Interviews

Snapcase

Interview with Daryl on Nov 30, 1999 by Archive Bot

Delphine at Victory Records gets a big thank you for setting this interview up. As well thanks to Daryl from Snapcase for taking the time to sit down and talk with me. This interview was done August 18th in Toronto. Snapcase's new album END TRANSMISSION is out September 24th on Victory. For tourdates and more information you can visit www.victoryrecords.com.

PB: So your new album End Transmission, how is it different from any of previous releases?
Daryl: We did things on this album that we were afraid to do on any other album, we didn't limit ourselves in terms of our song writing as much and the last album we were happy with but there were things that we also weren't so pleased with. Mainly just on a creative level we didn't push ourselves as much as we could. This is a very dark sounding album and there is a lot more, variety is sound, emotion and tempo.

PB: It's often said that Snapcase is a band that likes to challenge conventional thought. How do you guys do that and personally, do you think that music is the best tool for doing that?
Daryl: Yes. Through the lyrics I try and promote a way of thinking that pushes someone to see beyond what their typical boundaries, see beyond their everyday life. To look into things that are subjects that they ignore and are free to think about. Also to make aware things that we sometimes take for granted.

PB: Generally speaking you guys are not commerically accepted. Why do you think that's the case?
Daryl: I think it's our sound more or less. We don't write albums, we don't focus on writing the one big hit. Things like that. I don't know...

PB: The thing is you're in a position where the genre you're in is getting more popular so there might be that option for more commercial success.
Daryl: That's true. I don't know. I think we're happy being a larger sized independent, underground band. It's cooler to be a big underground band instead of a small mainstream band. It's not easy to be a big mainstream band and it's really not something that we're interested in.

PB: Where do your interests lie? What are your goals?
Daryl: Essentially to write albums and make music that keeps us excited and makes us want to go out there and play music. Our new album, we're really excited to play these songs. We try not to look too far ahead into the future. We don't like to place too many expectations on ourselves.

PB: What does music mean to you?
Daryl: To me it's an artform, I think a lot of people forget that. Music doesn't seem artistic because it's repetition of the same thing over and over. It becomes manufatured. You know, if there were only a few painters and everyone thought that it was about imitating that so they could sell some paintings then it wouldn't be as artistic. It's only artisitic when people push the boundaries and make it unique and challenge.

PB: Outside of the band what are your passions?
Daryl: Our dog, we have a labrador retriever. Recently I've been into photography. It's definately another creative outlet for me.

PB: The artistic direction in your CD is interesting, were you guys involved with that?
Daryl: Yeah, although the promotional copy wasn't printed properly. It's very slight but it's important to us. We went out with like four or five feet of snow, it was pretty cool. When you live in some place like Buffalo it's interesting and cool to have snowscapes like that. Those bands from California can't do that.

PB: Well I think that's all is there anything else you'd like to add?
Daryl: Just thanks for all the support, this tour in Canada has been great and I think tonight is the first night we're playing a show in a city that we're all really familiar with. We played Vancouver first but we've only been there twice before. We played Calgary and we'd only been there once before. The rest of the places we had never been before. So it's pretty cool.