the room, saving the emotions and aggressiveness for the gig nights.
IGigs – Do you think for the band it’s a case of more of the same this year, or is there a different drive and impetus for the band in 2017?
Myles – Different drive. We have a body of work that puts us a step above so we will be playing every chance we get so people get to hear what we love in our record, blasted through amps and monitors from gig to gig. We have the material now, this year is about showing off what we can do live and releasing more material….VERY SOON!
Schnarff Schnarff plays Tooth & Claw, Inverness on the 24 th of March
TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE.
Other currently announced dates include;
ABC 2 – POGUES Shot at Discovery *** 09/03
MrC’s Thurso *** 11/03
Tooth & Claw – INV *** 24/03
Blackstairs, Wick *** 25/03
Mashhouse Edinburgh *** 30/04
Drouthy Cobbler, Elgin *** 19/05
Evanton SSEC (mountain bike champs) *** 27/05
