After ten years of making music and tirelessly touring, Scottish indie royalty, , are coming back to themselves with their fourth studio album ‘Joy In Short Moments’, set for release in October.
Speaking to frontman , he reflects on The Snuts evolution from four “young ducks” to fathers, husbands and seasoned musicians, and tells hard truths on the drastic changes they’ve experienced in the rapidly shifting music industry, as well as the hardships of being a Scottish artist.
Looking back on their previous albums, Cochrane dubs their chart-topping debut album, ‘W.D.’, “their life’s work”, their sophomore album, ‘Burn The Empire’ a “rebellious” record and their 2024 release, ‘Millenials’, the album where they had to “go out on their own”. Four records in, the band has undeniably settled into themselves with ‘Joy In Short Moments’, a set of songs which “tries to reference the things that [they] loved about ourselves”.
For The Snuts, the thing they love most about their band is the way their music connects with live audiences. Cochrane admits that they focussed on making songs which seamlessly translated to their live performances, including as many infectious choruses and driving guitar parts as they could – “these songs are designed to be played in fields and bigger venues, and work well with just an acoustic guitar, something that we maybe forgot about as we would go quite production heavy. I think we also took a lot of that snobbery out of the process as well. We reference bands that, five years ago, we’d go, ‘oh, we can’t reference’, like Coldplay, Oasis and these huge bands”.
The Snuts fourth album combine these feel-good sonics designed for energetic live shows with the overall theme of being present and embracing the smaller things in life. The album concept was formed from just five words – ‘Joy In Short Moments’ – a phrase which Cochrane says was “the first thing I wrote down before [he] started writing this record”, a “mantra” of sorts.
Continuing, he says “I think it’s a really good reminder to anybody just to go, ‘oh I’m really lucky to have a roof over my head and food in the fridge’. And every time you moan about something, you could walk down the street and there’s like a guy who’s just finished an eight hour shift digging a hole. I just try to be a bit more appreciative of the life I have and what music gave me”.
This appreciation of life came after a realisation that the four of them were “just living inside the band”. Cochrane admits that they were stuck in a cycle of “making record after record, and going on tour after tour”, forgetting “to do any living outside of the band” and “missing out on things that were happening around [them]”.
The defining moment that encouraged the four of them to adopt a slower pace of life was when they began to welcome their first children into the world. Cochrane admits that becoming a father really “humbled” them, but inspired a lot of the songs – ”it gave me a reason to write something new. I was just working out what it means to be a dad, and what it means to be a husband and a good friend. This was the kind of thing that brought a lot of the light and the positivity out in the record”.
‘Joy In Short Moments’ doesn’t just stray from The Snuts typical topics of friendship, youth and identity, it also strays from their typical processes. Embracing a simpler studio experience, the band recorded their fourth album in a seventy-pound-a-day Airbnb hidden away in the leafy greenery of the Scottish countryside – “we bypassed big corporate, fancy studios [and used] an Airbnb out in the countryside. We were there for two weeks and built a studio in the living room. The hosts had no idea that that was happening, so we just had to hope for the best that they wouldn’t come back and see that there was a drum kit in the kitchen. All the mattresses were off the beds, and they were round the walls, and over the windows and doors for sound proofing. It was very DIY, like going back to our roots, just being kids and having fun with the music like we used to do.”
“There was no one sending us emails asking if the record was ready. There was no one booking our sessions and there was no deadline. There was no real rush to make a record – we just wanted to make some music. So I found that that side of things a lot easier, having a lot more control over that”.
After removing the “pressure” and the “job aspect” from their recording process, The Snuts managed to create a record which they found genuinely enjoyable to make, with lasting memories attached to the project. Cochrane reminisces on the making of one of his favourite tracks, PTS, which is steeped in good energy as the band went into the studio feeling “pure elation” after a historic football win the night before.
“I love how we felt when we were making it, because we were in the middle of nowhere in Scotland, and Scotland were playing Denmark in the World Cup, so we went to a pub in this little, rural village. That was the most historic game in Scotland’s history – we won in such a dramatic fashion, going into the World Cup for the first time ever. We had many beers that night”.
In true ‘Joy In Short Moments’ fashion, Cochrane takes a minute to appreciate the freedom that they had during this recording process, especially when “there’s a lot of pressure on young artists to be constantly switched on”. Having experienced the momentous change that social media brought about for artists over the last decade, Cochrane expresses that this shift in the music industry is a topic he is very “passionate” about.
“It’s really intense for artists right now”, he comments. “You can be flicking through your phone and you’ll see these artists that are unbelievably talented. People who are like sixteen or seventeen with talent that people like me can only dream of having at that age. But they have ten likes and two-hundered followers and they don’t play many gigs. It’s a really weird space for young artists right now”.
With his own label, Happy Artist Records, Cochrane tries to support young artists wherever he can, giving them advice on how to navigate the music industry and emphasising to them how important it is to “play as many shows as you can”. He urges young artists to “ignore the noise and ignore that oversaturation as much as possible, and just get in front of people”. Having experienced the benefits of this advice himself, he states that “people who come to our shows have been coming for ten years, and they come back, and they come back, and they buy your record, and they come to your in-store performances, and they just really connect and get along with the music, and I think that’s something that hasn’t changed”.
Cochrane’s mission is not just to help young artists, but specifically to help young Scottish artists as he feels there is a real “lack of belief there” and “a lack of investment back into the Scottish music industry as a whole”. Giving insight into how the Scottish music industry functions, there is an obvious disparity from England’s music scene, specifically London which is the hub of artist opportunities. Scotland, on the other hand, is completely barren – “it’s void of opportunity when it comes to the music industry. We don’t have a huge deal of venues to play here. We don’t have any infrastructure whatsoever in Scotland when it comes to management. We don’t have labels here. And we have one promoter, maybe, that does the whole thing”.
This lack of opportunity consequently places immense pressure on Scottish artists when they travel down the island to perform at London venues. Cochrane remembers a time when The Snuts were starting out where he would always “dread the London date”. With Scotland undeservedly being devoid of labels and music bigwigs – the majority of them living in the South – the London show would be crawling with them, assessing the show and making it “feel like an audition rather than a performance”. Reminiscing on The Snuts sold-out 2022 show at the 5,000 capacity O2 Brixton Academy during their ‘W.L’ tour, Cochrane remembers he felt “really lucky” but “it was intense”.
Fortunate enough to grace this stage again, The Snuts will be playing the infamous venue this Autumn for the tour of ‘Joy In Short Moments’ – a London show which, for the first time ever, is the one Cochrane looks forward to the most. Ten years on, having served their time and “broken free from the chains” of major labels, The Snuts feel less pressure for their London date with Cochrane expressing his excitement “play Brixton again without the pressure and just for the music”.
With down-to-earth lyrics following family and mindfulness, wrapped in a raw, authentic and unpolished sound, The Snuts fourth album, ‘Joy In Short Moments’ is a clear display of the band’s journey back to the simple things in life.
‘Joy In Short Moments’ will be released on October 23rd. The Snuts’ Jack Cochrane has become an ambassador for CALM and hosts an accompanying podcast series – with Louis Tomlinson as his first guest.