BIO
Whatever you think of Chris Broach’s past projects, SNST is different. Not in a strange way, but in the same way that all of his projects are. It’s unique and genre-defining in its own right — as Braid was — and as The Firebird Band was (with its electronic elements). Even his least well known and most short-lived band L' Spaerow had some of the more indie and darkwave kids’ eyes and ears.
SNST, taken on its own, is a mix of all of the things that make Chris Broach and his wife Sonja Rae tick. The new album, “It’s Hard to Be Loved By You”, is an amalgam of Synth and New Wave, indie and post-punk guitar, heart on your sleeve rock, and Dark Wave & Indie Dance beats and synth sounds. This record should land on record store and magazine “staff picks” lists and as a recommendation to the odd store / ‘zine hang-around looking for some fresh perspective. With the addition of Sonja Rae on lead vocals, SNST has a strong female lead and a more dynamic and unique sound. It’s less crowded and more direct. It even borders on a modern-pop approach to the songs. Chris’s vocals - where he takes lead - are more understated than their first album, but at the same time, more earnest — and the interplay between Sonja Rae and Chris Broach works well. Chris says that he was feeling “uninspired and stuck in a rut lyrically” when he asked Sonja to try and write some vocals for the band. “She breathed new life into these songs I had been working on, and with the first song she wrote lyrics and vocals to, I was like - can you do another? So she would spend an hour writing - and come down and lay it down, and I was floored because it was excellent. So we just kept going until the record was finished. It inspired me very much to finish this record.”
SNST — in Chris Broach’s words — “is different in that sideways, ‘where is this coming from?’ — or ‘what’s fresh about it?’ approach I take to the music.” He continues, “I don’t want to rehash the past, I want to try new things; new sounds; new textures and new ideas to breathe new life into the music.” When asked to describe the music, he doesn’t, but he describes a philosophy and a bit about his influences. He says, “I have trouble describing SNST’s sound. When I write — which is most of the time — I don’t listen to music much except what I’m working on at the time. It consumes me… I listen to lots of old stuff when I need a pick-me-up - old hardcore and punk like Minor Threat, The Minutemen, The Descendants, The Big Boys, or name a Dischord [Records] band from the 90s, and I listened to them most-likely; I also throw on The Pixies, Joy Division, Depeche Mode, The Cure, or something like The Safety Dance by Men at Work. I really don’t listen to a lot of new stuff. When I do, it’s usually by accident — or after me avoiding it altogether, my wife will finally get me to sit down so she can show me something new. I can’t listen passively to something I don’t know, musically - so we can’t just put it on in the car while running errands - or in the background while doing something else. I have to have no distractions because I listen intently - and when there are distractions, it all becomes noise to me. I’m also massively critical - to a fault - which I’m working on, but I’d say it’s about 50/50 whether I’ll like what she wants to show me. So, for a lot of reasons, I avoid it. Even so, we work together well and the vocals she lays down become integral to how I — or we — end up shaping the final song structure.”
When asked about her approach to the music, Sonja Rae said, “[Chris is] always working on new stuff. He’s got music on his laptop, his phone, his iPad, and in his studio in our home. Eventually he gets the music to a usable state, and that’s where I come in with vocals and we work to shape the songs to fit. Our influences are a little different. We’re 6 years apart in age, but I tend to like stuff that came after a lot of his influences - for the most part. As a teenager I was really excited about Saves the Day, At The Drive In, Modest Mouse, Piebald, and The Get Up Kids - I was a radio major in college, basically so that I could have a punk rock radio show - and then I migrated to Jawbreaker, Q And Not U, and other post-punk bands. Funny enough, most of the bands I was influenced by early on were Chris’s contemporaries, and I also listened Braid on college radio. Around that time, I started writing music along those lines with some projects, but they didn’t really take off. After that, my influences changed. I started liking bands like The New Pornographers, different types of pop like The Cardigans and The Metric, and then dove into singer-songwriter type bands like Ryan Adams and The Replacements. More recently, I really appreciate bands like Foster the People, Phantogram, and Tokyo Police Club. So, I have a pretty heavy singer-songwriter influence, in general. It’s mostly male dominated, but the women on my list have probably been more influential to me because they’re in the minority - like Neko Case, for example. I think the stuff I’d done before never really took off because I never found a writing partner like Chris. He writes interesting and inspiring music, as opposed to simple guitar chord progressions that I was used to. I think we both knew in the back of our minds that working together musically was something we could do - but the opportunity hadn’t really materialized until recently.”
History:
SNST started with Chris Broach of BRAID & The Firebird Band and Steve Znavor of The Firebird Band. Their first album was produced, recorded, and mixed by Will Yip (Tigers Jaw, Nothing, Circa Survive, Pity Sex), SNST’s first LP Turn Out The Lights represented a new beginning for Chris Broach. He put The Firebird Band to rest, and wanted to start fresh with SNST.
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