The Scotsman Sessions #182: Jack Cochrane

Welcome to the award-winning Scotsman Sessions. With performing arts activity curtailed for the foreseeable future, we are commissioning a series of short video performances from artists all around the country and releasing them on scotsman.com, with introductions from our critics. Here, Snuts frontman Jack Cochrane gives a solo acoustic performance of the band's new single, Somebody Loves You.

Like many upcoming artists, indie rockers The Snuts have turned the relative limbo of lockdown to positive use, not least in completing their debut album, W.L., for release in March, as well as peppering the pandemic with cover versions, mixtape releases and lockdown live performances.

Continuing their proactive streak, the four-piece, hailing from Whitburn, West Lothian, have chosen to donate the video budget for their new single, Somebody Loves You, to the Scottish Refugee Council, and instead film a simple montage video on mobile phones combining footage of the band larking around the streets of Glasgow with additional audio and visual clips of those who have been helped by the charity talking about how the song makes them feel. Universal expressions of missing loved ones ensue.

Clearly a fan of a fish-eye lens (who isn’t?), frontman Jack Cochrane has also filmed a special solo acoustic rendition of the single for the Scotsman Sessions from his home in Glasgow, taking time out from what has become another lockdown ritual – a daily letter to the First Minister.

“We’re respectful and full of empathy in regards to what’s going on with the pandemic,” says Cochrane. “However, we need answers from the government on how the live music and events industry can recover from this.” Understandably, uncertainty reigns over The Snuts’ spring tour, set to culminate with three sold out dates in June at Glasgow’s Barrowland ballroom.

“We’ve been completely ignored as an industry,” he says. “We were the first to put down our tools and will be the last to return. I’ve posted a new letter every day since the end of 2020 to Nicola Sturgeon and my local MPs in search of clarity on behalf of all the skilled workers in our industry, but have yet to receive a reply.”

W.L. is released by Parlophone on 19 March, https://www.thesnuts.co.uk/

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