Sometimes in life if you don’t take chances then nothing will happen. It sounds so simple. But sometimes you have to reach out of your comfort zone and the results could be beyond what you would even imagine.
I had been following Swedish multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, songwriter, prop-master, shock-rocker, provocateur Snowy Shaw (Formerly of King Diamond, Therion, Mercyful Fate, Notre Dame, Dream Evil, Dimmu Borgir, Memento Mori ) on social media for awhile. He always seemed very down to earth, very human despite his super impressive résumé and talent. On a whim, I sent a message asking if he would like to do an informal interview. There are dozens of great in depth YouTube videos of highly knowledgeable music journalists talking with Snowy about his legendary dense discography.
I wanted to do something different. I wanted to give him a forum to talk about things that mattered to him. Instead of repeating the same stories about how he got into King Diamond or what was it like recording with Dimmu Borgir.
We were on the phone for two hours. Unfortunately my life got in the way and I had to end the phone call otherwise I suspect we would have been chatting at least another 2 hours.
I found him to be highly intelligent, charming, knowledgeable, very honest, down to earth, and very insightful about a lot of different topics.
Obviously I can’t share the entire conversation because there was some stuff that was strictly “off the record”.
This is Part 1 of a multi part series
We talked about how frustrating it is for touring musicians nowadays,
Snowy: A nightliner costs a fortune every fucking week just to get a visa to go. O For me to play in the US or vice versa. I mean, it just doesn't add up.
Rys: Right, and visa requirements are ridiculous, especially to get so many bands are being rejected coming to America now.
Snowy: It's insane. Yeah, it goes both ways. it's so much paperwork and hassle and bureaucracy or whatever so it's like okay if you do a small mistake okay you crossed the wrong box or something like that okay you're denied and one guy in the band i mean it's you cannot go ahead with it i mean it's such a hassle so i want to spare myself all of that and doing work for others and record music and write my own music, just to be creative and to do it like that, but you'd be out of the road .I mean I've been there been there done that I mean so I have no .., there's no desire to do that anymore basically
Rys: Right and you're at the point in your career where you can say ‘look I don't want to deal with this bullshit’
Snowy: You know, I've fucking done all this shit Maybe so I don't know It's not like I'm pick and choose and it's not like, or you can just lean back and live off your royalties. I mean, this is just a fucking illusion basically.
Rys: Yeah. Trust me, I've dated musicians my whole life. I know that.
Snowy: Yeah, but it's just a fucking fantasy. You grow up idolizing Kiss or Iron maiden or whatever and think wow, I want to do this myself. You devote yourself your entire life chasing that dream, just to realize that ‘hmm at the end of the rainbow, there is no treasure chest.’
Rys: It's just more bullshit.
Snowy: I mean, just like I put in my book ( “The Book of Heavy Metal” - available here : https://www.snowyshaw.net/product/the-book-of-heavy-metal/ ), I mean, I quoted Lemmy, ‘the chase is better than the catch’. Once you get it, then you realize that, okay, is that all there is to it?
Rys: Well, that reminds me of something I wanted to ask you that I saw in one of your interviews. That the story, if you don't mind, that you said one of the first shows you played with the Mercyful Fate reunion, it was a huge festival in Copenhagen. The Roskilde Festival was a huge festival. And you're thinking, here I am on stage with Mercyful Fate. I idolized them when I was a kid and played this huge festival in their hometown. And the show ended and you're like, okay, what now?
Snowy: Yeah, but this wasn't the first one. It was the last show that I did. I think the first gig we ever played with Mercyful Fate we got invited by Metallica because they are Mercyful Fate fans and all that and once the reunion was there, we were invited to open up and play like, I don't know, five songs or something like that. And that was the first show we did in Copenhagen, but then, like say a year or more, year and a half more, we were headlining another festival after playing all over the US and all that and recording albums and stuff. Then we were playing this Roskilde Festival headlining that and it's like back in ‘94 and it was 70,000 people I think.
Rys: Wow.
Snowy: So it's something that you've kind of dreamt of your whole life and people would probably kill to be in my position to sit with this legendary black metal or heavy metal band. But I figured this is the pinnacle of my career perhaps, something I've dreamt of my whole life, kind of, I would say. But after I walked off stage, dried some sweat, drank some beer, and I figured, so what now? , it left me not with the... I wasn't content or in contact, sort of euphoric in contact with God or anything like that, which I had kind of imagined would kick in at that point. But all it was sort of instead I have this kind of void inside empty you just felt empty inside.
Snowy: Okay I mean is this all there is to it? This is
something I searched for and I just felt miserable actually so I tried to brush
it off and say like okay I probably haven't slept well or been eating enough or
I'm just grumpy or whatever. But I
couldn't put words on it back then when I was like 24, 25 or whatever. But over
time when people ask me, so what does it take for you to be pleased or
satisfied or find peace of mind? Maybe I don't wanna be the guy in the back. I
don't necessarily have to be the singer like King Diamond or something, but
it's gotta be my doing.
Hank or I mean those guys who have worked and dreamt, like have a clear goal and Ambition all that and they are the one who were sort of responsible for bringing us there. I was kind of like a hired gun a young guy like 12 years younger or something and was just hired to sit in and play drums and to be a timekeeper in a band. That simply doesn't work for me. If I have no say or or not involved in the decision making or songwriting or the creative process, then it's completely useless for me.
I mean, otherwise it's like, okay, there are tons of drummers who are just focused on drums. I just happened to pick that instrument when I was young and formed my own band. So I have, I need to be creative. I mean, I wanna be in charge of it all actually. online operations. So it doesn't work for me and I've done that with Sabaton as well.
And , even if I turn down a lot of offers from everything from Saxon to Yngwie Malmsteen to Manowar to Cradle of Filth and Pretty Maids and , everybody and countless bands because yeah, how can you turn down those big offers? I mean, you could do it for a while at least. Yeah, but I've already done that. It's just one more stripe on my shoulder or something, I can say, oh, formally, of, blah, blah, so what? I know I'm not going to be content or fully satisfied to be in a band on those terms really, you know? That’s how it works for me.
Rys: That's why you want to do something like you're name, you're project, it's all you and you can have creative control and it's something you can be proud of
Snowy: Yeah but that's all it is to me. I mean, I've been sort of ruminating on all these kind of things for years now.
I was struggling with motivation actually, in trying to get the hang of why am I so different compared to others? They seem to be fully satisfied with their lives, be it to play bass or whatever they do in a band, be out there touring. But that's not for me. I mean maybe I got into the wrong line of work or profession to begin with. I should probably have been a let's say theater director or producer of some sort or script writer or something like that because I mean to me it's all about creating the stuff.
And when I make an album, for example, people say, wow, cool, now you can go out and play it live. Yeah, but I kind of weighed every fucking nuance in the mix until I'm 100% perfectly satisfied or as close as possible to that. I mean, that's what I go for.
And so I've made a comparison to those people and say, ‘okay, it's like this artist who paints and gets all the nuances right and the depth in the picture, in the painting and all that. Oh, now I'm fully satisfied. It took me four or five months to get it right, to get it spot on perfect.’
Wow, cool, now you can do it live.
Rys:(laughing) What? What? That’s not going to happen.
Snowy: (laughing) Now it exists, my sort of masterpiece or whatever, or my piece of art, it exists now. now you can enjoy it or embrace it. But now you can go out and do it live.
Why? You don't see a painter on stage. Wow, can you paint that?
Rys: Yeah, can you do the Mona Lisa in person?
Snowy: (laughing) Yeah. Frankly, I mean, maybe I've been operating in the wrong kind of world. It's kind of dawned on me over the years here that because I don't share ideas or ideals or this or that with so many people.
So I feel like such an oddball really, you know?
Rys: Well, that's a lot with a lot of creative people. They feel not in isolation, but they feel why do I have this? You know, why am I creative? Other people don't get it. Other people just content to go with the flow, go, be a machine almost.
Snowy: Yeah, I don't want to be condescending or just brush them off like that, but it feels like I'm completely misunderstood. And that sounds like, oh, sob, sob, sob,
Rys: (laughing) poor, poor misunderstood snowy.
Snowy: Yeah, but sometimes it feels like throwing pearls before swine, like you cannot appreciate the stuff. I mean, as long as it's loud and then, and what is it that attracts people to the whole scene, let's say going to festivals or concerts.
I would say group affiliation, you grow up with that, you identify with that crowd because that's what you got into when you were breaking free from your parents and identified with a metal scene or some other people got into the punk scene or synth or whatever it might be.
And so now it's been like, okay, 35, 40 years. So you go to festivals to hang out and be with your group affiliation, your crowd, like a herd mentality sort of, and get drunk.
That's the main thing. (laughing)
Rys: (laughing) It’s just an excuse to get drunk….
Snowy: it is …
Rys: But then, it's like trying to get a childhood. It's almost like people trying to relive their childhood, trying to regress back to when things are easier?
Snowy: Exactly, everything is based on nostalgia nowadays, I would say. And it's also this herd mentality. We have this big arena here in Gothenburg, Ullevi, and there's a, they call it Ullevi syndrome.
Let's say Bruce Springsteen comes to play there, and TV is there interviewing people outside the venue in an outdoor arena. And they ask, ‘okay, so I assume you're a big fan of the boss. So and so,’‘yeah, so a couple of good songs, okay’. And they ask the next person and you get the same kind of answer. ‘So what is it that brings you here?’
‘Yeah, it's summertime, it's something happening in the city and everybody goes here. So I go here to drink beer and possibly meet some old friends because we are kind of come from the same…. We grew up with this kind of thing. And if you're really lucky, maybe you meet someone to have sex with.’ (laughing)
Rys: (laughing) That's a motivator.
Snowy: The music is basically the soundtrack to that sort of lifestyle. So it's nostalgia, herd mentality, group affiliation, and getting drunk basically and kicking back, you're relaxing a little bit and hanging out with your right crowd. I mean it's not the same if I would go to some sort of yacht society and feel like the complete fucking outsider or golf course or something.
Rys: You show up, the way you do, looking like you, hey guys!
Snowy: I mean, I don't fit in at all so it's more convenient of course to go to hang out with, ‘Oh, you got fat.’ ‘Yeah, you too.’ You know, we're all getting older. This is nostalgia basically.
Rys: What else do I want to ask you? I have my whole List . I think everything just went out the window as I'm talking to you.
Because so many interviews are just focused, oh, tell me about recording, you know, the “Time” album and tell me about recording this and what was it like working with King
Snowy: and it's like. going through the motions and it's like yeah yeah.
Rys: How many times have you done that? How many times did you explain that?
Snowy: It's kind of tedious and boring because we've already been through that. I think it's far more interesting… I mean there are so many podcasts out there I was just watching Rick Beato which I always watch. He interviewed Who was it now? Yeah, but always interesting guests. They have a conversation more or less.
So it's a friendly conversation and their take on certain things or how they were analyzing and so forth. I mean it's not just like okay you have 15 minutes. That's a sort of a benefit for let's say modern technology in the past. Okay, you're going to be on radio you have like five minutes and you're pushing this brand new album so blah blah what else you got going and then it's done and over with. I mean with if you have your own YouTube channel there's no limitation really right so they speak until they're done basically and they have this sort of friendly conversation it's far more better obviously
Rys: It's less stiff, it's less formal, it's less corporate, I guess. There’s no agenda.
Snowy: Exactly. It's not so much selling. You're not selling what? People who have been in the business for 40 or 50, 60 years or something like that. Billy Corgan, I was watching also today, and I don't remember who he interviewed though.
It's so interesting when they're having those kind of conversations. more relaxed and they can open up a little bit and sort of bounce off each other and it's far more interesting I would say.
Rys: Because you've already done all, you've already toured the world, you've played the huge stages.
Snowy Here's my take on it that I've been discussing with close friends and so on. It's my thesis or whatever you say about the whole thing. When you first experience something which has such a tremendous impact on you when you're young, go into a concert with Iron Maiden or something like that. Wow. It's about live music and everything is new and fresh and exciting and when you're 13, 14 years old. But that was in 83. So it's like 40 fucking years ago.
If you expect to have the same kind of exciting effect or being as excited about it now after 40 plus years then something's wrong with you. I mean I could hang out with my friend standing at a bus stop drinking beer and in the middle of the night in the rain and he got so drunk that he pissed himself okay and we still consider that wow we had a great night yeah but if you're do it now when you're 55 plus.
Rys: Yeah, it's kind of ridiculous.
Snowy: (laughing) And something is very wrong with you.
What I'm saying is that I want sort of new experiences. to swim with dolphins or climb mountains or deep sea fishing, or something that I haven't done before. But to go on tour it's old hat. I've already done all of that. So I'm not excited about it. It's kind of easy.
I get very little response when I talk to other musicians who haven't necessarily gotten as far or done as much as I have. But so they still have that kind of illusion and that vision intact, their dream, their teenage dream, because they have this kind of filter, the glasses on everything is pink. Wow, it's going to be so cool all the groupies and limos and shit yeah but in order to get that kind of thing you need to have a time machine.
Rys: Yeah, that world doesn't exist anymore
Snowy: it doesn't exist anymore. it's not the fucking 80s .i remember we were going on the us tour and i got contacted by Swedish Channel 5 or whatever, TV station and channel and ‘okay we want to come along and make some sort of documentary of all the crazy lifestyle sex, drugs and rock and roll and all the girls and then drugs and shit like that’. I said ‘I'm sorry but maybe you got us mixed up with some other band, have you ever closely looked at Therion what kind of band that is? It's not like Motley Crue or anything. You got it all wrong. And for that matter, in order to get what you want, all this scandalous behavior or this bullshit, it doesn't exist anymore. I mean, you need, in order to get that kind of program, you have to create it somehow or fake it, or you need to have a time machine and go back to ‘86.’
Rys: That whole lifestyle doesn't exist anymore. And people have this illusion that nowadays, if you join a band or somebody's in a band that that's still happening and it's not.
Snowy: Yeah, but it's not. I saw this clip with some guy just on Instagram, whatever, And you being from New York and all that, it. He was outside of L'Amour in Brooklyn. I think it is. And it shut down like 15 years ago, something like that. So he saw Iron maiden, he saw Exodus and all of the bands, King Diamond and all that. But it shut down because all of the club, rock clubs, they are going belly up, I guess, pretty much everywhere. And it's a very, very tragic thing. But what do you think? Everything changes.
Rys: Even before COVID, like I remember CBGBs closed and that was a big deal.
Snowy: Of course, yeah.
Rys: But it was, but people think that COVID, I mean COVID didn't help, but it was before that people just didn't want to see live music.
Snowy: Yeah. Oh, I feel maybe I should shift gear or something because now it feels like I'm very negative and just pointing out like everything is shutting down. Nobody buys physical products anymore. The business is just fucking nostalgia based on nostalgia. All the festivals like the younger bands, they are 45 years old and been together since they released the first album in 91.
Everything is so fucking old and it's just like I say group affiliation, herd mentality sort of like it's you can relate to it you grew up in that kind of scene and it just feels very comfortable to be there.
Rys: It's people's comfort zone, but you're not afraid to go out of your comfort zone so maybe I don't know if you scare people if that's the right word or it's the side that people don't want to look at.
Snowy: Maybe it is I don't know I'm still trying to get my head around that because why am I so different?
Because I'm not interested in that anymore. I don't drink anymore. I drink alcohol-free beer because everything changes. When I was a teenager and a young kid, all I wanted was to be drunk. It didn't matter how it tasted. It was the effect of being drunk. That's what you were after. If you passed out and vomited, wow, it was a big success. Now it's like the complete opposite. I drink beer to for the taste, wow, this is good, but I'm not in the least interested in the buzz. Sort of like, oh, I get like, yeah, yeah. I'm not interested in that anymore.
Rys: Well, the hangovers are a lot worse now. That's a big thing.
Snowy: Yeah, but I can't see the point, basically you're a very sort of nervous person or closed up like that,” I'm afraid to talk”. I'm not.
Rys: Yeah, it's good for introverts.
Snowy: I don't have to have some sort of shield or hide behind,’ oh, I was drunk’. I said a lot of stupid things because I was drunk. Okay, blame it on that. It's maybe because you're an idiot.
Rys: You're like, ‘no, this is me naturally. I'm just going to say what's on my mind naturally.’
Snowy: (laughing) Yeah, I mean, sorry, I burned off that filter many, many years ago if I even had it to begin with. That's the worst thing. Yeah, so we kind of go through this. Nice! We kind of declare that I wouldn't say that everything is dead, but it's certainly dying.
Rys: It's depressing. Well, that's definitely depressing. I mean, I don't know if there's any new artists that you're interested in. I can't think of any. Everybody's so retro. Everybody new that's coming into the rock world has a retro sound.
Snowy: Yeah, I don't know.
What can you say about that? I don't know if people are really open to new stuff. They wanna hear for the same reasons possibly. You wanna hear something that you are familiar with. familiarity, , like, so if let's say, I would say this is the latest example, but, Greta von Fleet, for example, they filled the void that Zeppelin left in 81 or whatever when Bonzo died. So okay, we can do that thing. And then you had like in the maybe the 80s or 90s Kingdom Come, they were doing some sort of Led Zeppelin thing. And since they were gone, Hopefully it can do that thing.
Because there's a void for that. That makes sense kind of. So people want to hear stuff that they are familiar with. Music nowadays has become so weird. I wouldn't even talk about that because I am not a consumer and I just wrote on Facebook or something a comment about that.
I haven't been a consumer, I haven't even bought one single album this side of the millennium.
Rys: Wow!
Snowy: Because I mean, it's not to be arrogant or anything like that. It's just that I'm not interested. I'm only interested in the music that I make myself based on the stuff that I grew up with and that inspired me being Manowar or Kiss or Sweet or Uriah Heap or Alice Cooper or whatever it might have been. But that is kind of my schooling and my education where I learned what one can do. Same things with drums. I mean people sometimes ask me, I started drums when I was 13, maybe in 81. And they ask me, okay, do you know any, what are your favorite drummers, any new great drummers? There are millions of super great drummers out there but I'm not paying attention because I'm not comparing, I'm not listening I just learned the basics like learning math in school or grammar or something like that. Based on that I'm only interested in what I can create myself so I'm not consuming at all. I mean if things go well for this new band great good luck with that best of luck with that. I'm just not interested in consuming basically.
Rys: Right, and you were never in competition with other drummers. You were never like, “oh wow, that guy sucks, I'm so much better than him, screw him, why did he make it?”
Snowy: I'm only comparing with myself and my heroes. I mean, if I look at the wall here, I have this kind of shrine when I have framed albums, and it's like Kiss ‘Destroyer’, and Next to it is Rainbow ‘Rising’, both album covers that I love and the albums as well.
I cannot separate the music from the sound actually because I think it blends, go hand in hand. And it's both painted by Ken Kelly in 1976. I mean, I compare what I do to those kind of things.
So even when I remember doing, when I did my official first solo album in 2016, I went to Studio Fredman, the guy behind the Gothenburg death metal sound, award-winning producer and all that. And he has bands from all over the world coming to record and mix and all that with him because of what he did with At The Gates and Haunted and In Flames and all those bands. But I called him, especially just made an extra phone call,” hey, Frederick, just so you know, I'm not interested in getting this kind of Gothenburg death metal sound. The reason I go to you is because I think that you have good ears, so we can mix this well.” And when I got to the studio, I said you have Spotify, right? Okay, open up Kiss ‘Destroyer’ and Rainbow ‘Rising’. That's the template sort of like the reference material. And yeah, But those albums were, this was in 2016, so in other words, this was 40 years ago, so it's not like industry standard of today. Do you think I give a shit. I mean, I'm doing music to please myself.
Rys:, and he's like, oh, but technology has advanced. He's like, technology has advanced so far, you're like, yeah, fuck it, I wanna sound like this. This is it. Yeah, yeah.
Snowy: Yeah, but the industry people are chasing fame and fortune or something like that. I'm just trying to…
Rys: And the industry is whatever is the next big thing, whatever is big at the time, whatever the trend is, that's what the industry is.
Snowy: Yeah, but that's the worst. I've always been kind of allergic. I had some sort of, what do you call that, extreme hang up from that. from the 80s when everything turned from new wave of heavy metal which has kind of exploded globally all over the world and then everything towards the mid 80s everything turned so Americanized with Van Halen's jump and all that and the hair metal thing and I and you could see Celtic Frost or Saxon having leg warmers and bleach hair and I fucking despised it so much. That is why Manowar became so so important to me because they were having this motto, “Death to the False Metal”
Rys: “Wimps and posers leave the hall.” That was it.
Snowy: Yeah, that was later. I can see that now looking back on it like all those years that I felt betrayed by so many of my friends and I could see the bands jumped on the bandwagon just to get more, to reach bigger audiences.
Rys: Right, to sell more records, to be more accessible.
Snowy: And I think that's sort of like so dishonest and so fake. I mean, is that what you're after? You just want to get laid or earn money or something. I mean, I thought this was an extension of yourself making your own art, but apparently it wasn't that important.
People would easily compromise if it meant that, wow, we're going to earn more money. Yeah. I always fucking dislike that.
Rys: Well, look at a band like Def Leppard. They did the first two albums, then they did Pyromania. . It was like, oh, we're huge in America now and they completely changed their sound to sell records.
Snowy: I wouldn’t say that completely. I would say it's a development from the first two albums. They were always more, in my estimation, not a metal band. They were more like a hard rock band., just like Bon Jovi is not a metal bandSo yeah, but I mean, it's also due down to the producer, what's his name? Oh, Mutt Lang. he changed that completely. And that they made the standard. I mean, they created a sound that for the rest of the world to follow because it had such a massive breakthrough. It was a template for wow, this is how it should be. All those 80s bands. Those choirs and all that, like kind of football.
Rys: Yeah, the multi-layer vocals and...
Snowy: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so that was all good, I guess. Not that I've been such a big fan. I liked High and Dry, I don't know. I came out like in 81 or something. It was good . rock music just like Kiss or something. It's not metal necessarily. Yeah, but things develop but if you're doing it for the wrong reasons, if you're doing it because you're... I don't know why I hang on to this wrong reasons. You've got to be honest with your art, so to speak. But there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, if that's your goal, to get laid and earn money and be popular fine do that. I see it in a different way.
Rys: There's so many people, even Lemmy said he picked up a guitar because he saw the guy in his school had a guitar. He's like, oh that's the guy in his school had a guitar and had all these girls around him. So Lemmy's like, oh that's all it takes. Then he started playing guitar. But he never changed, Motörhead never changed that's why I love Motörhead they never change they never ever copied trends or whatever.
Rys: He couldn't put makeup on.
Snowy: And that is what lasts. But you saw when Dio died, for example. The world was in mourning, and it was so sad. And a lot of people talked about him. First of all, he's a fantastic artist and great singer and all that, but also because he was a fine human being. He always took the time for fans and stood there in the rain, made sure everybody got their signatures and all that.
And he was humble and down to earth, even though he's singing about rainbows and wizards and all that kind of thing. One thing I've noticed is that the most freakish artists like Arthur Brown, if you're familiar with him.
Rys: Oh yeah, crazy world of Arthur Brown.
Snowy: Yeah, and Uli Roth, he still looks like it's 1969, like a hippie kind of way.
Rys:: Oh yeah, he still has the headband and the jewelry.
Snowy: Yeah, but these those people are so down to earth so grounded and no fucking diva manners or anything nothing like that. I mean they are so grounded and And I think that's what people said about a deal as well. And Lemmy I mean he couldn't possibly try to be something else Then he was. “I am Lemmy.”
Rys: Can you imagine him wearing spandex and big hair? It wouldn't work
Snowy: (laughing) It's kind of funny, I mean, because he was practical. I saw this interview Mikkey (Dee) did with, “hey, Lemmy you have money. Why do you live in your one room apartment?” he was like a hoarder.
Rys:: Yeah, I saw the movie. He has all this shit in the apartment.
Snowy: Yeah. And he told Mikkey,” yeah, But you could only be in one room at a time”. That's true. So he was like, it was hot as fuck, either in Los Angeles or in Hollywood. So he took his scissors and cut off his jeans because he had new shorts.
Rys: Yeah, that's a famous picture.
Snowy: Like those bimbo girls would have it, like really short. And people say, yeah, why don't you cut it by your knee? “It's called shorts. it's not long.”
Rys: I think like it was on Scott Ian or something because the guys in Anthrax had those long shorts. And Lemmy's like, those are pants. These are shorts.
Snowy: You got to love the original. He doesn't try to please. I mean, he's living to,, his life the way his own way. And that's what you appreciate. At the end of the day, be a nice human and be and treat people with respect and so forth. Yeah, I mean, if you are grown up, maybe you should stop trying to-please others or wow, I wanna be this or that. Be yourself, Stay true to yourself.
Rys: But that's, you see that on social media. People are chasing likes, they're chasing followers. It's just transferred to another medium now, there's this social media influences. It's so ridiculous.
Snowy: Yeah, but it's becoming too fucking bizarre. Actually, I've sort of developed a big dislike against that lately that I want to fucking get off that because if that's how you're sort of judged or whatever, how many followers do you have and how many likes and this and that and people fake that all these influencer, ‘oh, I'm so popular. Look, I have like 300,000 followers’. It's funny because whenever you post something there's zero interaction. So you bought all those numbers just to pretend that you're more popular. It's like having a phone book and you have like, ‘look, I have a lot of friends. I have 300 friends here.’ Yeah, you just wrote up some names and numbers, but nobody picks up the phone when you call because it's just like fooling yourself, believing your own hype. it's just stupid. So it's a sick world.
In the past, I guess, let's say promoters and booking agencies and so forth, they based on, OK, should we take that band on tour? OK, they have sold this and that much albums. Okay, that's a good basis for them to tour Europe, for example. Now it is, you cannot count sales. If you would look at, oh, we have this and that much followers or monthly followers on Spotify or Apple Music or something. Yeah, but that is so easily faked. Even record companies are totally open. Yeah, but that's part of the promotion. We buy this and that much, so we can get high numbers. So it's all fake. And if you're a booking agency or promoter, and trying to do that, okay, they have like 3 million views on their new video that came out yesterday. Okay, that's a good foundation to to go out on tour. And you book this mid-size venues or whatever, and four people shows up, when you estimated like 4000 so everything is bullshit (laughing)
Rys: the title of Snowy’s next album
Snowy: i don't know what to believe in anymore really
Rys: well i mean wasn't that part of why you wanted to do what you did with Eurovision why you sent…. I love the Eurovision story…. https://metalshockfinland.com/2025/05/19/snowy-shaw-allegedly-banned-for-life-from-eurovision-song-contest/
Snowy: Yeah, yeah. Are you familiar with that?
Rys: Yeah, because I saw it in an interview. You were explaining it, what you did. I thought that was great.
Snowy: Yeah, but I didn't want to be a part of that charade whatsoever. It's a travesty. I think it's just pathetic. So I just wanted to make it. I've been, let's say, operating in horror metal, shock rock, shock rock that kind of tradition where you push the envelope. push the right kind of buttons to get some sort of reaction and shock people or whatever it might be.
But things change. I mean, nowadays, it doesn't work to say “Hail Satan” nobody is gonna raise their eyebrows because of that.
Rys: Right. Like, yeah, that's been done before. Try something different. All right. Very funny.
Snowy: Yeah, exactly. So that is why I thought, okay, should we do that. Yeah, let's fake the whole fucking thing. It's publicity stunt.
Yeah, it's like, oh, in the middle of the song, I had my girlfriend, I picked her to do that scene where she's like singing into my scrotum and sort of. . And when she moves away, like oh all bloody scrotum
Rys: the bloody blowjob video (link to video at end of article)
Snowy: yeah so yeah just to shock a little bit . Yeah it was a cool thing to do because it was also taking a stand or a statement against all that that fucking shit where that i really despise it has zero to do with music like it did let's say 50 years ago. Then it was a, you were competing for the best song that doesn't, now it's more of a political standpoint and so forth. It's everything but a musical competition.
It has all these other agendas, it has nothing to do with music and I certainly don't want to be a part of that. That's why I figured to make something amusing or sort of raise some eyebrows. To some extent, I think Mission accomplished a lot of people like what was this, especially people in Brazil or in the US and stuff, because they are not familiar with the Eurovision song contest. They don't even know what it is. “Oh, you should have won. This was the coolest song.”
Rys:: And you're like, there's no way this is gonna win Eurovision.
Snowy: No, but yeah, what can I say? I'm so extremely disinterested in being a part of whatever it might be now, trends and stuff like that. It's just a very basic, It's very easy to become a grumpy old man.
But I'm just doing music for myself. I mean, to whatever it is, the whole thing, since I'm making everything. Like from artwork to designs and videos and playing everything and stuff. So I mean, it's just an extension of my own vivid imagination and I get it down., I realize it from your vision to the final product. And that's all I'm interested in. If I'm satisfied, that's good. Hopefully someone else will enjoy it. Then support us but I'm not going to try to compete with others or chase trends or try to please others to get on the bow of those playlists or be played on those radio channels because I figure if you ask me, I don't watch TV, I don't listen to radio, I don't want to do anything.
Rys: And if you do that, you're going to be miserable with yourself. You're going to feel like a sellout, you're going to feel like a cheat if you do any of that.
Snowy: Yeah but of course, I mean, I've been struggling for
the last couple of years with motivation. Let’s say that the format of an album
is pretty much dead. In certain genres, maybe it's more important, let's say
metal or rock or something like that. But everything is digital nowadays and
the longevity of an album, you get as much attention from a full length album
of 10-12 songs as you do with one single. So that is why I tried this thing,
tried to come up with a new kind of way to approach it. A couple of years ago,
this was actually during the pandemic when I figured like, okay, I released
one, I wrote and recorded and invited people to be guest appearances and so
forth, sharing the vocals with me and then playing lead guitar for example with
people when they're I mean you can just mail it in or phone it in as they say.
Because everybody was during the lockdown everybody was home so I could have
people from accept or Saxon or dream evil or whatever and with their
contribution and I released it So I did one song and put it out digitally once
on per month and from January to December and in December I collected it all on
physical like CD and double LP. So that was sort of an experiment and it was
fine, interesting to do that even though it was super stressful because I did
it in real time so to speak.
Like so I had to chase time all the time to get it out there It would be easy if you have 10 things 10 songs prepared and just Put them out like in January February and March and so on But I was actually making them at the same time to having those guest appearances and stuff You were saying that you were were, I don't know what you said to it, it was kind of a word you used, but you say you're not so up to speed with modern technology.: But that was the problem with Paul Quinn, for example, a good friend of mine who leads plays lead for Saxon. But he couldn't figure out how to send a file. He sent me like this data files, but you got to send me an audio file with your solo. He's sitting there in England or wherever he lives, in France maybe.
But yeah, so I couldn't, in the end I couldn't use it. I had to have someone else.
Stay tuned for Part 2!
SNOWY SHAW - Lullaby (Disqualified Euro-Trash Version 2025 https://youtu.be/Hbh84AyGjn4?si=8buimShqPfbTaa6h
https://www.facebook.com/SnowyShawOfficial/
https://www.instagram.com/snowyshawofficial/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGBAzPk1LhuZ8hTjycgsQfg
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