EMQ’s with SNAUM
Hi everyone! Welcome to another EMQ’s interview, with Polish Experimental Black Metal duo, Snaum. Huge thanks to them for taking part.
What is your name, what do you play, and can you tell us a little bit about the history of the band?
We’re Snaum, we play Post-Black/Noise/Industrial stuff. It’s hard to categorize really but I like that name. I started it myself, trying to finally play the music I have always wanted, but never could find the right people to play with. After perhaps a year I met Hewan, who was really enthusiastic about my ideas, and we started to work together. Now we’re here.
How did you come up with your band name?
It was a long, frustrating, and tedious process, because we wanted a name that both of us would like, and we had a lot of contradicting ideas :)! We wanted something that wasn’t already taken, which is much harder than you might think, that would fit the music, and be easy to pronounce anywhere in the world. SNAUM is essentially a made-up word, we were just twisting and butchering the names we got until we were satisfied.
What Country/Region are you from and what is the Metal/Rock scene like there?
We’re from Warsaw, Poland. We don’t really follow the scene, so I couldn’t say what it’s like exactly. There’s some really interesting acts in extreme music here like Thaw, Mord’A’Stigmata, Dola or Batushka, but they’re usually musicians who live in different cities all over the country and collaborate remotely.
What is your latest release? (Album, EP, Single, Video)
We are about to release a 5-song EP with a video to one of the songs.
Who have been your greatest influences?
Lots of stuff over the years, the foundations are obviously the giants like Metallica or Motorhead, then the Nordic Black/Death Metal scene, then the path gets more windy, and you have tons of stuff from early Godflesh, to Massive Attack. And of course, two Polish cornerstones of alternative music, Kobong and Samo, not really widely known outside of Poland, but these guys were actual geniuses who did crazy stuff long before the rest of the world thought of them.
What first got you into music?
James Hetfield’s sideburns. He was so cool with his drawl and explorer guitars, I wanted to be exactly like him 🙂
If you could collaborate with a current band or musician who would it be?
I suck at collaborating! I think the only person I can work with is Hewan because he loves my ideas haha 🙂 Other than that Justin K Broadrick (Godflesh/Jesu). I even messaged him once but obviously got no answer 😀
If you could play any festival in the world, which would you choose and why?
I wouldn’t want to play festivals, perhaps with another band? Festivals are for bands who play music that just makes you want to bang your head. I love such music as well, and bang my head to it, but it’s not Snaum.
What’s the weirdest gift you have ever received from a fan?
Ask me again in a year 🙂
If you had one message for your fans, what would it be?
Listen to our music. And don’t be assholes to each other, there’s enough of that in the world already 🙂
If you could bring one rock star back from the dead, who would it be?
A no-brainer – Lemmy Kilmister. He should be alive forever, simple as that.
What do you enjoy the most about being a musician? And what do you hate?
I love the act of creating stuff, those moments when your ideas click together, and you know that you have something special. I hate the long and depressing periods of uninspired guitar doodling in between those moments 🙂
If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?
Ditch the cassettes. They were gone for a reason.
Name one of your all-time favourite albums?
Kobong’s “Chmury nie było”. I heard it first over 20 years ago, and it was a tectonic shift in my musical landscape. Nothing was the same afterwards. It’s on Spotify so go listen to it folks!
What’s best? Vinyl, Cassettes, CDs, or Downloads?
Downloads when you just want to listen to music casually, vinyl for collecting. I haven’t bought an actual CD in a long time, and I remember times when you actually HAD to listen to music from cassettes. They suck.
What’s the best gig that you have played to date?
With Snaum, we don’t play live. Before that – I’ve had some really amazing gigs, but who cares, that was years ago haha 🙂
If you weren’t a musician, what else would you be doing?
I’m not a musician by trade so I have a ‘day job’. Creatively – I don’t know, maybe some blacksmithing stuff? I did play with it and it’s super satisfying.
Which five people would you invite to a dinner party?
That’s a difficult one. Metallica and Arnold Schwarzenegger 🙂
What’s next for the band?
We already have some ideas starting to brew. On “selfmadeself”, we were looking for an identity, now it’s time to take it a step further. We’re thinking of perhaps adding more visual, theatrical stuff, plus definitely there will be more blast beats and more distortion on everything 🙂
What Social Media/Website links do you use to get your music out to people?
The hub for the music is our bandcamp page: www.snaum.bandcamp.com/releases, we’ll be also present on all the major streaming platforms. For news follow our FB page: www.facebook.com/snaum.official
Jaffa Cakes! Are they a cake or a biscuit?
Haha, I had to google it, it turns out we have exactly the same thing in Poland, only under a different name. Legally they’re cakes from what I read, but I don’t agree with that, a cake has to be big enough to kill you if you eat it whole. They’re biscuits, deal with it.
Thank you for your time. Is there anything else that you would like to add?
Just listen to our music guys, hope you’ll like it 🙂
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