Scott Snapp Perfects Theatrical Pop Music

All Photos:  Alan Mercer   Lighting:  Eric V. 

Scott Snapp got his start when he was eighteen.  He entered a talent contest and won a week's booking at a local Ohio nightclub.  As a teenager Scott would walk along the country roads of Ohio and sing his heart out.  Music is in his blood as his mother was a professional singer in New York.

He eventually made his way out west and started performing for Standing Room Only audiences at such legendary venues as The Cinegrill in Hollywood, the Troubadour and the Backlot. 

Scott has worked with such legendary songwriters as Motown great Ron Miller, Paul Jabara, and Oscar and Grammy nominee Allen Rich.  Grammy winner Melissa Manchester calls Scott "a very good songwriter."  The Santa Monica Evening Outlook calls Scott "a powerful singer with dynamic stage presence."  The Los Angeles Herald Examiner admired Scott's ability to "carefully and subtly move his audience to tears." 

With a three octave range Scott can sing anything from rock to blues to show tunes!  'LA Weekly' put it best by saying "Snapp is a real charmer." 

As Rex Reed observed, "If anything about this business made any sense, Scott Snapp would have been a big star a long time ago."

I met Scott through Bob Esty and when he needed publicity photos and album artwork for the already 'classic' recording 'Without The Music' I joined the team.  Scott is a phenomenonal stage performer with tons of talent as a songwriter and singer.  He is also a generous and charming guy.  I love working with talented people who are nice.  Don't miss Scott Snapp!

AM:  Hi Scott,  I don't know much about your career except that you just recorded a new CD.  Is this original music?

SS:  I recorded seventeen songs and fifteen of them are original songs that I wrote.

AM:  Do you write alone or with someone?

SS:  My writing partner's name is Andy Howe.

AM:  What are your writing inspirations?

SS:  A lot of my material is about growing up in Ohio.  I like to reflect on times from my youth.  There was a time in my life that was rough and I tried to walk away from all this.  I didn't know if I could go on working in music.  It turns out that in the end it was the music that saved me.  That's why I titled the CD 'Without The Music.'

AM:  Have you been a musician all your life?

SS:  Yes all my life.  I don't think I ever really knew anything else. 

AM:  Have you grown up on stage?

SS:  Yes, I've been singing for people since I was thirteen years old singing for my grandmother.  She was bed ridden for the last 19 years of her life so I would put on a record and sing along to it for her.  That's how I really started.

AM:  How do you describe your music?

SS:  Eclectic...I think it's kind of universal although there may not be a label called universal music.  Every song is different with a different feel to it.  There are different genre's to each song.  What I do is "theatrical pop."  I take pop songs that I have written or that others have done and make them into my own genre of a combination of acting them out and extending the dramatic limits of the songs...through their arrangements and orchestration. To my knowledge this is a new field.. I kind of consider myself the Circus de Soleil of Singers.

AM:  What are some of the different kinds of songs you have on the CD?

SS:  My song 'Soliloquy of Solitude' which is very Charles Aznavour, Edith Piaf and Michel Legrand.  I also have a big band song called 'It's Our Time.'  There's a very lush ballad, kind of Nelson Riddle-ish in the way the instrumentation is called 'With Every Breath.'  The song 'The Years Fell Away' that is kind of like an Eagles song.  It could even be country and western.

AM:  That's a great title.

SS:  The title of this song had been in my head for over fifteen years when I heard a character in a Mae West movie say, "The years fell away."  I always knew I would write a song with that title. 

AM:  Is this your first CD?

SS:  I did another CD a long time ago, but it's not on this level.  I'm a late bloomer.  Everything seems to come to me late in life.  I didn't know what I was doing so if I listen to it now it's dreadful.  It laid the ground work.  It turned out that world renowned producer Bob Esty was free and we had talked about working together and the stars aligned and we started down this road.  It's been an almost three year journey. 

AM: What are you doing to promote this release?

SS:  I just want to do as much live performing as I can.  My concern is can I fill a room without a major company behind me.  I do think with the people I have behind me that it won't be a problem. 

AM:  Where have you performed?

SS:  I have already done my show in New York City at the Metropolitan Room.  The Broadway channel on Sirius Radio is interested in some of my songs since they are so dramatic. 

AM:  The album sounds very A list to me!

SS:  I'm pretty lucky to have these great people working with me. 

AM:  Can you tell me about making your video for 'No Grey Matter?'

SS:  It was a very amazing day... My director, David Mingrino and I had been working on various aspects of how the song would be staged.  I had come up with the concept that I wanted it shot in a theater. a grand old one that would be visually alluring, yet haunting, do to the fact that I was singing and no one was there. I had also wanted the shots to be a give and take between two different versions of myself, mentally speaking, one of a certain level of dignity and sophistication clashing with one of a complete mental overload. So I opted to also place myself in a straight jacket.

AM:  What did the straight jacket mean to you?

SS:  It symbolizes the confinement of life's experiences and also the hurt and turmoil that goes on inside one's head. So many of us suffer hurt and anguish along the path of life...so at the end of the day, I want to test the audience. I want them to be left wondering.. "Had I made it through this mental anguish" or was I a victim of "a short circuited brain that had been corrupted and corroded by my life's experiences."

AM:  So which is it? 

SS: I guess that audience will have to decide for themselves. The most amazing thing about the entire day.. was that I was so calm.. and felt so at home.. especially in the straight jacket... if there is such a thing as method acting...I jumped right into it and did not look back.

 To learn more about Scott Snapp vsit his web site http://scottsnapp.com/