Interview with SNEAKIN’NUTS

Vo/gt. 竹村 駿 @shun_sneakin
Gt/vo. RYO
Ba/vo. 野口ゐうと @SNKYUTO
Dr/Cho.  みすみしょうと   @shoto_carl
Twitter – TuneCore – Instagram

SNEAKIN’ NUTS, Thank you very much for this interview!!

Could you please introduce us to SNEAKIN’ NUTS in a good length of paragraph? Please tell me something about your history and your biggest highlights!

We are a ROCK’N’ROLL band that formed in Tokyo, in 2018. We have released 3 singles so far, and have been active with 12 consecutive weeks of 3MAN events and a few national tours. On January 20, 2021, we released our 1st mini album. We are going on a nationwide tour starting with a ONEMAN LIVE. Punk rock is the basis of our musical creativity, but we have absorbed a wide variety of music styles from various genres which leads to our highlight of our shows which are played with a fully hot and powerful presence on the stage!

If you had to describe SNEAKIN’ NUTS with one kanji character, which one would you choose?

If we were to pick a kanji to describe us, we would choose, 生 (raw). The reason would be that we are a live band and our lyrics are raw and unpretentious.

How would SNEAKIN’ NUTS like to be supported by your fans?

The way we want to be supported is that we hope you enjoy our music.

Could you please introduce yourself, please tell us something interesting about yourself.

Shun: vocal&guitar、23 years old.
RYO: Guitar&Vocal、25 years old
Yuto: Bass&Vocal、31 years old
Shoto: Drums&chorus 21 years old

How have you met each other?

When Shun was still in high school he played with his band at his hometown (Aichi Prefecture) on the same tour as also Gt.RYO was playing with a different band as a support member and so both met. Two years later, Shun and RYO moved to Tokyo and met again. Two years later, they formed a band. Half a year before that, Yuto, who was co-starring with Shun in another band, joined. Six months later, Shoto joined the band as a support drummer. later on he became the official drummer and has been with the band ever since.

How did you get into this genre of music? Also why do you love this genre of music?

Shun: I started out listening to a Japanese rock band called A.R.B by accident. After that, I started to look for bands that A.R.B influenced and vice versa, and I found that I liked music within the ROCK’N’ROLL and PUNK genres, and I used to listen to PUNK ROCK bands more than ROCK’N’ROLL when I was a teenager. Now I listen to anything ROCK in general as long as I like it.

RYO: I got into this music because to me it’s the most energetic music, so it is always nice to listen to it. Well, I also listen to other music.

Yuto: I got into this genre of music because I was shocked by the unexpectedness that overturned everything.

Shoto: When I heard “The Blue Hearts, I thought, “You can sing this kind of thing?!” and so I was absorbed into it from there.

Why did you want to become a musician and why did you decide to play the instrument you play now. And for the vocalist, why did you choose to sing and not to play an instrument.

Shun: I didn’t have anything that I wanted to be other than a musician. When I first wanted to be in a band, I wanted to be a guitarist and was looking for a vocalist but couldn’t find one, so I sang because I had no choice. But in the end, I didn’t meet a vocalist who I thought was cooler than me, so I became a vocalist. I always liked singing, but as I performed, it grew and grew, and now I can’t think of anything else but being a vocalist. I also would like to play an instrument, though.

RYO: It just happened. My parents had guitars at home, so I naturally started playing the guitar.

Yuto: I’ve been familiar with classical piano since I was a child. But when it came to being in this band, I just changed to bass.

Shoto: I’ve loved taiko since I was little, and now that I am older, what I like is drumming, and I want to keep hitting the drums as much as I can.

You guys play a lot of lives. How do you feel being on stage? What kind of feeling do you get when you enter the stage?

Shun: When I am on the stage I feel like myself, but at the same time also don’t feel like myself. When we play live in this diplomatic space called society, we wear a certain mask (when outside in public), so maybe it’s a release of that (particular) mask. I think it’s important to be able to control that liberated part of ourselves and put it into the music. Also, it’s just fun.

You have release your first Mini album 【プロレタリアの銀河の夢】 on January 20th. Please tell us the story behind the jacket design.

Shun: I wanted to include the sky, so I took a shot when I was on a rooftop. The location where the picture was taken is the roof of the venue, “RokuDemoNaiYoru” in Shimokitazawa.


What’s Why did you decide to title this album 【プロレタリアの銀河の夢】?

I’m sure there are many reasons for this, but all the members unanimously decided to use this title.

What was the main inspiration for creating 【プロレタリアの銀河の夢】?

Shun: That’s too hard to say in just a few words.

I’m curious about the (lyrical) story behind each song, could you tell me some story behind each song?

1.GOIN’ BACK
Shun: This is the last lyric I wrote for this album, as recording was postponed due to the spread of the coronavirus. I wrote this song when I  thought about myself, the band members, the live houses, the fans, and the people there. It’s a very selfish song, and I haven’t liked that kind of song much lately, but now I think it’s okay to make a song like this.

2.WONDERFUL DAYS(ONLY TRAIL)
Shun: I’ve heard that people think about winter in summer and summer in winter, and I created this song around January 2020 to show off a typical example. I was in a bit of a mental funk at the time, so this song was a kind of utopia for me when I created it. I didn’t use the first lyric I wrote for this song. But rather I  used a version that came to my mind while I was lying down in my front lawn while I waswearing many layers of clothes, watching kids flying kites. If we’re talking about the song, I mixed the best parts of each era of power pop from the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

3.Smell Blood
Shun: This song was an attempt to create lyrics on one theme or genre. The theme is “pirates”. I like pirates. I also tried to see how far I could satirize myself and the present world. I’m proud to say that it turned out pretty well. The song is a modified and updated version of a song from a band I was in when I was a teenager. At that time, I was doing a lot of songs that were influenced by hardcore punk.

4.Don’t Let Me Down
RYO: During the first emergency declaration of quarantine, there were no gigs and I had too much free time, so I wrote a lot of songs. I took the songs that I liked the most and put them together to make this song. At the root of this song is the negative side of people who lost their jobs and hobbies during the time of corona, but I didn’t want to make it a dark song, so I made it a fun song… because music is for having fun, isn’t it?

5.S.I.G.N.A.L
RYO:  I don’t want to sound too much like a commentator, but this song is an image of a photographer capturing a scene or a description of taking a moment to remember a memory. Rather than “creating” my thoughts and feelings in words, it’s more like I’m trying to convey a message by “putting” them on it like a photograph. I put them on the music, so it’s like a double filter. If you break down the songs, you can see that I’ve done some interesting things.

6.プロレタリアの銀河の夢
Shun: I wrote this song about three years ago and have been playing it since the first live performance of SNEAKIN’ NUTS. That’s what makes it different from the other songs on this album. I wrote this song when I was 20 years old. The lyrics have changed over the past three years. What’s interesting is that I initially wrote this song as a response to the song “Fade Away” by the Japanese rock’n’roll band THE ROOSTERS. Well, it was just the initial melody, and halfway through the song, it became more than that. I like works that mix and contrast reality, such as “Proletaria,” and fantasy, such as “A Dream of the Galaxy. Some parts are non-fiction and some parts are.

What was the hardest point to complete of 『プロレタリアの銀河の夢』?

The recording was the hardest. Due to the coronavirus, the recording was postponed from May to August of 2020, during those three months, we wrote four songs from a blank sheet of paper, which made it very difficult to refine our original recording plan.

Are there any fun and interesting stories about 『プロレタリアの銀河の夢』?

As I mentioned earlier, the recording was delayed from the original schedule due to the coronavirus, which led to the creation of new songs, which were then recorded. In other words, this album would not have been made possible without Corona, which is a bit inappropriate, but I think it’s interesting.

You guys wrote「Finally, a “real ROCK band” from the “live house scene” hits the “decaying “Japanese rock scene!!”」 “Real ROCK band” So you guys feel that there are not many “REAL” rock bands around?

Shun: I guess there are some because in the venues we play there are lots of cool bands around me

RYO: There are a lot of cool bands out there, but they’re still kind of underground, so I’d like it if the young ROCK scene could grow as a whole!

To which countries would you love to travel too? For vacation(private) and for band stuff.

Shun: I’ve never been abroad before, so I’d like to go anywhere. If I’m going on a private trip, I’d like to see some ruins. Also, aurora. So I’d like to go to a country like that. I want to go to various places with my band. Europe is good, America is good, and Asia is good.

RYO:  I’m very interested in foreign countries. I like music from the USA and UK, so I would like to go there. I also want to go to Ireland. I’ve been to Thailand before, and Thailand made me interested to discover more history from Southeast Asia. I would like to go to Vietnam, India, and Malaysia etc.

What’s the most difficult encounter you faced in SNEAKIN’ NUTS’s activity?

Shun: Most difficult encounter?! That’s a difficult question. *laughs*  Might be just to be a member?…

RYO: It’s difficult to get along with everyone, because each of us have such strong character traits…

Because you are a live house scene band, what kind of difficulties do you face? Do you face any difficulties with the “venues” ticket systems, or are there wonderful people around you guys who give a helping hand to play easy and cheap? Because I’ve heard that Japan’s “venue ticket system” is crazy. 

Shun: Rather than the ticket system, the problem is that the concept of venues may be a bit too closed off. There seems to be a strong feeling that it’s hard for newcomers to enter if you don’t know the band well. Even if you do know the band well, Japanese people tend to be shy, so if you have to go through the hassle of booking a ticket from the band’s website or through some other service to get a ticket, I think that alone will put you off the idea of going to a venue.

Please tell us something more about the “rock/punk scene”. Are there any special things which don’t happen in other scenes much?

Shun: I don’t know much about other scenes, so I don’t know. I’ve grown up watching things that may seem unusual to others.

Corona is still in this world, how does SNEAKIN’ NUTS deal with it, and also how do you deal with it in your private life? And does it drive you crazy somehow?

Shun: It doesn’t let me stop doing what I want in any way.

RYO: Well, our role is to entertain people with music. That’s all we do.

Does Corona also have a positive impact on SNEAKIN’ NUTS?

Shun: At least I’ve started to look at myself and the world more closely. That’s about it, the rest is shit.

RYO: Corona has made me say “FUCK IT” to everything *laughs*.

Yuto: If I had to say that it had a positive impact, I would say that it clarified a lot of things. I think it was the clarification of our goals and the pride we each have.

How do you see the future of SNEAKIN’ NUTS?

Shun: It won’t be an easy road but we’re gonna get famous! 

RYO: I want to become famous and live in a house with a garden, I want to grow some bonsai trees.

Why do you think someone should listen to “SNEAKIN’ NUTS”? What makes you unique?

Shun: We create music which gives a mixed feeling of different musical eras. It might feel like a pretty big mess because it’s not just one style, but isn’t that interesting?

RYO: Aren’t we a wild band? Well we’re a band who you can’t just put inside one box

Please give one last comment to your fans and readers!

Shun: Our music energy is amazing. It’s filled with human energy and emotion. Hopefully the situation gets better soon, I’m looking forward to seeing everyone at our live shows as soon as possible!

RYO: Everyone please take good care of yourself! Health comes first! See ya!

Yuto: You are the hero of your own life. Do what you want to do, and stay ROCK’N ROLL!

Shoto: Thank you for checking out SNEAKIN’ NUTS!

Thanks again for this wonderful interview! We wish you continued success in your future activities.