Check out any internet footage of Snõõper performing, and you’ll probably be struck with a sense that this is the most fun anyone has ever had at a punk gig. The Nashville quintet (vocalist Blair Tramel, guitarists Connor Cummins and Ian Teeple, bassist Happy Haugen and drummer Cam Sarrett) bring papier-mâché puppets and props to all of their gigs; their mascot is a giant bug puppet whom a willing participant will wear as a backpack to go roaming around the crowd.
The tracks they play from their recent debut album, July’s ‘Super Snõõper’, are scuzzy, wild-eyed tunes about disparate topics like bedbugs, lifting weights, and the indignities of spy school. The whole band dons matching tracksuits onstage; Cummins blows on a whistle like an unhinged PE teacher. In a genre that can be more than a little guilty of taking itself too seriously, Snõõper are devotedly silly.
“So many times I’ve gone to see shows and almost had a panic attack of feeling like I’m not punk enough to be at the punk show,” Tramel says, sitting side-by-side on a 6am Nashville time pre-work Zoom call with Cummins – he’s the project’s lead songwriter as well as her partner. An early education teacher by day, Tramel’s preferred form of self-expression is papier-mâché; at one point during our call, she pans her laptop screen around to show us the giant cardboard puppet heads taking up her living room. And it turns out, working with kids isn’t so different to trying to get a room of dudes with Black Flag tattoos to lighten up.
“I think we’re teaching these tough punk guys how to have fun again,” she beams. “When someone is rocking with the puppet at the show, and they’re in a studded leather jacket, I’m like, ‘How did this happen?’ There’s something really magical about that. I’ll look from onstage and I’m like, it’s working!’”
Originally from LA, Tramel moved to Nashville for college about a decade ago. Until starting Snõõper three years ago, she had never sung in a band or played any instruments. She was a regular at the city’s punk gigs, though, where she first came across Cummins. “I’ve been the guy who’s played in every band in town for the past eight to ten years,” he says, smiling. They were close friends for years before they “naturally” transitioned to dating.
When the first pandemic-induced lockdown began, Cummins started recording early Snõõper demos on an eight-track. Initially, Tramel was most interested in creating animated music videos for the project. But to do so, they needed real songs, so she started contributing lyrics and vocals too. Since playing live wasn’t an option at the time, the project felt totally unrestrained by the worry of what would be achievable at a live show.
“There was this sense of freedom that I’ve never had with any of my other bands,” Cummins says. “It made it really easy and special.” The deeper into the pandemic they got, and the more the prospect of getting back into the real world any time soon shrunk and shrunk, the faster and crazier their songs became.
When it finally was time to get onstage, the band began running and took breaks from alcohol to be prepared for the sheer speed and intensity of the set. Tramel, who had never played a gig before, was incredibly nervous. “At first I thought I was gonna fall down. I was like, ‘I’m literally not gonna be able to do this’,” she says. Yet one thing that alleviated the anxiety was the crowd reaction to Tramel’s homemade props. “I had a big papier-mâché weight, and I noticed as I was pretending to lift it, people were pretending it was a real weight, and they were like, “‘Yeah!’ I was like, ‘OK, if I’m getting this reaction over something so simple, what else can we do?’”
That’s when Tramel and the band set about coming up with the rest of their props, from the hilariously big puppets to the giant telephone that they like to throw into the crowd. “I think in the beginning, when the props came into it, I felt insecure. I didn’t wanna be seen as a gimmick band,” Cummins says. “I was really insecure about it too,” Tramel agrees, “’cause my papier-mâché stuff is so sacred to me.”
On Snõõper’s first-ever West Coast tour, even though they’d paid extra to have their puppets shipped out, the band felt too nervous to bring any of them onstage. “Every show we were like, ‘Not tonight, not tonight,’” Tramel recalls. It was after a show in San Diego, when they were packing up the van, that everything changed.
“We were loading out, and one of the kids at the show was like, ‘What’s that?’ And it was the puppet in the back of the car,” she says. “So [bassist] Happy puts on the puppet backpack and the head… and it was a euphoric feeling. Everyone was laughing, we were running around the streets with this puppet and everything, and people were taking videos and posting it.” From that moment on, Snõõper haven’t been without their props — even if it means Tramel waking up at 6am to go to the craft supply shop when something breaks on the road.
“In the same way the music has no restrictions, and instead tons of freedom, everything in the live set is constantly building up,” Cummins says. “We can’t take any part out ‘cause it’s so crucial to having the full experience live.” Tramel adds: “It can feel stressful sometimes because there’s so many parts now involved – but we always commit to the bit!”
Snõõper recently completed a tour of Australia — not only their first time out of the country as a band, but for Cummins, his first time ever leaving North America. Next up is their tour of the UK in October, hitting venues from the Windmill in Brixton to the Hug & Pint in Glasgow, where they’ll christen our shores with all of the typical antics and mayhem of a Snõõper show. Live music fans: be prepared to be inducted into the Snõõper gang, and never look back.
“It feels like we’re throwing a party for all of our friends every time we play,” Tramel says. “My ideal type of hangout with people is you bring over a craft or whatever you’re working on, and then I’m gonna work on my thing, and we do that together. And [our shows] really feel that way. It’s like, ‘Thank you for coming to our party, now we’re all besties!’”
Snõõper’s debut album ‘Super Snõõper’ is out now via Third Man Records