Snowhore is the recording project of Veronica Isley based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Along with Kaytee Della Monica (of No Thank You) on bass and Greg Mendez on drums, Isley crafts intimate and often forthright songs that combine the searching emotion of bedroom pop with a variety of other styles.
As displayed on debut Everything Tastes Bad, an album released in 2018, there’s a certain bounce to the instrumentation, be it with a playful garage rock edge or almost pop punk-style propulsive momentum, and Della Monica helps develop something of a sixties sensibility too with vivid vocal harmonies. All in all, it mark Snowhore as the best of both words, experimenting with style without ever sacrificing the intimacy of tone.
Because Everything Tastes Bad is an inherently personal album, crafted around a variety of relationships dear to Isley. This might be the end of dear friendship, the trials of unrequited love, or the relationship between family members when tested by addiction and suffering. “Without much intention,” Isley explains, “each song ended up being a testament to the impact that, for better or worse, each relationship had on my life.” The result is wide ranging and conflicted, where love, resentment and pain are not mutually exclusive, or even clearly distinctive from one another in the shapes they come to take.
This month sees Snowhore team up with the good folks at Devil Town Tapes for a special edition reissue of the record, including the first physical release with lilac and transparent pink versions of cassette. We’re delighted to share the release, and decided to ask Isley a few questions about Snowhore and the record’s new lease of life.
Thanks for speaking with us, and congratulations on the release. Why did you decide to reissue the album, and how did the partnership with Devil Town come about?
Hi Jon! Thanks for having me! The two actually sort of go hand-in-hand. Jack reached out to me at the end of 2020 about reissuing the album as a tape release. When the record first came out in 2018 we opted to just put it up on Bandcamp, play a release show and call it a day. I was kind of hesitant to reissue at first because this record is full of some of the first songs I ever wrote, so it’s a little like looking back at pictures of yourself from middle school. But I was also excited about the idea of a physical release, plus I didn’t think Jack would offer to release it on DTT if he didn’t see something in it. Everyone he’s put out thus far has been awesome, from Bedtime Khal to Greg Mendez to Omes. So here we are!
How do you work on writing songs as a band? Do the others have input too, or do you write the songs first and give everyone input from there?
I’m kind of a creative hermit and I’ll only really write a song when I have the space. If I like what I get from that process I’ll bring it to Kaytee and Greg and just ask them to play what they hear or feel. They’re both insanely talented and intuitive musicians and I feel super lucky to make music with them. Snowhore wouldn’t be what it is without them.
There’s a candid quality to the writing that proves striking – pretty much every song on the EP is about a relationship of one kind or another. Did you set out to create something so personal and forthright? Or does your life just seep in when you’re writing?
I am a messy songwriter and I kind of do everything at once. The melody informs the music informs the rhythm and I’ll play with fake words the whole time until something sticks. And then I guess it’s just word association? I think in that way my life kind of just seeps in, like subconsciously I know what story I’m trying to tell and then as I write it I start to understand what I’m saying. I think like most creative people I am sensitive with a capital “s.” I’m usually using songwriting in one way or another to process something that’s hard for me to talk about.
On ‘Sad Song’ you sing about being twenty-three and nothing having changed, and it got me wondering how it feels revisiting such personal songs now, with a certain amount of time having passed? Does there feel like there’s any distance between then and now, or are the tracks as emotionally immediate as ever?
Kinda dumb, but I was actually twenty-two when I wrote that song but thought “twenty-three years” was a better lyric. My life was in a state of really tumultuous transition where I was cutting out a lot of people and things that were not good for me. Looking back on that period of time feels like looking at someone else’s life because I’m in such a wildly different place than I was when I wrote these songs. I think in that lyric about nothing changing I was acknowledging that yeah, I’m not a homeless junkie anymore but I’m still utterly fucking miserable. Sad Song is actually especially loaded for me. So many things about myself and my life that needed to change have changed since then and I’m really grateful for that.
Do you have any idea what comes next for Snowhore?
Hopefully we’re gonna start recording a new record this year! I think we’ve grown a lot as a band and I’m really excited to share the songs we’ve been working on. Thanks again for having me and for the thoughtful questions.
Everything Tastes Bad is out now, and you can get it from Devil Town Tapes (UK) and the Snowhore (US) Bandcamp page.
