WEST Lothian seems to be having something of a musical renaissance of late.

Not only has the area produced BBC’s Sound of 2018 nominee Lewis Capaldi, it is home to upcoming band The Snuts.

The four-piece made up of school friends Jack Cochrane on vocals/guitar, Joe McGillveray on guitar, Callum Wilson on bass and Jordan McKay on drums, sold out their Scottish tour in just one day.

Their presence has become impossible to ignore with shows lined up at SWG3 and the SSE Scottish Music Awards, to round off a massive year which also included performances at TRNSMT festival, Belladrum and Reading and Leeds.

But it wasn’t always sold-out shows and award nominations for the band.

The Snuts started off as a bunch of teenagers looking for an easy way to get into bars.

“Jordan and Joe went to the same nursery”, Callum explains.

“We three met at primary school, then we met Jack and we’ve been really close friends ever since.

“We played music for a time when we were a lot younger, maybe 15 or 16. We were playing to get into pubs and have a bevy and that.

“We were terrible - it was a bit of a night out rather than about the music for us. Then we took a couple of years off and got jobs.

“Jack and I were away to Benicàssim festival and were listening to our old demo’s and decided to get it back together.

“Since then it went from strength to strength.

“Jack has always been great writing, lyrically, even when we were younger his songs were amazing - even if they were eight minutes long, without any structure.

“When we came back, it seemed like we were all better at our instruments. It just felt right.”

Like most teenagers, The Libertines and Arctic Monkeys provided inspiration for the group of friends, but as the band have matured, their only inspiration is to not sound like anyone else.

“Our influences are wider drawn now. I think everybody brings different influences and a lot of the time one of our biggest inspirations is not to sound exactly like everybody else.

“You want to carve your own sound and not be pigeon-holed. Music is all inclusive, you don’t need to like a specific genre.”

Coming from West Lothian, it was a necessity to find their own sound with not much of a music scene to draw from.

Stuck in the middle of Glasgow and Edinburgh, The Snuts failed to fit into either of the ‘niche’ music hotspots.

Callum adds: “Lewis Capaldi is from here and we’ve got a couple of mates in bands but there isn’t much of a scene. We just skirt round the edges of both and do our own thing.

“You can see younger bands carving their way through from West Lothian now but the problem is there’s not really any live music venues, it’s all bowling clubs and pubs. There’s a few but nothing substantial.”

Following a whirlwind year of touring, the band are predictably ‘burnt out’ but excited to announce their final show of the year - a now sold-out show at SWG3 Warehouse.

On top of that, they have been nominated for Best Breakthrough Artist at the SSE Scottish Music Awards where they will be performing alongside Amy McDonald, Kyle Falconer and co-founder, lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of the legendary Dire Straits, Mark Knopfler.

“It’s mental because Mark is Joe’s guitar hero”, Callum explains.

The band are remaining level-headed about what lies ahead and, surprisingly, are not looking to emulate Lewis Capaldi’s success following his breakthrough win at the awards last year.

“It would be great to blow up to that but we want more of a controlled way rather than going from zero to ‘right you’re playing 90 gigs this year’.

“I think it’s important to develop and we want a more controlled growth.

“Next year we’ll keep up the writing steadily and hopefully see some bigger releases.

“Big things, bigger sounds and bigger gigs hopefully.”

The Snuts will be performing at the SSE Scottish Music Awards on December 1 and SWG3 Warehouse on December 29.