Third Man Records

Snõõper: Bringing Fun Back To Punk

| gimmiezine
Original photo: Pooneh Ghana. Handmade mixed media collage by B.

Gimmie love Nashville punk band, Snõõper! They’re bringing fun back to punk rock! Their debut full-length Super Snõõper is a heady adrenaline rush. The band breathing life and a freshness back into the genre with their highly entertaining, mighty, live shows that reach a level of sublimity, complete with puppets and props. Their videos are art works full of wonder and humour, made by vocalist Blair Tramel.

We first heard Snõõper when Billy Reily vocalist for RRC/3D & The Holograms sent us a couple of tracks a few years back from a band that he had discovered and really loved. So much so he put out their first seven inch release Music For Spies on his DIY Australian label, Computer Human Records. 

This week sees them in the country to kick off their first ever Australian tour with Gimmie favs Gee Tee. Gimmie caught up with Snõõper co-founders and all-round sweethearts, Blair, and Connor Cummins about a month ago to get an insight into their creative world.


We’re excited that you’re coming to Australia!

BLAIR TRAMEL: Us too! We’re so excited. We feel like we’re visiting friends there, even though we’ve actually never been there. It feels like we’re returning home in a way, because we had Billy and RRC stay over here recently. It’s going to be fun. 

CONNOR CUMMINS: Yeah, we’re really excited!

Billy put out your first seven inch on his label, Computer Human Records.

BT: Yeah. It was over COVID. We were like, sure, let’s do it. We were very thankful for him.

Yeah. I remember we first heard of Snõõper through Billy. He was like, “You have to check out this band, they’re amazing!”

BT: We played with them at Gonerfest recently, and then they played a really fun show with Gee Tee here in Nashville. It was awesome.

CC: Mikey and a bunch of other people all stayed at our house for a couple of days. It was really nice.

Lovely. What’s something that you took them to see or that you did together?

CC: Well, it’s funny because everyone was partying so much at Gonerfest, we just sat around and had pizza. We went for walks around the neighbourhood, but we didn’t really do too much.

BT: My memorable experience was when we took them to Kroger, which is a grocery store close to our house. Have you ever heard of Kroger? It’s a Southern specific general grocery store. They had so much fun there. They were like, “The carrots here are so weird!” because they’re pre-sliced. Everything was just so American at the grocery store and they were so weirded out. Ishka rode the electric shopping cart! They had so much fun, and everyone was like, “You guys are definitely not from here!” The cashiers loved them. 

Nice. It’s so awesome that you get to come here and do it all again with them.

CC: Yeah, we’re really excited.

I still can’t believe you’re coming, it’s so exciting. I never thought I’d get to see you play live.

BT: Yeah, it is great. I feel like RRC, Gee Tee, we’re all kind of part of the same scene, and that’s felt really nice because there’s not a tonne of bands close to us, that are making similar music. Australia just seems to have everything cool going on.

We do! That’s why we started doing Gimmie.

CC: Before I knew about a lot of the garage punk bands in Australia, I was a huge fan of Total Control, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Royal Headache and all those bands since I was younger. I’m really excited to come over and see everything.

BT: It seems like you guys have all the cool stuff, like all the bands, but then also there’s this really cool puppet group called, Snuff Puppets. They’re awesome. I think they’re in Melbourne. They make huge giant puppets. They did a lot of stuff over COVID, they made these big noses and ears and all kinds of cool stuff and they were all trapped in houses. It was really fun watching their videos; we reached out to them. We’re like huge nerdy fans of theirs. We’re like, ‘Please hang out with us. We want to see the puppets!’ That’ll be cool too.

I love that Snõõper use puppets live. It reminded me a little of Quintron and Miss Pussycat. I love how Miss Pussycat makes puppets and does shows.

BT: Totally. We are huge Quintron and Miss Pussycat fans. They played Gonerfest a couple of times and they’re in New Orleans, not too far away from us, so we get to see them often. 

New Orleans is really cool, they have tonnes of stuff like Mardi Gras and everything. But the parades and the puppets there, oh my gosh, it’s super cool! New Orleans is a unique place in that way.

What’s it like where you live?

CC: Kind of like the country, I guess. But we’re in the city. 

BT: We live in the city, but if you do go 15 minutes in any direction, not towards the city, you end up being in the country. A lot of farmland and stuff not too far from us.

CC: Nashville is like a big circle, we’re on the west side of the circle. If you go outside of the circle, which is not really that big, it’s just like hills and trees and stuff.

BT: It’s nice. The nature is so pretty, but politically, it’s a little bit crazy. In Tennessee, it’s the South, so it’s funny. You have the prettiest land, but then some of the meanest people living on the prettiest land, a lot of unhappy people. I feel like it can be pretty closed off.

CC: There’s a lot of good people, too.

BT: Yeah, totally. It’s a good place. I think there’s just a lot going on with abortion stuff here, gun rights, very extreme kind of politics. 

It’s really full on. Watching it unfold in the news from over here in Australia, seeing a lot of the stuff that’s happening in the US, things like a lot of books being banned that relate to identity, race, gender…

BT: Especially in Tennessee, that’s a very big thing in the South. But what’s cool about it is that Nashville itself is such a hub of diverse people, and so the community within Nashville is so strong because the surrounding areas can be a little bit..

CC: Yeah, Nashville, I would say, is very blue.

BT: Yeah, totally. So that’s great in a way, you know, when you live in a not so great place, but you have a great community of people.

CC: Yeah. There’s not really much of a punk scene, there’s a lot of young kids who are really excited, but they’re just not starting bands. Kind of unfortunate.

BT: People, I feel right now, want to move away from Tennessee because politics are so crazy here. The people that are staying and trying to really maintain the community, that’s really important right now.

Yeah. Do you think you guys will stay in Tennessee for now?

BT: Yeah. I’m from California originally. My parents moved out here not too long ago, and I’m very close with my mom, so we’ll be here for a while.

CC: I’m from middle Tennessee, so I’ve just been here forever. I would love to move away someday, but we have a pretty good thing going here.

BT: And it’s a small town in a way, everywhere you go you know each other, so that feels nice.

Yeah, that’s like what Brisbane and the Gold Coast is kind of like.. Sydney and Melbourne are a lot bigger and more spread out, but here where we are it’s really nice.

BT: That’s awesome. The only thing that I wish we had is a beach; we do not have a beach.

CC: It’s very hot and humid. Especially like today, it was a very thick heat. It’s nice, though.

BT: The bugs are really loud in Tennessee, there are certain things where it’s like, you know you’re in Tennessee when… 

CC: Yeah. We have chickens and stuff like that. 

BT: People seem to have all kinds of fun nature projects in Australia.

There’s so many cool things happening all the time. I’m glad that I get to be a part of it all. Connor, I know that you’ve played in about a million bands: Body Cam, Chainshot, Brothers, G.U.N., Pissbath, Safety Net, Sex Hotel, Vacant Future, Soft Option, and you’re Spodee Boy.

CC: Yeah, that’s true. Brothers and Vacant Future, those are like deep cuts. That’s cool that you know about them.

What inspired you to start making music?

CC: Growing up, I always liked fast, aggressive music, and would go to shows. I definitely always wanted to start. Where I’m from is like, 30 minutes from Nashville, it’s a college town, and they wouldn’t really be punk shows, but there would just be lots of house shows all the time. When I was 14 and 15, I would tell my parents I was going out and I would go to house shows. Everyone was really supportive of younger people going to shows. It was a really inspiring thing. I wanted to start my own band, and I wasn’t really good at an instrument, so that’s how Pissbath started. It was a noise punk band, and so I was learning how to play guitar, but I had a lot of distortion pedals, so I could hide it a little bit. After that band happened, I just kept trying to learn new instruments and then did Vacant Future on bass and Brothers on drums. After a while, after I learned a little bit on each instrument, that’s when I started doing Spodee Boy and putting them all together.

I’m so glad you have, because with Spodee Boy and Snõõper, I love that it combines so much stuff I love. It’s like there’s no rules with what you do.

CC: Thank you. Sometimes it’s hard because I feel like people can’t really relate, but I guess I don’t really mind because I’m just doing it for me. I like a lot of post-punk, and stuff like the Gun Club; that comes out a lot in the Spodee Boy stuff, which is really fun for me. Sometimes I feel like it’s not hardcore enough for really punk people and then it’s too, I don’t know, sometimes I feel like my friends don’t really understand, but I love it.

I’m so glad that you’ve done it. Even if your friends don’t understand.

CC: Snõõper is the most fun band I’ve ever been in, because it’s just me and Blair.

BT: Connor likes to record his own music, do all the instruments and do specific things, which I understand because I like to do my own visual stuff. I have no experience with music so he can really be creative in that way. I write the lyrics and do the vocals, but mostly I do that so that I have a place to show the puppets and the things that I make. We work really well together because we both really let each other do our own thing within the band, which is nice.

CC: Yeah. I guess what I was saying about Spodee Boy too, it’s not really about my friends minding too much, but sometimes it gets kind of lonely because it’s just you all the time. It’s great because you have complete creative control, and then sometimes in bands I’ve been in where it’s been too many people, there’s too much going on and people can’t make decisions and stuff. Just me and Blair has been the perfect balance because we live together and we’ve been together a long time. We can just be like, “Hey, what do you think of this idea?” And we’ll just be like, “Yeah, let’s do it!” Versus talking to five people about something.

BT: What’s important to him isn’t necessarily important to me. So he’s like, “I made this song.” I’m like, “That sounds awesome! I made this random puppet or prop or whatever…” so we combine them and it works out well.

I love that. Creative couples are my favourite. That’s like me and my husband. It’s just us two that do all the Gimmie stuff.

CC: Yeah. That’s awesome. It’s a beautiful zine. 

BT: So special.

CC: We had a small shop, just kind of like a distro for a little bit, and we carried Gimmie. They were great. They’re beautiful zines.

BT: We were very thrilled when you asked us for an interview. It felt like a big honour. When we were getting your zines in the shop, we were only open for a little bit, but people were like, “I have to get the new one!” whenever we’d post about getting it in. People were so excited.

Awww, that’s awesome to know that there’s people in Tennessee are reading Gimmie!

BT: Yeah, it’s great. I was going to say, one more thing that makes living together with someone that you’re in a creative thing with so cool is, we just leave everything out, it’s become part of our life having the props out and the music stuff out.

CC: We run a small label together too, called Electric Outlet, so there’s always stuff scattered everywhere around the house..

BT: Then you can just pick stuff up and make something, like, “Let’s make a video!” and it’s right in front of me. That feels nice.

Totally. That’s exactly what we do as well. Jhonny built me my own art space area because I was putting too much glitter over his area, because I use a lot of glitter in my art, the Gimmie collages I make.

CC: That’s awesome.

Yeah. I like using things that people often say is kids’ stuff. They say, “That’s not real art stuff.” I’m like, ‘Well, it is!’

CC: We’re big fans of that. We totally understand. Blair does so much papier-mâché and all kinds of crazy stuff.

BT: I love that stuff. I’m a teacher, so I work with young kids, and the way that they get excited about just stickers or whatever little thing, it’s amazing. So I’m really big into anything that’s fun, it’s awesome.

Totally. How did you guys first meet?

CC: We met when I was playing in Vacant Future, and the guitarist Blair was dating at the time, we have been friends for a really long time…

BT:  Yeah, it was really nice because me and this guy broke up and then Connor was just still my friend after, even though I had been dating one of his friends. And then we were friends first and he dated other people and I dated other people. Then one day we were like, wait, we always end up hanging out with each other, though. And then it just went from there. 

CC: Yeah, we’ve been dating for six years, but we’ve been friends for about nine. 

Just having someone that understands being creative is the best if you’re a creative. Because when you with someone that’s not, they just don’t get it.

CC: Yeah, we’ve talked about that a lot.

BT: It’s hard to even imagine, honestly, because everything for us feels so normal that sometimes I have to take a step back and be like, wow, this is totally not what the majority of people do in their relationships. But to us, we come home and we’re really deeply immersed in our projects that we have going on. It means so much to us, but to anyone else it doesn’t mean anything at all, probably. It’s funny and it’s a nice thing to have with someone. 

Snõõper originally started as a recording project? You didn’t think you’d ever do it live?

CC: We really weren’t sure. It was cool because Blair had been doing animations for a while and she’d done an animation for Spodee Boy and some other friends bands, and did a Liquids one. She was making animations during COVID and I just had the 8-track over here and we were like, “Okay, let’s just try…”

BT: I was trying to learn how to play drums, so I was like, “Play music with me, play music with me!” I never really took drums that seriously. It was like the fourth or fifth time I’ve been trying to learn. Then we were playing music more often together and I was making more videos and we were like, “Let’s just do a song.”

CC: It was good because it was also a break for me with recording. Before Snõõper, I used to be like, if I record it, I want it to sound almost identical live. I don’t want it to sound like a different band or be like worse or something. And so there was like a sense of when we started using the drum machine, I was like, I don’t know, we can never play this live. We’re never going to be able to bring the drum machine and do all this stuff. But then it was good because creatively, I started being like, well, let’s write whatever we want and let’s not worry about playing live, let’s just plan to never play live, then we don’t have limitations on the music.

BT: Totally. We could sound as crazy as we want if we never feel like we’re going to play it live.

CC: We got more and more excited about it. That’s kind of become what the LP [Super Snõõper] is. The way I look at it now is the seven inches are like our demos, because when we recorded them, we were like, wow, these are fast!, and now the way we play them live, it’s like double speed. Cam, our drummer rewrote all the drum machine parts and wrote them his way. So the LP to me feels like a totally different band from just me and Blair on the 8-track.

BT: As soon as we did start playing live, it was a whole different thing because obviously we had live members and everything. We were really nervous to play live at first. I remember the pandemic ending and feeling like now we have to. The pandemic went on for so long, and there was no live music for so long. It was three months, then four months, then a year, and then we kept getting crazier and crazier with the home recording stuff. We’re like, surely it’ll never end, and then it did and we’re like, oh, no.

CC: I remember when we started playing live, our set was like ten minutes because we were nervous to integrate the drum machine songs. I remember being in the practice space and starting to sweat and being like, “Oh, yeah, you just got to play like this.” And they were like, “What do you mean?” And we were kind of all stressed out. Now it’s a breeze. Now we know how to write with everything and it’s great. But I remember at the start of the band, when we were prepping for our first show, we were just like, I don’t know if this is going to sound.

BT: We would record it and be like, ‘We only have eleven minutes worth of music!’ It worked out, ultimately. I’m glad we played live. 

CC: I would also see a lot of the bands, like American bands, that are kind of inspiring to Kel and Ishka, like The Coneheads and stuff like that. And sometimes, specifically the one time I saw the Coneheads, it didn’t sound like the recording and it really bummed me out. I was like, oh, people have this expectation for these 8-track artists and it sounds so good on recording and then you see it live and you’re disappointed. I was always really afraid with Snõõper. I was like, I don’t ever want people to be like, they can’t play that fast. We were really nervous. We were like, if it doesn’t represent the music correctly, then this is a total failure.

BT: Yeah, I remember feeling like a lot of those bands in that early scene. They seemed tired while they were playing their songs or a lot of the recordings were so fast and kind of sped up and then you’d see them and they didn’t have the energy. I remember feeling really stressed about that and coming out of COVID people were so excited to see live music again and everything felt really intense. I would go on runs and try to prepare and was like, we’re not going to be able to keep up!

CC: Yeah, we tried really hard. We would take big breaks from drinking and we would just practise all the time and we really wanted to be as fast live as we are on the recordings.

BT: We felt like we would look like posers if we didn’t because we built up hype a little bit too over COVID.. we were making videos, people were seeing our stuff, and then it was like, either we never play or we have to play really good. It was an interesting transition to playing live, for sure.

CC: The pressure was kind of on too. Well, not on, but it felt like we were coming up with kind of the post-Coneheads American punk scene. Prison Affair was starting. Kel had been doing Gee Tee since Spodee Boy days, but then you could kind of see the change where he started going in a specific direction and it was like Gee Tee, Prison Affair, Research Reactor Corp, Snõõper…  It felt like we were all in this scene together and we all had the same ideas. 

BT: Well, I think also a difference between the American style of this music and the Australian style that Gee Tee and all those bands are doing, is the American egg punk bands were really anti-social, in my opinion. It’s great, but it wasn’t super fun. But all the Australian bands that are doing this style, they’re fun, they party.

CC: Yeah, in America. I felt like, not to name specific names, but there are a couple of people who are doing home recordings who you would meet them in real life and you’d be like, ‘I’m so excited to meet you! You’re kind of like a hero to me.’ And they’d be like, “Oh, cool..”, and kind of like cool-guy you and they had to stay mysterious or something, it was a huge bummer. It was really not fun. It made everyone not really like each other. I feel like in the Australian scene everyone’s really good friends and even if they do their own recordings, like Ishka does Tee Vee Repairmann stuff, it’s still like a community. Here it’s very divided. Like, the Liquids person doesn’t really hang out with the Lumpy and the Dumpers person; Lumpy and the Dumpers person doesn’t really hang out with the Coneheads person. And everyone’s kind of jealous of each other. It’s a very strange thing.

BT: It’s just this thing of like, “I’m weirder than you..”

CC: “I’m weirdest and most anti-social.” It kind of sucks all the fun out of it.

BT: There’s also an element in America where it’s like, “Oh, you took your home recordings and then now people are listening to them? You’ve sold out!” And that’s such a funny thing. For us, we’ve always wanted to just have fun with it and there’s not much thought, and I think that’s the same with what we’ve seen in the Australian scene, it’s great. Everyone has been so welcoming and just down to have a good time together.

CC: I feel like I owe a lot of Snõõper to Billy (Research Reactor Corp) because in the past, any of my bands, I always thought you always do the band thing in a certain way; you do a demo tape, then you do maybe a second demo tape, and you get a seven inch record, then maybe in three years you put out an LP. But, we only had two songs recorded, and Billy was like, “I want to do a seven inch.” And I was like, ‘Wow, he wants to put out a seven inch! We don’t even have that many songs yet.’ It was really cool, and then it was like, ‘Alright, now we’re going to take this really seriously.’ He kind of kicked us into gear. The support from everyone in Sydney really kind of started the band because we didn’t really have much support at home.

BT: That’s why I felt, like I said earlier, it’s like we’re coming home in a way. I know that sounds so weird because we’ve never been to Australia, but everyone has been so nice to us. It’s been awesome. It’s like the origin of Snõõper.

CC: When we were discussing this summer, we were technically offered stuff in Europe first and some other places and we were just like, ‘No, we just want to go to hang out with our friends in Australia.’ That was the number one goal. We were like, ‘We can do all that other stuff later but this is what we need to do now.’

Yeah, I can’t wait to see your live shows! I see all online videos and it just looks like the most fun ever. You look at everyone, you’re having fun, the crowd is having fun.

BT: I always feel like if people are spending their time and money coming to a show, it should be a party.

CC: Growing up and playing in hardcore bands, Chainshot and stuff like that, I really love playing hardcore music, but Blair pointed out it’s not really fun for everyone else because it’s just so mean sometimes. I still think it’s really fun to play really fast and tight, but it’s cool to make it fun for everyone and not just aggressive and angry.

BT: Punk and hardcore sometimes, I like all of that because at least everyone’s really intense in some way. But sometimes I feel like if you put any effort into anything, like the outfits, having any thought goes along way. I feel like the littlest things can make a difference in a live show. It’s like magic to me. When I see people playing music, I’m like, wow! I’m blown away.

CC: Yeah. Blair really changed my whole perspective as a musician in Snõõper, I’d never really thought about having props or anything. At first I was like, ‘Oh, props… we’re a gimmick or something.’ Now I understand. I don’t think I could go back to doing a band that doesn’t have some kind of visual element. I love Kel from Gee Tee wears a mask, or having some kind of outfit, makes it better than just seeing four people be really good at their instruments. The props and visual elements have changed my perspective on performing.

I couldn’t imagine Snõõper without that visual element and all the other fun things like your videos. Every time I watch your videos there’s so much to look at, so much happening, you pick up different things every time you watch it.

CC: That’s awesome. We were looking at an old picture the other day, and we were wearing matching tracksuits, the guitarists do that now; we were looking at one of our first shows and we’re all in t-shirts and jeans. We were like, ‘This seems like a different band.’

BT: ‘This seems wrong! How did we ever play like this?’ [laughs].

CC: It’s been happening for about six months, we kind of accidentally started doing choreography. We would be at practice and one person would kick at a certain time and then everyone else in the band would be like, ‘We’ll do that.’ Then we kept working on it and someone would turn to the left at a certain time. And then we’re like, ‘Oh, let’s all do that.’ Now we’ve got stage moves! [laughs].

Previously you’ve mentioned how you just do whatever you want to do and people have no expectations of you. Now that you’ve signed to Third Man Records for your debut record Super Snõõper that’s coming out soon, and it seems like lots of people are finding out about you; how does it feel that people do care now?

CC: It’s strange. It doesn’t feel really that different yet because when we signed with Third Man, we basically were like, we’re going to be really controlling still about everything. We changed all the art to exactly how we want it. We involved all of our friends from before. Like Ian Teeple, who did the second seven inch cover; he made the insert. Our friends from New York, who do a lot of posters for us, made the inner labels. We had to include everyone that’s been a part of this.

BT: What we care about now is keeping our original vibe the same.

CC: We don’t want it to seem like anything has changed, because nothing has.

BT: I do think it’s gotten more overwhelming. There’s a lot more emails, which is so hard for me personally, but Connor does a great job with all of that. Navigating this new element has been stressful because we really did go into this without any thought at all. So this was never something that we were like, we really want this and we’re prepared for, but it’s been great and we’ve been learning a lot. Connor does most of the booking, he’s basically the manager of the band, which he never wanted to do going into it.

CC: Yeah, I think we really won’t relinquish control because if we ever do, then the band is kind of over. It’s our baby that we made.

BT: My mind is completely not thinking about what people are expecting of us, I’m just more focused on getting things done.

CC: A lot of our friends work at Third Man Records, so it doesn’t feel like there’s any pressure. They all know us, and they know we’re going to do it exactly how we want to, for better or worse.

BT: But Third Man has been so helpful. We have all of the props around everywhere. Let me see if you can see this big phone [pans camera to giant papier-mâché phone in their living room] it’s all gotten bigger and crazier. Third Man has really helped us out because we were having to rent vans and stuff to go to even just local shows. They’ve lent us their van to go to a show. It’s been great.

The craziest part of all of this is that we are here making these crazy puppets and stuff, literally just for fun, and now people are giving us money to help us out with like, ‘Oh, you want a music video?’

How did you first become interested in puppets?

BT: I’ve been doing papier-mâché for a really long time and I used to just make random stuff. Actually, I would make a lot of masks, they would fit on your head, just have a hole on the top, it’s just hollow. I would think it was funny to put them on and take pictures around the house. My friends would come over and we just thought it was so funny. I was doing that for a long time. I really like Bread and Puppet Theatre; they’re a lot like Snuff Puppets. They make these huge puppets. We were looking at a video of theirs online one day and I was like, ‘Wait, I could just make a puppet backpack.’  So now it’s like this big PVC pipe thing and the heads fit on top of that and you wear it like a backpack and it has a big long pole. They’re really tall and you can move around in them.

CC: I was trying to think of how we got to the puppets. I guess one of the first things was actually the video game. [Turns to giant papier-mâché arcade machine sitting behind them].

BT: That was the first prop. We have a papier-mâché weight. It was really funny because the weight was the first thing that we used and people were so responsive. When I would bring out the weight on stage, people were like [does funny actions] and it was just fun. We started wanting more moments like that with the audience.

CC: I used to get in trouble at the beginning of the band because people would be so excited that I would throw the weight out in the crowd and they would go crazy, but then it would just get destroyed.

BT: ..and I’d be like, ‘No, I have to make another one!’

CC: They would tear it apart in like two seconds. 

Is that the same weight that’s in the ‘Fitness’ video clip?

BT: Yeah. I’ve probably made 30 of them now…

Wow!

BT: Someone would get excited and throw it off the stage or someone would grab it, and it was always chaos. Now I’m a little bit more protective over it, and I place it behind the drums when I’m done with it. Everything is so delicate because it’s all just papier-mâché.  In the back of the van, it’s just me constantly being like, ‘Oh, no, what was that?!?’ And then having to get out the hot glue gun or make repairs on the way.

CC: That’s a funny thing that’s kind of been brought up recently, the guitarists all have our pedal bags and stuff, and then Blair now has this big bag that has duct tape, glue gun, paint, all this stuff; that’s her pedal bag [laughs].

BT: Everything is very lightweight. People will come pick up the props, like these big guys, and then they’re like, “Wow, it’s really light.” And I’m like, ‘It is, it’s all paper!’

What’s the story behind the cover image on Super Snõõper?

CC: That image is from outside of a venue here called, Soft Junk. That’s an art space that’s really cool. That’s where we do all of our shows; the sound is good and it’s DIY.

BT: It’s the best space!

CC: Everybody can bring their own beer. It’s a really cool venue. You’ve maybe seen it in pictures; it’s got two stories. It’s really fun. There’s giant hands in the background. There’s a picture of us playing live, well it’s not actually of any of us, but it’s a picture of The Bug, and he’s in the crowd.

BT: We love that picture so much!

CC: We thought that picture was so cool. We were like, we should recreate this for the album…

BT: But with everyone in tracksuits, because we had been wearing tracksuits for a while at that point. We got there and then we started doing all the shots in the exact way we had envisioned them and immediately we were like, ‘Oh no, this looks like a cult photo or something.’ It got real spooky real fast. The photographer was so sweet. She’s like, “Everybody hold hands around The Bug.” She’d be like, “Put the hoods up. Put your hands down.” We were like, ‘This looks so weird.’ So we kind of tried to loosen up and go outside for a couple of shots.

CC: Everyone was taking a break and the photographer was like, “Hey, let’s just try some out here.” It just looked cooler.

BT: You should have seen the first ones, it was cult Bug worship [laughs].

Figure by Miguel Gomez.

All the songs on Super Snõõper are from other releases except for all the ‘Stretching’ kind of sample interludes…

BT: Yeah. The way we do the live set now is that we don’t stop in between songs, but we have to tune, so we started making samples that go in between the songs to give us 30 seconds to tune our guitars, take a sip of our beer and then  get ready for the next song. All the ‘Stretching’ parts are samples that we’ve made at home.

Do you have a favourite sample you’ve used? 

CC: The second one. I actually don’t know the song we took it from, but it’s an old country song. The lyrics are: all the roads lead back to Nashville. It’s really funny because sometimes I think people don’t really know where we’re from, they think we’re from LA or something [laughs]. No, we’re actually from Nashville. People are always really surprised. I like to keep the hometown pride going.

There’s also the Suburban Lawns cover you do!

CC: Yeah. All the other songs are from the seven inches except for the cover of ‘Unable’ by Suburban Lawns. The set is laid out in a specific way where all the songs should flow. There’s the intro sample, then there’s ‘Bed Bugs’ which goes into ‘Pod’ which goes into ‘Fitness’. Then there’s the break and it’s kind of like mini sets. The first three songs should all be listened to kind of back-to-back. The middle four songs should all be listened to back-to-back. Live, it all flows.

BT: We’ve put a lot of thought into our live set, which is what the layout or the track listing on the record reflects, how we play it live. It’s very specific because we want to keep our stamina and energy up and we’ve calculated what’s feasible in this first set.

CC: It’s almost more of a theatrical play or performance. We can’t really switch up the songs. When people come to multiple Snõõper shows, it’s usually like the same set. We might switch the first and middle song, but the set has to flow the right way to give you the full experience of how it’s supposed to be.

You re-recorded the songs for the album?

CC: Yes. On all the seven inches, it’s me on all the instruments and Blair singing and doing some of the samples. On the LP is the full band. Our bassist Happy and our drummer Cam, have added little parts and stuff…

BT: The songs are faster and have more energy because we feel more confident playing them now. I personally have had such a hard time listening to this record. There was a night where Connor and I came home, we put it off for a really long time listening to it, and we would send it to the rest of the band and be like, what do you guys think? And let them make edits. It’s kind of embarrassing to say, but it was so hard for us because it sounds so different than the way we first recorded them. We put off listening to it forever, and the rest of the band would be like, “Have you guys listened to the record?” And we just wouldn’t text back. So we had to listen and we didn’t even make it through the whole thing. As soon as it sounded a little bit funny to us, we were like, oh, we can’t do it.

CC: The demos were hastily recorded, I would record the song and then Blair would be like, I’m stoked, I’m going to do vocals right now. She would do vocals and then we would just upload it and not mix it or master it. We would rush it so fast because we were just so excited, and now….

BT: …now we’re thinking about it! So back to your question earlier, now we’re thinking about things and it’s just so hard. When we were doing it the first time, we weren’t thinking about it at all and it sounded perfect to us because there was no thought or expectation. It was great. Listening to this record we’re like, I wonder if people are going to like it.

CC: These songs now on the LP are like how they should be. Sometimes when I listen to the demos, I still really love the way they sound, but I’ll be like, that was a terrible drum take. I was just excited. So I was like, I don’t want to redo it, I just want to move on to the next thing.

BT: I’m confident in the way that the new record sounds and confident enough to not really overthink it.

CC: We did the LP recording in four days. We didn’t spend too much time on it. We only did one day of overdubs and we were like, let’s just do it like we do live and not think about it too much.

Did you record it yourself?

CC: The entire band recorded it.

BT: At our friend’s studio.

CC: Erik Nervous came down and mic’ed everything and produced a little bit.

Nice. I’ve seen lots of people online call Snõõper, nerd punk. I also saw a person had commented: This band is about to blow the fuck up.

BT: [Laughs] That’s so funny. It’s really nice. The internet community has been so nice. I’m always looking at comments being like, are they going to say something mean? And then people say such nice stuff. I’m shocked that everyone’s been as nice as they have. The internet has gotten nicer lately. Something is up [laughs]. There was a time where people were being so mean on the internet, lately we’ve experienced everyone being pretty nice on there.

That’s because you’ve made something amazing! 

CC: Aw, thank you.

It sounds so cool. I had to get used to the album though, because I’m used to hearing the seven inches and then also seeing the live videos. The album seems more polished.

CC: It’s just because it wasn’t on the 8-track in our living room. I feel like in some ways it’s a little bit of a curse because we didn’t really mean for it to sound that lo-fi. I learn more about recording every time I record. We just put out the single ‘Waste’ right before the album and I was like, ‘Okay, only sounds like how I think the 8-track should sound.’

BT: We’re going to continue recording in the way that we always have, that’s the plan for Snõõper. Something we don’t want, is for people to listen to this and be like, ‘Oh, they’re doing something different now’—we’re not. The way we look at it is, this is for some people and then our 8-track or original recordings might be better, more geared for other people.

CC: We would show early recordings to people who didn’t get it and they would be like, “This sounds like shit recorded with your cell phone. This is terrible.” We were like, maybe we should make the record where it’s the same songs but just digestible for other people.

BT: There was a reddit thread that was so funny, our friend sent it to us and was like, ha ha; did you see this?

CC: It was like, “Would this band sound good if it didn’t sound like shit?” And they continued “It sounds like shit, but it works for them.” We were like, ‘Okay, that’s kind of a compliment, I guess.’

BT: We live pretty close to a music school called, Belmont. They do a lot of audio engineering. The thread on there was popping off. People were like, if it was really polished, it just wouldn’t be the same. 

CC: We were aware of that, that’s why we were nervous about the LP. It was actually really scary. We were like, ‘Are we going to alienate everyone?’ And they’re going to be like, “Oh, they did big production. It’s not good anymore.” The response has been so good that I don’t care anymore. It is what it is. Can’t do anything about it now.

I read another comment online and they said that you sound like Ween.

BT: That’s the highest compliment. I love Ween. And Connor loves Ween now, too. 

CC: We were listening to a lot of Ween when we made the second EP. Like ‘Fruit Fly’ is kind of a Ween song. And our covers that we do, I feel like, not ‘Unable’, but the ‘Come Together’ cover and ‘Bring Me Down’ are very Ween inspired.

Do you have a song on the LP that you really love?

BT: Let’s see, so ‘Fruit Fly’ is my favourite Snõõper song, but it’s not my favourite re-recorded song.

CC: I think ‘Powerball’ is my favourite off the album. I think it sounds way better in the demo. 

BT: I mean, ‘Pod’ now sounds like a real song to me. I like ‘Pod’. It was our first single, I’m going to go with ‘Pod’.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with me?

BT: I think we’ve covered everything. Thank you so much for listening to us. We’ll be meeting you soon! We’re so excited. 

Snõõper’s album Super Snõõper out now on Third Man Records. Follow @snooper_7. Find Snõõper on bandcamp. On tour in Australia now: GET tickets.

London Sistah Punks Big Joanie’s Stephanie Phillips: “I really love The Ronettes, it was quite a big inspiration for the band when we first started”

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Original photo: Liz Rose Ridley. Handmade Collage by B.

Big Joanie are a Black Feminist Sistah Punk band from London and one of the newest addition to the Kill Rock Stars label. To celebrate their signing they’re releasing a split 7-inch with on KRS with Charmpit and are working on a new album for release in 2021, following up their acclaimed 2018 record Sistahs. Gimmie’s editor interviewed guitarist-vocalist Stephanie Phillips for her book, Conversations with Punx – featuring in-depth interviews with individuals from bands Ramones, DEVO, X-Ray Spex, Blondie, The Distillers, The Bags, Bikini Kill, The Slits, Black Flag, Bad Brains, Fugazi, Crass, The Slits, Subhumans, Le Butcherettes, The Avengers, Night Birds, X, and more. Coming soon! Follow @gimmiegimmiegimmiezine for updates – we wanted to share some of the interview early here with you.

STEPHANIE PHILLIPS: I remember when I first found Poly Styrne, it was a really opening moment it was so weird to find out there was this Black girl doing all of this stuff in London in the ‘70s. Finding her when I was a teenager was really important for me.

Same! I had that same feeling all the way over here in Australia. You listen to the lyrics that she writes, she’s such an amazing writer and creative person.

SP: Yeah, yeah. I’ve spoken to her daughter [Celeste Bell] at Decolonise Fest. I really enjoy her work, it’s miles ahead of everyone else at that time.

Why is music important to you?

SP: It was always my first mode of expression, it always allowed me to connect emotionally with the world in a way that I couldn’t really get through other outlets. Music allowed me to envision an idea of myself that was based on the people that I really loved. I really loved Yeah Yeah Yeahs so I could imagine myself as Karen O, imagine myself having that kind of confidence. I loved The Distillers and wanted to be Brody Dalle. It was like living my dreams through these different frontwoman.

I think we all have wanted to be Brody Dalle!

SP: Yeah!

Did you grow up in a musical household? Did you always have music around?

SP: No, not really – my dad sometimes had some reggae CDs – it wasn’t really that musical. The only thing is that my brother could sometimes play the keyboard or play trumpet at school but he didn’t really pick those up. It’s really just the kind of thing that I was interested in and wanted to pursue on my own really, it was my own hobby. I would go through music magazines and look at new bands, find new CDs. Eventually I asked my mum to buy me a guitar for my sixteenth birthday and I started learning and playing Riot Grrrl songs on the guitar, that’s how I started.

When you found Riot Grrrl did that open up new stuff for you as well?

SP: Yeah, definitely because I guess that was my first introduction to feminism; that was my first introduction to using music as politics and enacting politics through your art. It was really important to have those kind of role models at that time because even though I was quite a shy teenager it was nice to have some place where I could find that outlet for expression and anger, everything like that. It reminded me that even though the world was a bit weird… growing up there was someone that thought like me somewhere in the world and there were other people that listened to the bands like me, it wasn’t that unusual at all.

What inspired you to start Big Joanie?

SP: When I started Big Joanie I was already in a feminist punk band. I was in the London punk scene but it felt very, very white at that time. There wasn’t really any conversation about race or racism or white privilege or anything around that. I was sick of being in punk spaces and having community there and then going to my Black Feminist meetings, different anti-racist meetings and having a community there but never having them meet up, never having them link up. A lot of what I’ve done over the years is working through finding community and creating community. I knew that there was no way that I was the only Black girl that liked punk, I thought there must be someone else. It was something that I wanted to do, to have a band that was of Black punks. I didn’t really envision how long it would last but I just wanted it to happen at some point.

When I saw an advert for “First Timers” on Facebook, which was a gig where everyone plays their first gig as a band and everyone has to be playing something different to what they’d usually play or playing a new instrument, it’s a great opportunity to start a new band. I put a shout out on social media and found our drummer Chardine [Taylor-Stone] and our original bassist Kiera [Coward-Deyell]. We got playing and we played First Timers and at that gig we got a second gig and we just keep going, that was in 2013, it was a long time ago.

First Timers sounds like a really cool thing. When you’re playing there, everyone is on the same level, like you said, everyone is starting a new band or playing a new instrument. It sounds like a really encouraging kind of space and concept.

SP: Yeah, that’s definitely the idea. They’re still doing them now. The idea is that the crowd is as welcoming for you as you would need them to be on your first gig. It’s trying to get more marginalized people to start bands and get involved in DIY culture. For our gig it was really welcoming and inclusive. People were ready to hear whatever you created because they knew you only just started a few months ago, it was meant to be quite haphazard and rickety, that was the whole point, you don’t really know what you’re going to hear. I still go to First Timers gigs when I can now, it’s always a really fun event and really heart-warming.

I wish we had one of those here.

SP: It’s one of those DIY punk things that someone starts it and then maybe someone will start its somewhere else, there’s no copyright on it.

Last week you were really busy; I’m assuming it was with Decolonise Fest that you do?

SP: Yeah, yeah. We’re part of the Decolonise Fest Collective. We had an online version of our annual festival last week, it was quite a new thing for us. We were busy trying to organise everything, get it all ready, because it was running for a whole week. It went really well and we really enjoyed working in this new format. It’s kind of weird to have a festival online, I guess that’s where we are today.

I imagine it would allow more people to participate in it as well?

SP: Yeah. It was more a global audience. People often have said they can’t always get to London or they’re in a different country but have heard about us but they’ve never been able to get to the UK. Having it online has shown a lot more people that Decolonise Fest exists and shown them what we’re doing.

For people that might not know what Decolonise Fest is; how would you describe it to them?

SP: Decolonise Fest is an annual festival based in London, England and it’s created by and for punks of colour. It’s a festival that’s created to recognise the history of punks of colour, recognise the input that we have made into the genre and to celebrate the punk bands that are around now so we can hopefully inspire more people to create punk bands of tomorrow.

That’s such a great idea. It makes me want to go out and do those kinds of things here in Australia, it would be amazing to have more of that kind of community here. So many times I’d go to a punk show and I’d be the only person of colour there and people would say things like, “It’s so good to have a Black punk or a Brown punk here” meaning me and I’d just be like, what?!

SP: That’s a weird thing to say. The good thing about Decolonise Fest is that we can create a community for punks of colour so you can talk about those weird interactions and create your own space. We want to create the idea that people can set up their own Decolonise Fest, hopefully take our idea and make it their own. Hopefully there could be a Decolonise Fest in Australia and different countries around the world.

I know there must have been many great ideas talked about and experiences shared at this year’s fest; was there anything that stuck with you or something important you learnt from the week?

SP: That people are really open to finding ways to connect and create community. I was worried that having things online would feel too impersonal but it felt like people really wanted to find different ways to chat and connect, and talk in the chat boxes when we stream video on Twitch, be able to start conversations in that way. It’s reaffirmed that what we are doing could create a support network and community for different people.

I wanted to talk about Big Joanie’s songs, your songs; I’ve noticed lyrically a lot of them seemed to talk about love, relationships and the human experience.

SP: Yeah, yeah, I guess so [laughs].

When you write; what’s your process?

SP: It depends, it’s everything in every way. You can start with a guitar riff and then try to find a melody for it and try to mouth words and see what fits. Sometimes I keep lyrics in my phone and sometimes I write them before I write the melody or have the guitar line. It happens in every way possible.

What is writing songs for you?

SP: It’s about the process of writing. I really enjoying not knowing what’s going to happening and surprising yourself—that’s one of the most important things. I don’t set out to write about a particular theme or an idea, you play and see what comes to your mind and circle around the idea and keep going deeper and deeper—you create a stream of consciousness piece of art in a song format.

Do you have any other creative outlets?

SP: No, not really [laughs].

I really love your song ‘How Could You Love Me’ it has a very Ronettes-feeling to it.

SP: Yeah, I was feeling very Ronettes-y.

I love your Ronettes poster on the wall that I can see. It’s the best. They’re the best!

SP: Yeah. I really love The Ronettes, it was quite a big inspiration for the band when we first started, of just really loving those Girl Group harmonies and that feeling and sensation that comes from that era. I guess it’s really hard to recreate because it’s the sensation of people being young and not having any cares really. It so invigorating and interesting, I always want to listen to it and hear what’s going on.

Same! I really love Sister Rosetta Tharpe too! I think people forget or might not even know that she was a pioneer and started playing electric guitar and rock n roll before rock n roll.

SP: Yeah, yeah, exactly! She’s such an interesting guitarist, she kicked that all off. People don’t always know the real history of rock and what was actually involved and going on, they think Elvis [Presley] just did something and the Beatles did something and that’s it.

[Laughter] Yeah! That’s why it’s important to have conversations about these people and to look into history. As well as making music you also do music journalism and interview people.

SP: Yeah. I’m a trained journalist, I started off in journalism first, I’ve been working as a journalist for over a decade.

What attracted you to journalism? Was it telling stories?

SP: I guess, yeah. Telling stories and having the ability to create a narrative is very important and interesting to me. Being able to communicate is really interesting, that’s why I centred a lot of things around writing in that way. I wanted to write music journalism because I was interested in music. I wanted to be involved in it in every way, that’s why I’ve done everything [laughs].

I know that feeling. I first had the feeling when I was a teenager and there were so many great bands in my area and all the music papers and magazines weren’t covering them and I got a zine from a friend and had the realisation I can do this! I went straight to my bedroom, started listening to music and started to write my own zine. From there it keep going and I haven’t stopped.

SP: That’s amazing! I haven’t made my own zine yet but I love the idea of zine culture, creating your own platform, surpassing the usual kind of press and publishing industry, it’s really interesting.

The way that the music magazine/publishing industry works, I hate it! I don’t really care for the music industry either. I like existing on the outside of that. I find things to be the most exciting not in there but on the fringes where people can totally just express themselves without censorship or compromise—creating your own community is far more exciting to me.

SP: Yeah, definitely. That’s where things start. There’s so much going on… I think about the scenes that I’ve been involved in in the UK, they’re hardly ever reported about but there’s just so much interesting music being created here, there’s so much interning music being created in what feels like predominately female and queer punk scene as well. If you looked at the average music press or what is being reported as the “band of the moment” you would think its all CIS straight white guys. That isn’t whose making the most forward-thinking music today… it’s not white men [laughs].

I’d love to read a zine made by you and hear all about what’s happening where you are.

SP: It’s a really interesting music industry here and there’s a lot going on. There’s so many different scenes even though it’s a small island, there’s so many different scenes in London; there’s multiple punk scenes that never actually intercept and never really know about each other. It’s hard to cover it all I feel.

What’s Sistah Punk mean to you?

SP: It was a phrase that we came up with to describe ourselves with for our first gig. They asked us what we wanted to describe ourselves as and we said, Black Feminist Sistah Punk, just because it’s a very literal description; we’re Black punk woman, we’re into punk. It can also be something that people can use to find other Black woman that are into punk and other Black Feminist punks. There weren’t too many women in punk bands in London at that time, we felt like we needed to specifically say that we are Black Feminists because it was important to us and we thought it would be to other people.

It’s still something important to you all these years later?

SP: Yeah. It’s still literal because we’re still Black woman and Black Feminists. It’s still important to declare who you are and who your identity in a world where being a Black woman and being a black Feminist and having an opinion is still not the done thing [laughs]. It’s still important, it’s still punk to be Black and female and opinionated!

Whenever I read interviews with Big Joanie you always get asked about feminism and race; do you ever get tired of speaking about these subjects?

SP: It all depends on the context of the interview. It could be from the context of someone not knowing about feminism and race and just wanting to ask the generic; what’s it like to be a woman in music? What’s it like to be a Black woman in music? That’s not really very interesting because the question is aimed at a white male audience in its nature; it’s trying to open up what’s it like to be a Black woman for people that aren’t Black woman. Is it’s discussing the inherent nature as who we are as individuals and why it’s important for us to talk about ourselves in the way that we talk about ourselves then I don’t mind. It’s about us taking the reins of the conversation and taking control, explicitly stating, what we do and why we do it.

You have a new release out ‘Cranes In the Sky’ a Solange song that’s on Third Man Records and I know as a young person you really loved The White Stripes; how did it feel for you to put out something on Jack White’s label?

SP: I really loved The White Stripes when I was younger, I guess everyone did! I can’t remember what the first record I had was, maybe it was Elephant. The last two years of Big Joanie has been a lot of strange happenings every day, bumping into people that you just read about in magazines and having to be normal people around them because you have to do a job [laughs]. We just bumped into Thurston [Moore] and Eva [Prinz], it was like, oh that’s Thurston from Sonic Youth [laughs] he looks like Thurston, in real life! …which is very strange, I can’t remember the first time I heard Sonic Youth because they were an omnipresent force around all the bands that I liked and listened to, people wrote songs about him. It was weird to imagine that he was a real person.

With Third Man it’s a strange connection between what raised you and what brought you up into the musician that you are today and circling back and meeting those heroes. It’s a really strange experience but we’re really happy that Third Man are interested in putting us out, that they liked the single!

It sounds so amazing! Why did you decide to do the Solange song?

SP: I don’t know if we ever discussed why we’d do it, we all automatically decided to do it one day [laughs]. It was a song that we we’re all listening to and that we loved, everyone we knew was listening to it and connected so deeply to it as an album, because it spoke specifically to the female experience. We thought it would be a fun song for us to cover. It took us a while to figure out what was going on in the song, it’s a weird jazzy song and we don’t do jazz we’re punks [laughs]. When we figured it out I think it became one of our best live songs and people always love it. It’s nice when people recognise it when it gets to the chorus.

Have you been writing new things while at home because of the pandemic and lockdowns?

SP: Yeah. As with most freelancers I didn’t get any furlough, there was a furlough scheme for people who lost their jobs in the UK, I’ve been working all since. I’ve been working on a book on Solange Knowles, I’ve finished that now and it will be out next year. I’ve been writing lots for different places, different music magazines, content writing, those kinds of things.

What’s something that’s really important to you?

SP: My morals [laughs] and sense of self. As you move into different arenas in life I think you can get tested maybe, there are some things that can through you for a loop. I guess it’s one thing that I’d never want to give up on is my idea of right and wrong and doing things for the best. That’s not always a good way to go into industries like the music industry because there’s going to be a lot of being tested and people trying to brand you and make money off of you; staying strong on that is what I would want to do and what I believe in.

That’s why I’ve stayed on the outside of things and why I’m putting my book out myself. So many times people try to change what it is or they’re only interested in the “big name” people or this or this… I’ve interviewed so many bands and it’s been the first interview they’ve ever done, sometimes that can be the most interesting interview and can have the most interesting ideas.

SP: Yeah, that’s true! You can get a lot from people that are just staring out and need that help or need that conversation with someone like you. That’s the thing, people always go up to people once they reach a certain level and they just forget about everyone underneath. The people coming up are the ones that need more help really.

Please check out: BIG JOANIE. BJ on Facebook. BJ on Instagram. Decolonise Fest. Big Joanie on Kill Rock Stars. Big Joanie at Third Man Records. Check out Stephanie’s writing work.

Third Man Records, CASS Records and The Dirtbombs’ Ben Blackwell: “When you see a live show that you really connect with it blows your mind and changes the way you feel, there’s no substitute for that”

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Handmade collage by B.

Recently Gimmie caught up with co-founder and co-owner of Third Man Records, founder of CASS Records and The Dirtbombs’ drummer Ben Blackwell to chat about new TMR release The Stooges’ Live At Goose Lake, August 8th, 1970. The record is a high-quality soundboard recording of the original Stooges line-up’s final performance; the 1/4” stereo two-track tape sat unheard in the basement of a Michigan farmhouse for decades until now. We also chat about The Dirtbombs, of things Ben’s learnt from his uncle Jack White, upcoming TMR releases and more.

What do The Stooges mean to you?

BEN BLACKWELL: The Stooges symbolize – whether they knew it or not at the time – the shift of standard “classic rock” to something more confrontational, a little more challenging and clearing the way for punk rock, which in turn cleared the way for do-it-yourself, self-starter ideas… in that, The Stooges were simplified and the people that were looking to The Stooges were like, “Shit, we can do that, that’s three chords!” I think it’s a shift in influence on a larger portion of the public, knowing full well The Stooges were not hugely popular, but popular just enough they influenced people like Ramones and the Sex Pistols, the Germs, all of that stuff. The through line from The Stooges to Nirvana to The White Stripes in my mind is super clear and super transparent; if not for that, we would not have this.

It’s funny how a lot of bands like The Stooges or even Black Flag or Ramones for example weren’t so popular when they were first around but have gone on to be more so and have a cult-like status now.

BB: Yeah, that’s the only benefit of being ahead of your time [laughs], it somewhat seems to pause it, that you will have a somewhat longer shelf-life.

How did you first come to The Stooges’ music?

BB: It would have been around May of 1996. Jack [White] had played me something off the first album maybe “1969” or “I Wanna Be Your Dog” which are probably the easiest ways of entry to that band, they’re pretty digestible in the grand scheme of things. You don’t play someone “Fun House” the song to start out. “I Wanna Be Your Dog” is pretty undeniably great across the board.

Can you remember what you felt when you first heard it?

BB: I had a general liking of it. I don’t think I had heard Sonic Youth doing it yet. In hindsight, I feel like I remember more listening to Fun House which was: it’s not as good as the first Stooges album. You have to absorb the self-titled album before Fun House really makes sense, at least at age… I’m presupposing lots of deep mental notes and calculations in a sixteen-year-old brain!

When you first listened to The Stooges Live At Goose Lake recording; what was the initial thing you noticed about it?

BB: There’s three to four immediate observations kind of happening in real time on top of each other. The first one is, Dave Alexander is playing bass; which I had been told or read or had heard for the previous two decades at least that, that was not the case at the show.

Secondly is, the recording quality is respectable. Having been a Stooges fan for many years I have paid accumulative of hundreds of dollars on really, really bad sounding Stooges recordings, and not really had too much to gripe about because you’re just happy to get anything with this band. On top of hearing Dave play, just the quality, to my ears, in my opinion is the best sounding Stooges recording from that era and line-up.

There’s some conversation to be have about a live recording called Georgia Peaches that’s the Raw Power era of the band, which is a good recording but I don’t like that version of the band as much—I’m more of a Fun House guy.

The third thing while listening to it is, the bemusement of, holy shit, this exists! It took me months to realise that. Only once the release was imminent did I think back and realise; oh wow! I was the first person to be able to fully refute that theory that Dave didn’t play bass that night. Anyone I’m talking to afterwards, if I share them the recording before it’s come out or doing a press release or sharing with you, it’s shared with the story that Dave did play bass! The question is answered for you. I sat there and was like; wow! That’s kind of all the weight of Stooges fans in the world sitting right there–holy shit, it’s there! Amazing!

What’s one of the most interesting things about the recording for you?

BB: The performance speaks for itself. The most interesting thing for me about the recording, having jumped so deep into all aspects of it, is the only real question we don’t have an answer to; why it was recorded? The engineer James [Jim] Cassily was a local audio engineer in Detroit, he wasn’t hired by the festival, wasn’t doing sound for the bands so… why was he recording this? It’s not too much to imagine that he had connections that could patch him right into the board. He didn’t record everything, he recorded little bits here and there. Of all of the people involved, Iggy Pop is pretty much the only person that’s still alive, in the immediate of it. Richard Songer the promoter is still alive but in terms of the band, Iggy Pop is the only one still alive. I wonder how it came to be! Why did it just sit there? Why was it recorded? What was the purpose for it?

I’ve seen people on message boards say that they heard this show happen in August of 1970 and people saying in September and October that they had recorded the show and that they were going to bootleg it on LP. This guy that talked about it said he lived in St. Louis or something at the time. He was like, he kept hearing it was going to come out in ’71, then a couple of months later they died and blah blah blah blah. It’s like, does that have any connection to this? It doesn’t make sense though because James Cassily didn’t pass away until 2005.

I was talking to a buddy of mine from Detroit that had sent me a congratulatory email saying he couldn’t believe I put it out. He said he remembers talking to Ron Asheton about this show. He said it was in ’78 or ’79 and my friend said to Ron that he thought the show had been recorded. Ron’s response to him was, “Yeah, but where the fuck are the tapes?” That whole chain of possession or the purpose behind it all, that’s what at this point would truly open my eyes wider.

Maybe the guy that recorded it just liked The Stooges and wanted a copy for himself.

BB: It could very well be. He recorded maybe ten other bands at Goose Lake. To me that almost signifies something larger, had he just recorded The Stooges it could be it was a more targeted, direct effort. When you’re recording a larger swath of bands it probably means you’re not recording it just for your own enjoyment. Who knows?

I know you’ve spent a lot of time listening to the studio version on Fun House, I read that the show at Goose Lake was the first time people got to hear that album’s songs in full before the its release, is that right?

BB: Probably not. There’s a rough recording of The Stooges in Chicago from a month prior in July 1970 and they play pretty much the album. The Stooges had a routine of anytime they had new music they basically stopped playing old music. By the time they had recorded Fun House they seemed to have ceased playing the first record. They recorded Fun House in May of 1970 and by June and July, we only have evidence of them playing songs off of Fun House, which didn’t come out until August. They may have not played any local Detroit shows in that intervening time in June or July, so it might have been the first time it was “unveiled” in Detroit. They played the Grand Circus Theatre in April of 1970 I believe, they were maybe playing “Loose” around then, if not more of the Fun House stuff. I’m still waiting for someone to find those tapes and bring them into Third Man.

Does hearing the live record change the way you hear the studio version of Fun House?

BB: Yeah, I think the live record makes the studio record seem polished. Fun House the studio recording is something that I never thought I’d say is polished anywhere. Steven Mackay’s saxophone comes out as really savage, I think it’s the unheralded star of this recording, and he only plays on two songs. Myself being a drummer, I think of all of the times I started playing in a band where I was severely under-qualified to play in. I played in this band when I was seventeen called The Dirtbombs.

I know, I love The Dirtbombs!

BB: We’re an OK band [laughs]. Listening to this live record reminded me of how I used to play drums in the studio, we would play songs we hadn’t rehearsed or toured out live, it was, here’s a new song we’re gonna do it… at that point my mind was like, I just don’t want to fuck this up! I don’t want to be the one to blow a take. You’ve got four other guys there with you.

I’m not saying that’s what Scott Asheton the drummer’s perspective would have been playing drums on Fun House – granted we have every take of every song on Fun House to go against—he really seems to hold his own. But, from the recording to the live performance, what I really hear in the live performance is that Scott has really found his place in the band. He’s way more freewheeling in where he lays out fills and really, really inhabit the entirety of the song. I would say the drumming on Fun House seems a lot more laid back comparatively from the live recordings of Fun House where Scott is just a maniac. I feel like it’s the best drumming ever captured of his.

Who or what inspired you to play drums?

BB: I remember saying in passing that I wanted to play guitar when I was twelve or thirteen and my uncle Jack said, “You don’t want to play guitar, there’s five guitar players on your block already. You should play drums!” I was like, ahhh OK! He walked me through it and showed me the basics. I goofed around on drums maybe seven years earlier when I was six or seven, I never had a kit or anything; there were drums at grandma’s house. Jack styled me with some drums, “Here’s some stuff you can have, here’s some stuff you can borrow. Go figure it out!” Immediately me and my best friend started jamming in the basement, largely inspired by our love of Nirvana at the time.

It seems like Jack has been a really inspiring person in your life; what’s one of the best things you’ve learnt for him?

BB: Oh, shit! [pauses and thinks]. It’s been a fortunate perspective just to witness his career from the perspective that I’ve had, let alone participate in it. What I would say that I’ve learnt form him is, it’s OK to say, no! It might sound funny but as you get further on and do more things, people ask more of you. Saying no is the hardest thing to do in human existence; you want to say yes and you want to please other people, you want to be liked and all that stuff. Sometimes you just say no though for your own sanity. It’s hard for people to say that. It’s nice to be empowered to say, no.

Is there anything happening on The Dirtbombs front?

BB: No, not really. Patrick the other drummer lives in Melbourne actually, he did a move from Brooklyn. I’m here in Nashville. Mick is in New York. Ko and Troy are in Detroit. We only get together on rare occasions. It’s been a little over a year ago, we played a show here in Nashville in April 2019, it was a nice little family reunion; it was the Third Man 10-Year Anniversary. A great reason to bring everyone down here. Now we need another reason to meet up somewhere. Before that we all met up in Belgium and before that Detroit; we get a weird fly-out every once in a while, someone will offer us an obscene amount of money that we can’t in good conscience say no to. That’s all we’re waiting on!

The last Dirtbombs release was a split 7” on your own label, CASS?

BB: [Laughs] Kind of. We played a New Year’s Eve show in Detroit with the Soledad Brothers, the drummer of the Soledad Brother’s is Ben Swank, who’s the co-founder and co-owner here at Third man along with myself and Jack. I had pressed a 7” single by them not too long before this show and I had a different Dirtbombs single I had pressed prior… I paired those two together and pressed 100 copies to have something to sell at the show. I rubber stamped them and put them on a random colour vinyl and numbered them. They weren’t new recordings, I guess a commemorative recording release would be the right term [laughs].

Is there any releases coming up on CASS that you’re really excited about?

BB: There’s stuff coming up that I’m excited about but it’s too early to talk about it [laughs].

Awww. Then is there anything on Third Man coming up you’re excited about?

BB: I’m excited about everything we do on Third Man! [laughs]. We’ve got a live recording by Johnny Cash that should be out in a month or so, that went to our fan club subscribers, The Vault. Then we have a live Hives record. We have some Screamin’ Jay Hawkins re-issues. Always working on finding those overlooked gems in our world or other people’s catalogues. Constantly doing archival White Stripes releases, studio recordings or live shows… we’ve being doing a live show a month essentially through this platform called Nugs, which is streaming and CD’s on demand printed, cool downloads like that for hardcore fans; that’s where we put the live recordings that have piled up over the years.

You sound like you have the best job. I know how I feel when someone sends me through something that’s not released yet and it’s so exciting to hear…

BB: [Laughs] Yeah. It comes with responsibility, there’s about ten things I could tell you that are coming out on Third Man that we haven’t announced yet. I have to sit on these things and put them under my hat and not tell you about them! It’s a bittersweet thing. It’s a singular enjoyment that you can’t share with many people. My wife and Ben Swank are the ones that I talk to about these things [laughs].

Where does your hard work ethic come from?

BB: It’s probably a lot from Jack, on top of learning to say, no. Being around him makes you want to do stuff. You always feel like you’re not doing enough [laughs]. Here in the States they talk about the Midwestern work ethic, which I didn’t really know about prior to leaving the Midwest. People work hard everywhere don’t they? In the Midwest it’s like everyone has a job and does that but, then everyone you know and that are in bands and at the bar, they also do their other thing; they run a label or paint or do acting. It seems like you do the thing to pay the bills and then part of the bills is your creative endeavour. That’s just what I was exposed to.

The minute I saw Dave Buick running a record label [Italy Records]] out of the front room of his house in 1998, that blew my mind open! I realise you didn’t have to have an office, you didn’t have to have employees… the idea of doing-it-yourself on whatever scale you can. I remember someone once saying on a message board, that you can’t make money if you only press 200 copies of a single, the best you can do is break even. I remember thinking that that was such a defeatist attitude! You absolutely can make money from that, you just don’t need to be locked into some predetermined “you can’t charge more than $5 for a single” mindset. Make it cool, make it badass, and charge $7 for it. Doing it yourself and not wanting to entrust… I’m OK if I fuck something up but if someone else fucks it up I get pissed! That’s a great motivator for doing a lot of things myself.

You don’t go into music or writing or making fanzines expecting to make money, if you do you’re in the wrong business, go be a banker or trade stocks.

Why is music important to you?

BB: Music via records is a way to tell stories and hear stories, it’s kind of the same thing. What I get out of it, I like the historical aspect of it; I like finding an old record and putting the needle on and trying to figure out both literally and metaphorically where it came from and what inspired people to make music like this? Whether it’s really bad [laughs] or really good or terribly unique or terribly rehashed… to extrapolate further, the live experience of music it dwindles as I’ve gotten older and priorities change and you’ve got more responsibilities. When you see a live show that you really connect with – for me that was once a month – it blows your mind and changes the way you feel, there’s no substitute for that.

Please check out THE STOOGES Live at Goose Lake: August 8th 1970. THIRD MAN RECORDS. CASS Records. Ben’s writing/thoughts: TREMBLE UNDER THE BOOM LIGHTS.