In the two-ish years since Music City rock and punk fans started stepping cautiously back into music venues after COVID quarantine, we’ve come to know and love Snooper. The group incorporates a heaping helping of punk with a side serving of performance art. Singer Blair Tramel and guitarist Connor Cummins started the group during lockdown and initially imagined it as a kind of multimedia project that revolved around ultra-fast lo-fi songs and music videos that blend live action and animation by hand.
Once they took the stage, Snooper quickly became a live favorite. Throughout 2022, it seemed like every time there was an interesting touring rock show at a midsize venue in town, Snooper was opening; add to that extensive touring across the country and visits to SXSW, peppered with EP and single releases. Today, word comes that the band — which over time has evolved into a quintet that includes guitarist Ian Teeple, bassist Happy Haugen and drummer-about-town Cam Sarrett — has signed with Third Man Records to release their first full-length album Super Snooper.
The debut single from the record is “Pod,” a characteristically lightning-fast roller-coaster ride of a tune in which the group looks back on a phenomenon from the pre-vaccine phase of the pandemic. Remember forming “pods” with other people who you felt confident were playing it safe? It was nice to be able to feel comfortable around some people and not have to resort to total isolation, but in context with the way we’re used to society working, it is odd.
“It’s wild to think about that as a concept in hindsight,” Tramel writes in a release. “When we formed our pods, however, our anxieties began to multiply and everything felt so extreme. Our pods confirmed and echoed our worst fears. Everything felt dark and all anyone could do was blame someone else for why we all felt so bad.”
Above, check out the video for the single. It’s stylistically consonant with the videos Tramel animated in Snooper’s early days, with a little live action as well as hand-drawn and stop-motion animation by director Owen Summers and editor Nikki Milan Houston. Among other happenings, Tramel’s face chants questions at The Big Shot, who has a cow’s head and a person’s body: “Big shot / I got a question / Who sees / Society's infection? / Big shot / I got a question / Who sees / That they're a poor reflection?”
The 14-track Super Snooper is out July 14 — check out all your preorder options via this handy link. As onetime Black Flag leader and relatively recently arrived Nashvillian Henry Rollins told The Guardian last month, “It’s a fun record, all 23 minutes of it.” Meanwhile, keep up with Snooper via Instagram and catch them in person on Friday, April 14, at Soft Junk over on Gallatin Avenue.
