After a hefty slog on the road, Snout's Ross McLennan is recovering from 'touring sickness'. He just got back the results of his liver tests back and was pleased with the outcome. Liver tests? Too much alcohol? Not quite, "I'm a purist", claims Ross, which probably means he only drinks straight whisky and full strength beer! No, seriously he's not partial to that stereotypical rock 'n' roll lifestyle, preferring to keep himself as healthy as he can; his biggest problem is dealing with the confusing world of supermarkets. "I try to have veggies where possible, like if we're staying in one place for a few days you can do a veggie shop, but you can't buy bulk amounts of things. I get really confused in supermarkets, so I end up buying like ten eggplants or something like that. And Ewan's the same... we're pretty weird shoppers."  

Ross admits he 'loses the plot' on tour. Given the hectic road load of the bizarre shoppers (since Circle High and Wide was released earlier this year). Ross' plot is edging further and further left of centre. "It's just the actual lifestyle," he rationalises, "and your head just seems to get more and more fucked up, and it takes me longer and longer to become a human being when I get home. I haven't tended to be very human on tour, but it's partly down to the way two guys act when one guy's got a girlfriend on tour. It seems to work out that way, particularly when you're the three musketeers. Like Snout, we're always together on tour and it sounds like old school and gross, but it just gets awkward. I just found I wasn't my best; to put it mildly I was very uptight." 

Despite being tired, run down, eating crappy meals, dealing with a tooth that's a 'borderline' root canal, and having to accommodate the (aaahem..) fourth musketeer, Ross still enjoyed performing. "We've been touring constantly and I can just say I'm starting to get sick of it, not the playing though, I actually never get sick of playing. Once I get up there I usually either have a really good time or a really fucked time; usually either way it's a pretty good show I think." 

The one thing that does effect the performance is poor sound systems - Snout just played Livid (it was a last minute thing) and although the gig went fine, Ross says the sound on stage was "shitty". You get the feeling Ross isn't a huge festival fan, his psycho facial expressions" tend to have nil effect on the back rows. "I'm a psycho facial expressions kinda guy and sort of like intimate gestures. When I do festivals I try and figure out really ridiculous grand gestures to make so someone can see at the back. It's just a laugh really, there's no intimacy with those people at the back, but those first four rows is sort of like being in a pub. It's hard (to connect) but as long as the first four to ten rows are enjoying it, it's good enough for me." 

Snout will be hitting the festival circuit pretty hard this summer with appearances at Sunny Sedgwick, Push Over and possibly Meredith. The trio's likely to take the opportunity to show case some new material. Ross has written a stack of stuff for an album which should be finished some time next year. If his feeling are correct, this one'll be a 'biggy'. 

There's bound to be a broad spectrum of styles in Ross' new batch, if history's any indication. Snout's often been thrown into the 'pop' barrel, but the style is more colourful and textured... 'rainbow pop' would be a better tag. But the 'post-modern' master claims his diversity has become less obvious with age. "When I listen to the songs there's an identity, like a thread running through them and I agree there are a lot of styles evident. I guess I could be accused of being pretty post-modern in that way, accessing previous riffs and sounds, but I've tried to do that less and less." 

He likens his use of different styles to the gamut of emotions we as humans feel. "I like music with depth and bit of subtlety but to only have that music is still really pox to me. You've still got to have all the emotions in there right from the smooth kind of slick thing through to grating discordant kinda stuff. That's what it's all about, like a variety of emotions, not pushing the same buttons all the time." 

Finally, Ross admitted the band and management had parted company, predictably his comments were very p.c. (that's politically correct). "I don't know what I can say about it 'cause it's kinda self-evident if you're splitting with someone there's either a dissatisfaction mutually or one way, and other than that it's just gonna get into bitchiness. All I can say is we haven't done the wrong thing and we've done it as good as you can do it." 

Snout perform at Sunny Sedgwick Music Festival (November 27th to 29th) and at Push Over on November 21st.