I was really lucky that snapcase got together again after a short break up break...
Surely this interview is mostly about the upcoming new album.
At the last show in Munich I did an interview with them and here we go...

Ploedi:

Would you first like to introduce yourself?

Tim:

I'm Tim and I play drums...

Ploedi:

Is there a certain band philosophy behind snapcase? Like in attitude or in music?

Tim:

We as a band have always tried to focus on positive things in life. So we try to be more
like an uplifting band with a positive message and try to tell people basically
to be themselves and to do what they wanna do. Think through things and be the best
person that you can possibly be and don't look to others to really find your identity
and look within to find your own identity and follow that and be that person.

Ploedi:

Using kind of spiritual lyrics, what do you think of religion in hardcore music?

Tim:

Personally I mean I can't speak for anybody in the band but I'm very religous. It's really
important to me. I think that spirituality is a really good thing. I think it's as much of a
human condition as a physical body, taking care of your physical body or your mental aspects
of your body, too so it's a huge part of who we are. And no matter what god you look for
or describe to what principles you live your life, I think it's a good positive and helpful thing.
And you know once again I'm just speaking for myself but it's very important to me.

Ploedi:

Do you consider snapcase being a political band?

Tim:

Not necessarily political. I mean all of us as individuals are political. I don't consider us
as a political band, I consider us as a social band. We touch upon certain social issues that
should be discussed and talked about. We are more focussed on individualism and the outer
world, society. Kind of a lot of bands sing about society and changing society at a macro
level or an aggregate level. I think we talk about changing society on a micro level
which is like an individual level. And I think it's important as I think change can happen in
both ways, you can have larger change but you can also have a bigger change through every
individual. We are kind of more on a personal, individual level that the grander society
thing.

Ploedi:

Talking on the new album, listening to the preview tape we received it seems to be more melodic?

Tim:

We never sit down like "I want this record to sound like this". We sit down and write whatever happens,
whatever comes out, we go with it. And the album is more melodic, I think it's a little more
dynamic, there is a longer, slower song on this record. Darryl doesn't scream as much as hard as
he has. There is some more upbeat stuff. I think just in general there is a lot more variety
in this record, because a lot more people are participating and writing music. We felt that the last
record was just too much of the same, it was like the same all way through. And we are happy with songs here and there
but listening to this old record is kind of it wasn't as enjoyable to listen to. So this
record I think is more ups and downs and the songs are more distinguished from each other.
So I think it's good that way.

Ploedi:

What about the lyrics on the record? Will you touch new topics?

Tim:

Yeah, most of it is personal stuff and it's about getting motivated to do things. It's more about finding
what you wanna do with yourself and with the person you are. Most of it is about how you gonna carry this out
how you gonna put in action what you wanna do. So mhh there is a lot of stuff, there is always many messages.
We wanna write words that are broad enough so that any person that listenes can interpretate it for themselves and relate
to it. It makes it more personal for the person listening to it.

Ploedi:

What expectations do you have on the new album?

Tim:

None, really. We hope it does well we don't expect anything. We've had more success than we've ever expected we
have more success then we think we deserve and we work really hard but we think there is a lot of band that
are a lot better than us who don't get the recognition that we get. But I think that I hope it does well. I don't expect it to
do I mean don't expect it to do bad. We don't like to have place expectation on ourselves because when you start expecting
things you start taking everything for granted and you don't appreciate things because you can get in the mind set that you
deserve things and none of us really deserves anything. You know we work really hard but we were really lucky.

Ploedi:

Talking about the split with Boy Sets Fire, there are two new songs on it. Was there a concept, because they are kinda
different?

Tim:

Well, the second song is a cover song. It's a Police song. So the first song "Energy Dome" is also on the record. We just
wanted to put it out to kind of shorten the time until the record comes out and to say what the records gonna be like.
Originally we wanted to do the Split with Far from Sacramento who is one of our favorite bands who never got enough
recognition that it deserves. We wanted to do an original song and then snapcase would cover a Far song and Far would cover a
snapcase song. Unfortunately they broke up before. So we decided to do it with Boy Sets Fire and we didn't want to put 2 new
songs on we decided to do a cover and we listened to a bunch of bands and none could grant. As soon as we started listening
The Police it was like "ah we could do this with this part and that with this part" so it came out quickly and by the end of
that practice we pretty much had it done how we wanted it.

Ploedi:

Now you are touring with Destiny, did you have trouble with MAD or what happened, they seemed to be kind of mad...?"

Tim:

It was just something. Victory hired a new person that deals with Europe and she had dealt exclusively with Destiny before and
she had done a lot of work with Destiny. So she had talked to them and suggested that we try doing something with them so
we decided as this one is only two weeks long to give it a shot. We've always been really happy with MAD, they are great
people they always did a lot for us, they treated us so well and they are very upset with us and we totally understand why,
it was just unfortunate as it was basically a business decision that Victory wanted us to do and we went with it. So far it's
been great, everything is really organized and very comfortable. But that's not to say that our tours with MAD weren't great,
they are both great booking agencies.

Ploedi:

Some final words?

Tim:

Thanks for the interview, thanks for coming to the show. The new record will be out in January so please check it out and
hopefully you'll like it.