Snot Bring The Chaos: Aussie Tour Locked And Loaded

‘We’re going to come out swinging and we’re going to continue swinging going into 2026! So that’s what it’s about, man.’

John Fahnestock, bassist and founding member of the mythical and legendary Snot signals what fans can expect when the band embarks on an Australian tour supporting Soulfly, with a bonus appearance at Adelaide’s leg of Froth & Fury Festival added in.

‘Sometimes when you play in the past, you felt like you were faking it in a way. Andy is just real. He’s the real deal and he brings that magic that we were missing.’

Andy is vocalist Andy Knapp of Snot, charged with not only igniting audiences around the world, also honoring the legacy of Lynn Strait, who tragically passed away as the band knocked on the door of greatness, halting their ascent.

‘Mikey Doling and I are like brothers, and we hold this very dear in our heart. We always have and Mikey and I always talk and we’re like, man, ‘if we could only just get Snot back together and find the right singer’, that was always the thing. Finding the right singer to be accepted. Lynn was one of a kind and obviously he’s irreplaceable. We’re not saying we’re replacing him, but to find somebody to step into his shoes and do what he did, do it very well and still be accepted from, I mean we got fans from their sixties all the way down to 16. That’s a big fucking broad range and all of them embracing it now, everyone, I haven’t heard hardly any shit talkers at all and usually there’s a lot of shit talkers. It’s expected, but Andy is totally knocking it out of the park for us man. My hair stands on my arms every night when I see what he does on that mic. I watch him and I’m still like, holy shit, we found that guy. What can I say at this point? So very blessed.’

Snot’s arrival in January is their first since 2015, for John though, it’s even longer from when he treaded the boards with interim band Amen at the Big Day Out in 2001. Having just come off the road through a successful European tour in the northern summer, John finds the experience surreal.

‘Honestly, I must say my mind was blown this last run we just got back from, it was a whole other level, in some really good rooms and we were selling out! What I was blown away at was the age of the crowd and there was a lot of young people that were there. I’m talking fifteen, sixteen old to twenty five range and that was pretty much seventy five percent of our audience for that run and it blows my mind. Obviously, parents brought their children out too and then the diehard fans who knew. Every night the acceptance of the band and Andy, it was fucking great.’

The band’s one proper album Get Some, dropped in 1997 at the breakthrough of nu-metal and with one listen you can instantly hear where Slipknot, who debuted two tears later, and even Limp Bizkit who were later in the year, followed onto their worldwide success that alluded Snot. In time though the album, and band, have garnered mythical status as forebearer of the genre.

‘We’re still touring on an album that’s approaching thirty years old and we’re drawing new crowds, we’re selling out shows and it’s like we’re a new thing again and I’m like, the album’s thirty years old! It’s stood its test of time and I tell the other guys, is there any other band that you can think of that’s pulling something like this? Because it’s definitely very odd and like I said, it’s a blessing but it’s an honour to have new fans discover the band still and we can play the world on the strength of that one record. It wasn’t like we had a radio hit or anything, but we have this underground cult following that’s gotten bigger and bigger and bigger and literally we were built that way underground. I mean we paid our dues back then and who knows where it would’ve went. Obviously, we lost our singer and we kind of went our own ways, we didn’t try to push it anymore and we stepped away from it. I just feel that, like you said, the new resurgence of bands like Deftones just totally killing it now, more so than they did 20, 30 years ago too, there’s this whole new wave again of people discovering those bands and I think we got another chance of a comeback again. It’s crazy!’

Such is the positive vibe within the band currently; studio work has begun on some new tracks that may see the light of day just in time for Froth & Fury and the Australian tour.

‘We’re taking our time. We’re not rushing anything. We’re finishing up some festivals here in the US and then we work with Chris Collier. He works a lot with Korn. He’s a busy guy. So, we did all the music. We laid down the drums with Jamie, our drummer, who also plays in Bad Religion. We lay down the tracks, drums, bass, guitars done. So, November, we’re going to step in the studio and we’re going to take our time. We’ve seen that Andy does a great Lynn, now we’re going to see what he is going to do with the new Snot music and where he’s going to take it. If we had a goal, I would say I would love to drop a new tune in January coinciding with coming to Australia. But we’ll see. November’s going to tell what happens. We’ll know more by December. So, visit me on that question again.’

Arguably most people at the shows may not have seen Snot before, so what do they do on stage?

‘We stay true to form from what we always were. You are not going to see pyro techniques, stuff like that. We’re a real band with real guitars, real amps on stage. We throw down, nothing’s prerecorded and we play as much as our set time can allow, we will play the entire ‘Get Some’ album in its entirety and then we usually throw in ‘Absent’ at the end. We did ‘Children Of The Grave’ by Black Sabbath when we were in England, in tribute to Ozzy. We got a singer that commands the crowd, does what Lynn does and has what I want to say, that danger, that thing. And he’s a good-looking guy. He’s got it man. So, we’re going to bring the danger man.’

The band’s history with headliners Soulfly does run deep, with guitarist Mikey Dowling a one time member of the band but it doesn’t stop there.

‘It was the band that he immediately went to it when Lynn passed away, I think it was no more than six months. What’s funny too is, I believe this is true, Mikey flew in and I think his very first show with Soulfly was at the Big Day Out Festival and I think it was the biggest crowd he ever played to because Snot was never that level. It was a big thing. I remember he said they literally was walking out to the crowd and the one crew guy kicked him in his ass like, ‘get out there and do it!’ Another story is they played with Snot, I believe in Arizona, and they flew in and our manager called and said this band’s coming in, it’s Max from Sepultura and they’re called Soulfly and they got no gear, can they use your gear tonight? I’ll never forget that night. They’re definitely family, we were in Mexico City in May with Soulfly and Andy went out and did a bleed with Max. Mikey joined guitar on ‘Back To The Primitive’, so you probably see a lot of interactions with us on stage too. I mean it’d be really cool if we pull that song, ‘Catch A Spirit’ off ‘Strait Up’ that Max did. That would be bitching. So, you never know. There might be a surprise here and there.’

Interview By Iain McCallum

Catch Snot on the following dates with Soulfly and Nailbomb, tickets from The Phoenix…

Also playing Froth & Fury Festival in Adelaide, tickets HERE…