General Admission Standing Room Only
THE SPITS
In an era that relies so heavily on quick-hit bands, there are very few things that are truly part of the subculture and not just the passing zeitgeist du jour. Closing in on three decades, The Spits have signified the crossroads between punk mayhem and well-honed songwriting, creating some of the most unhinged and anthemic tracks in underground music while standing tall enough to be uttered in the same breath as names like Jay Reatard, Dead Moon, Ty Segall and more.
The Spits are readying their highly anticipated VI, due May 1 via their own Thriftstore Records imprint. Recorded by Erik Nervous on cassette four track, the band’s new LP VI is ten hummable tracks, shrouded in chainsaw punk that mesh the wild showmanship of party-rock legends Van Halen and the leather-clad toughness and songwriting chops of the Misfits. Marking a “return to roots’’ approach for the LP, the band decided to record and write VI in the basements of Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids, Michigan over the course of several spurts of activity, each yielding a few new songs from a terrible drum kit with a literal thrift store guitar. “We’ve only been into an actual studio like three times,” admits Sean Wood. “I don’t think we’ve had one record that was recorded all in one place, this may be the closest thing. And for these songs we’d record a couple tracks, step away and go back at it later– sometimes weeks later. You know, take our time.”
Originally from Kalamazoo, Michigan, brothers Sean and Erin Wood formed The Spits with Lance Phelps in 1993 after realizing rock had gone limp, hated partying and just plain wasn’t fun anymore. And even though they didn’t even know how to play, the self-professed deliquents who grew up with New Orleans–style jazz and bluegrass “got cultured” and formed a band dead set on reminding the world how to have a good time. The Spits didn’t fit in with the punks or the garageheads when they landed in Seattle two years later, but carved out their own path with a series of empty open mic nights and parties under a bridge in the University District. Things started snowballing a year or two later with a good word from Mudhoney’s Steve Turner and a reputation for livewire gigs.
By the late 90s/early 00s, The Spits were almost as famous for rowdy shows and outrageous costumes as they were for their acid-fried melodic rippers. Releasing five LPs over the next decade-plus, in addition to EPs and 7-inches, the gospel of The Spits spread far and wide, expanding the band’s live legend further and further while giving more fans the chance to hear their uniquely catchy songwriting and punk mayhem. And while several band members have come and gone since their formation, including Wayne Draves and Josh Kramer, The Spits have never lost their edge, never lost their live chops and most importantly, never lost that sense of beer-soaked chaos.
The Spits have taken their time on this record and that’s meant a long, cold nine years with no new material. Legions of fans are frothing at the mouth for VI, and clocking in at 17+ minutes, The Spits are back and things are the same as it ever was. Yet this time, the brothers Wood and Co. are adamant about letting the fans know that VI is a return to their roots– more deceptively simple punk from these instigators and legends in their own time. For fans of the band, to-the-point melodicism and good old-fashioned rock ‘n roll, VI isn’t just the name of the Spits’ LP, it’s also the number of instant-classic records in a row.
Links: Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | Spotify
SNÕÕPER
Snooper was thinking about pressure. Blair Tramel and Connor Cummins — co-masterminds of Snooper — had become fascinated by hydraulic press YouTube videos, watching object after object spin and contort before getting flattened. Their heads, too, spun from everything that had gone on during Snooper’s early years. Tramel could relate to the videos, but for the poignance of a difficult transformation, not the defeat of total compression. “There’s a sweet spot,” she says. “For a moment, push and pull create this beautiful dance.”
Over the past few years, Snooper has rocketed from Nashville DIY scene stalwarts to widespread adoration in the international underground music scene. The project evolved well beyond anything Tramel and Cummins had originally imagined, and faster than they could track — resulting in disorientation as much as exhilaration. Tramel and Cummins channeled all that energy into writing new material. Their new album, Worldwide, extends directly from the festering punk the band first made their name on, but documents Snooper becoming bolder, catchier, and more confident.
Cummins and Tramel began making music together during lockdown in 2020. They never even intended to play live, but they soon found a small, fervent fanbase developing around the scattered 7-inches they’d released. A no-stakes endeavor quickly turned into one of the rising, definitive names in the tight-knit DIY rock scene thriving adjacent to Music City’s more renowned country industry machine. What started as a home recording/video project turned into a full-fledged band, rounded out by bassist Happy Haugen, drummer Brad Barteau, and guitarist Conner Sullivan. Tramel went from never having performed in a band to keeping a set of European power tools on hand so she could build Snooper’s now-infamous props and puppets no matter where the road took them. “The energy we were putting in was coming back to us, like a feedback loop” Tramel remembers. “We were going full-on, and crazy stuff started happening.”
Following the summer 2023 release of their debut Super Snooper, the band maintained a sporadic-yet-frantic touring schedule, darting around Australia, North America, and Europe whenever they had a tiny window between day jobs. Fueled by a hunger for fresh material and the random acquisition of a drum machine, Cummins and Tramel used whatever time they could find to write new songs. With Super Snooper being a re-recorded collection of pre-existing material long since road-tested and fan-approved, the band in many ways views Worldwide as their true debut album.
In February of 2025, Snooper spontaneously found themselves in Los Angeles recording with John Congleton. Though Snooper had never previously considered working with a producer, Congleton was a fan. “It felt like we needed a syllabus,” Tramel cracks. “We didn’t know how to work with a producer.” Yet the band reflects on the process as being integral to their growth as artists. “The whole idea behind this record was experimentation and change,” Cummins says.
With a throbbing pulse influenced by electronic music, “Star 69” was a breakthrough turned skeleton key for Worldwide. This song, along with title track “Worldwide” — a mission statement for the record not just thematically, but also aesthetically, showcasing Snooper’s stylistic exploration — provides dance breaks throughout the record. Though no less furious or propulsive than Snooper’s more guitar-driven beginnings, moments across Worldwide may surprise longtime fans. Given they began on a drum machine, Cummins’ initial compositions had a newfound focus on rhythm and repetition, with textural chaos more carefully meted out. “It opened up so much space,” he explains. “It gives Blair room to breathe, which ended up allowing her to write differently.” While Worldwide is plenty visceral, it also has the feeling of a bottled maelstrom. Where Super Snooper was intended as a pure representation of Snooper’s feral live show, Worldwide blends intensity with Tramel’s earworm melodic sensibility.
In turn, Tramel’s writing became far more personal. Allowing that Super Snooper was mostly an amalgamation of random images — from fitness to bed bugs — Tramel went into Worldwide trying to write a more cohesive work reflecting her experiences. “Now I’m speaking about myself, or something I’m feeling, and I’m trying to relate to people,” she explains. Some songs emerged from Snooper’s time on the road — a time that Tramel has taken to get to know herself better. “Pom Pom” giddily owns the “cheerleader vocals” that have been ascribed to the band both as a compliment and a dig, while “Guard Dog” mulls over the feeling of being boxed in by other people’s perceptions of you. The hissing, mutated sounds of “Star 69” fittingly accompany a narrative derived from a winter depression in which Tramel imagined constantly calling for reassurance only to hear her own voice echoing back. These songs might emerge from angst or confusion, but never wallow there — across Worldwide, Snooper find empowerment in personal struggle.
Between the heightened infectiousness and the more serious tone, Worldwide aimed to translate the haywire atmosphere Snooper is known for to a more holistic catharsis. “I was thinking about people singing choruses back to me at shows,” Tramel explains. “I tried to encapsulate small feelings we all have that aren’t just ‘fuck this or fuck that.’ I wanted the connection to be bigger than what I was writing before.”
Like almost everything in Snooper’s career, they figured it out as they went. Tramel returns to the hydraulic press, venturing that the results might be beautiful or a disaster depending on the shape in which you enter the press. “We started out with nothing and now we’re figuring out how to actually be a band,” Cummins explains. Jumping on tours with everyone from Machine Girl to Basement to the Hives, Snooper accepted their fluidity and their inability to adhere to one particular genre. They play what they like and they have fun doing it.
As Snooper’s sound changes and the band is pulled in different directions, there continues to be a gravity that calls them back to where they started — to the sound that is uniquely theirs, carrying them from release to release. Showcasing their most adventurous and unshakeable music to date, Worldwide is a portrait of an already-heralded band truly coming into their own. “We had to figure out where we came from,” Tramel concludes. “We had to figure out what makes us who we are.”
Links: Official Website | Instagram | Spotify
