The MusicNerd Q&A with The Holy Snappers

I think it would be virtually impossible for anyone with a solid understanding of the music scene in Atlantic Canada to deny that the City of Halifax has always contributed more than their fair share of talent to the world. While the city has offered a more than generous share of pop, hip-hop and more, straight up rock n roll bands seem to be a little more of a rare breed over the past two decades.

The Holy Snappers are out to change that. Their mandate is a simple one: they just wanna rock.

The Holy Snappers Brent Geikie recently spoke with Here Magazine about the band’s debut (available for free download HERE) and why they will not overthink the process of making music:

Halifax has produced a lot of great bands in the past but the city has never had a lot of straight up rock n roll bands. Why do you think that is? 

Geikie: That’s a good question.  Halifax is a university town and perhaps our brand of rock n’ roll has a bit of a reputation for being low-brow, and to be honest a whole lot of it is. That being said, I actually feel Halifax is the home of two of the best Canadian rock n roll bands in recent memory: Myles Deck and The Fuzz and The Heelwalkers.

With the glut of too many labels being slapped on music these days, being quite simply a rock n roll band is a unique thing unto itself. What are your thoughts on it?

Geikie: Honestly it isn’t something we’ve ever really talked about.  We definitely aren’t trying to re-invent the wheel; we just want to play the kind of music we love to play.

Was it important to make the record in such a quick fashion so that nothing was being over thought or was it more a matter of cost or convenience?

Geikie: It was important in that we didn’t have a budget whatsoever to speak of.  We knew from the very beginning that we wanted to give the album away for free online so we just went in and slammed the bass and drum tracks down in a few hours and did the same with the guitar and vocals. We wanted the record mixed loud and to sound like we do live and we feel that Rob Corrigan (engineer/mixer) nailed it.