Snoozer stuns on Born Losers debut

Saying Snoozer are veterans of the Philly scene is such an understatement it verges on being inaccurate. The truth is, brothers Mike and Tom Kelly were hanging out at Temple house shows and playing with big names like Alex G before the majority of active bands in this city ever even formed. Their new album, Mid-Earth, out now via Born Losers Records, pays homage to the ever-evolving yet consistently enthralling music community they’ve been a part of for over a decade.

An album begotten from long-gone basement venues and coming of age amidst artists that became their icons, it’s a collection of songs that honors the cris-crossing connections that have transformed them into the band (and people) they are today. Whether it’s the dense overdrive on “In the Valley of the Clear Pill” or the inside joke that became their album cover, they create a record that is crushingly sentimental without meaning to be. It’s reflexive of the chance encounters that you can only thank fate for because at the end of the day they made you into who you are.

For Snoozer, the stars began to align early in their adolescence when Tom started playing drums at around 12 years old. Their older brother, Kevin, kept a drum set in the basement and began teaching Tom when he expressed interest in learning. Around the same time, Mike picked up the guitar, inspired by his older cousin, who also played, after he was introduced to Nirvana.

Not long after, they began accompanying Kevin to the shows his band, Mary Magdalene, played in the city. Soon their default Friday and Saturday night plans became squeezing into sweaty basements and getting their eardrums obliterated by acts that seemed like real-life rockstars.

“Philly was so much different in the aughts,” says Tom. “It was such a smaller pool and the bands were so much weirder….they were more extreme and it was so fun to go and get your little adolescent mind blown by these crazy bands.”

Finding inspiration in their backyard

Despite only being 14 when they started to immerse themselves in this alternate world, they started switching out The Strokes for the local music they came to love, “they (the bands in Philly) became the people we looked up to and wanted to be like,” says Mike.

It seems only natural, as early on they were sharing bills with bands like Mumblr, Skin Cells (one of Alex G’s early projects), and the infinitely iconic Blue Smiley. Of course, being surrounded by so much talent can make it a little bit difficult to figure out what exactly you want to say. At first, they “didn’t want to be an original band, we wanted to be a Chamomile cover band,” says Mike.

They would pull stunts, like smashing their instruments, and every one of their early gigs ended with Mike jumping into Tom’s drum set. They considered a show a success if at the end of the night they were bruised up, one time they even accidentally smashed a lightbulb and played the rest of their set in the dark.

However, once they started recording at The Sex Dungeon, a studio in West Philly where the bands they “looked up to and low-key worshiped,” also recorded, they realized that the blistering Faux Fetus-esque sound they were going for didn’t translate. Instead, inspired by bands like Ugh God and Caw! They started taking a more melodic approach to songwriting, resulting in early releases like 2014’s Cottage Cheese and 2015’s life sucks.

Obviously Snoozer, just like the Philly scene, has changed a lot from the early 2010’s. Mid-Earth reflects that evolution, but just like the city itself, both manage to keep an unmistakable charm and unbreakable sense of community which absolutely shines.

Even the fact Snoozer recorded the album at their studio, Hidden Fortress, in Brewerytown, speaks to the way one space (like Sex Dungeon) can lead to the next generation finding their footing. The brothers bought the space, which is situated on the second floor of a warehouse, around 2018. They lived there while they built out the studio, even though there was no heat, no kitchen, and a “shack” that qualified as the bathroom. “It honestly tested the limits of all our relationships,” says Mike.

These Easter-egg anecdotes are laced throughout the record; even the title is a nod to their shared love of The Lord of the Rings. Dipping into their past, even lead single, “Love’s Permission,” was something stored in their backlog for almost two years. A guitar-centric and grungy track Mike describes “getting high off” the first time he heard, it’s what they ultimately decided to center the album around.

“I think we had intended to essentially make ten ‘Love’s Permissions,’ then as the process went on we just started following our bliss,” says Tom. Their most collaborative album to date, it ranges from sad-boy Elliott Smith demos turned electronic (“Good Friend”) to the occasional inspiration from Yung Lean. What should be sonic chaos works because it’s a snapshot of what real life is like, sometimes channeling your 16-year-old self, awestruck by some band that becomes the band you want to emulate, and other times getting really into Swedish rap for some inexplicable reason.

Still, no matter who we become, it’s clear that we are always connected to where we came from and the dreams we had. In Snoozer’s case, Mid-Earth represents both. “It was just cool to come back into the control room and hear it sound exactly like how I would have wanted it to sound when I was 15,” says Tom.

There’s no doubt another generation will be getting starstruck at a Snoozer show, wanting to start a band because the Kelly brothers seem so cool. The same way Mid-Earth is a bricolage of the bands they loved, Snoozers’ influence will be popping up in a few years amongst the next wave of college bands and DIY kids. They’re creating a legacy, adding to that shared secret history that only a select few can really understand. To put it simply, Snoozer pays it forward in the most exquisite way possible.

Snoozer plays Union Transfer on Saturday, October 12th, with Oso Oso and Tigers Jaw; tickets and more information can be found at the WXPN Concert Calendar. Stream Mid-Earth below, and order a copy now, via Born Losers Records.