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SNATCH BACK


SNATCH BACK 💿 Hi, it’s a pleasure for us to have on Hardrockheavymetal SNATCH BACK!! Welcome!! Hi Giovanni. The pleasure is all ours. It's great that you at Hardrockheavymetal are interested in our work. I think its really difficut for bands that write and perform their own material to get it out to an audience-either live or on record. Your type of media publications are vital to keep fans interested in rock music and help them seek bands like us out. Your interest is very motivational in keeping us playing. 💿 You're are ready to unleash your new “beast"entitled” RIDE HARD RUN FREE. Your debut..after 40 years..Can you tell us somethin'about its composition process and style? Debut makes us sound like the next best boy band..ha, ha. We are a band of diverse influences in our writing. When we reformed a few years ago, we were asked to headline a big festival in our home town. It got overwhealming local press coverage and interest from international NWOBHM fans, so we rushed into putting our “Back in the Game” EP together. This was more of a selection of our “modernised” retrospective material, including our Eastern Lady vinyl single. Wewanted to correct the fact we had neglected to record in the past to reach fans outside our area. In the '70s & '80s we played extensively in North West England hoping to be noticed. It was crazy playing the same circuit as Diamond Head and Judas Priest and selling out a local 600 seater theatre twice with no LP issued. We took more time for “Ride Hard-Run Free”. It's an intentional move towards the rockier, driving elements of the band. Myself and Ian did a lot of work building the songs in his studio. Some of these were taken from ideas on old live tapes but we also developed new ones. We put a 1982 studio demo cassette out this year and a couple of those songs have been restructured and recorded with novel ideas on this album too. We put a couple of live 1978 bonus tracks on the CD to show our almost prog rock influences in our early days. Hopefully this will give fans an insight into our diverse influences but still justify that we are a serious rock band. 💿 Can you tell us somethin’about the birth and the name of your band? Which artists or bands impressed you the most as musician in you early times? In the 70s there were no sub divisions of Rock styles. A rock headlining band may have had jazz, folk, blues, psychodelic or prog bands on the same bill and their sets would be mire ecclectic in style. We had a wealth of afordable live venues in Liverpool and Manchester (in North West England) so, before we formed Snatch-back, we had all seen many bands individually. We took on board this diversity in music. Ian (bass) was very influenced by Mott the Hoople, Mountain, Lou Reed gigs. Steve (drums) Genesis and John had a wide variety of vocal influences like Paul Roger and Ian Hunter. We all seemed to meet in the middle in the blues rock of the “Free: Live” LP. For myself I saw a St Helens recording band “Gravy Train” play our local theatre. Their guitarist “Norman Barret” made the hairs stand up on my neck. I vowed to do that myself one day in that theatre ….and we did. Seeing Paul Kossoff live was also an influential moment. Snatch-Back was formed by me & Steve after seeing “Hendrix plays Berkely” film at the cinema. I wanted to make the guitar sound like that! Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Deep Purple, Led Zep to name a few magic shows also made their mark on us. We came together specifically to write our own material.We understood the need to be different in writing and our shows. There were no live venues in our home town of St Helens so we had to invent them to get started-playing on cinema stages between music films and selling tickets at youth and working mens clubs. Later, we progressed to proper Rock venues in the North West. I think the name “Snatch-Back” came from when we clubbed our pennies together to buy a PA for our first gig. It was a “pre loved” valve Simms watt. We could only afford it because it had been repossessed from a band that couldnt pay their hire purchase bills-a “Snatch-Back”. We were Christened when we collected it and the guy said “You're that Snatch-Back band”. It was a symbolic name for us. Wewanted drag live original Rock back to centre stage in our area. The charts and local clubs were degenerating into bubble gum pop music...and we had been a little (re-) possessed by Rock music. 💿 RIDE HARD RIDE FREE will be self released, but was mixed by RAFAL KOSSAKOWSKI and BART GABRIEL , a true metal defender well-known in NWOBHM/TRUE METAL world..Can you tell us about this choice? As I said earlier, we wanted to capture a rockier drive for this album. We see Eastern Europe as a champion for British Classic Rock -keeping bands like Budgie and Nazareth on the tour circuit and supporting NWOBHM and Rock music. Our friends “Robespierre” mentioned Bart and he gave us enthusiastic encouragement for our last CD. Wewanted a to work with people that would bring the best out of our studio sound and maintain our unique ideas. We didnt want to sound like a “standard” generic rock band, We are honoured that respected Rockers like Bart and Rafal want to be associated with us. I gasped when he called us musicians! They did a great job.I hope rock fans agree. 💿There's a great return of format such as vinyl and cassette. What's your thinking about these classic format..love for vintage or is it impossible a future for music outside digital? There's no doubt that this little local band from the '70s has been catapulted into a post millenia media culture shock. We've always been independent, so media today is a a very effective way for us communicate. It suits us. We can reach around a smaller world to international fans. If we could just get them all together in the same concert hall to play to that would be great! Our downloads have reached so many new countries and allowed us to sell CDs there. We tipped a nod to vintage technology with our “Amazon Tapes 1982” cassette this year. That sold OK in UK, Sweden and Japan too. It's a collectable niche but I'm not sure we will release in that format again unless there are specific requests. The new LP is out on CD and Vinyl and no doubt we will move to downloads too before too long. Many people never own a CD or LP, but relaxing in front of a great hi Fi reading a classic vinyl or CD cover is my thing. Downloads are an unbeatable way to promote the band internationally and a justifiable expense. Thankfully, people that want CD and vinyl will still buy them as downloads alone may not keep a band financially viable. We learned our craft by hammering away individually, learning to play our instruments by ear off vinyl LPs like “Deep Purple in Rock” and Led Zep 2. 

The cover artwork was also a window into a differentlifestyle. 

We always wanted to produce our own vinyl to entertain people that way...so now we have one!

💿 Inside your songs what’s the role of lyrics in the composition process? Words follow music or vice versa? It varies greatly. Sometimes a riff idea will appear at rehearsal and we'll develop that or we'll work from an initial set of words that are generated by individualy life experiences and feelings at the time. Lyrics may conjure up the feelings of a sound concept to work out. With either approach, it's rare that the music or words will be presented by an individual and remain unchanged. It gets critically hammered around by everyone in rehearsals and live performance before reaching its “final”, recordable version. 

Even then we make changes on the night as individuals, Music has always been a way to express our feelings and these change for every performance. 

Look at Deep Purple live at the BBC LP. 

As bands were in the '70s: no live song versions are the same on every nite-almost jazz influenced. 💿 Can you tell us somethin’ about your live plans? We love playing live. Mearfest has been great for us so would like to play again. 

We've met interesting bands there and it would be great to organise a bill with bands like Rampant (who seem enthusiastic), Gang and Satans Empire. Since reforming, we've tried to find NWOBHM style bands to partner and set up tours with, and suceeded to play shows with Eliminator, The Jokers, Troyen and Robespierre. 

The shows were good, but unfortunately, there's been no lasting relationships developed-but the door is always open. 

We are still promoting our own local shows but aim to take the album to a wider audience so welcome any interest. There's also an International music festival on the Welsh borders that we played last year that have promised more contacts. My personal ambition would be to support Zal cleminsons Sin Dogs at The Barrowlands, Glasgow followed by a slot at StoneDeaf and British Steel festivals. 

Well, you've got to have vision or it'll never happen. Let there be Rock!

💿 We love the cover of RUN HARD RUN FREE! Can you tell us somethin'about ? This started with Bart again. Our intention was to self release the LP but he urged us to try for a record contract as it was worthy of a wider audience.

He recommended our artist Roberto in Italy to capture our concept and make it appeal to companies. 

Well!! the “deals” offered did not suit us as many promised to limit the album to the back storage shelf or just downloads at best.

It's not just about money for us, its sharing the experience with the audience. 

To be honest, we were worried that Roberto would be a little Goth metal in style for us but, as promised, captured our feelings on the cover. 

We dedicated this LP to dreamers and those with the spirit of adventure. 

From the very start Snatch-Back played to a biker audience and adopted the rock lifestyle. 

Myself, John and our roadies were big bikers.

It's symbolic of making time in life for your dreams and adventures, no matter how small. 

Never give up your freedom and become 100% conventional. 

Life's too short. 💿Thank you so much ] for your time! See you soon on Hardrockheavymetal! Great stuff. Keep up your great work. Long may you rock!! #pics Band’s  

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