Free from label woes, Snowden looks forward to moodier music

Six months have passed since Snowden last appeared onstage at Lenny’s for Corndogorama in June. Since then, the rumor mill has percolated with talk of relations turned sour between the band and its Wilmington, Del.-based indie label, Jade Tree Records. And for the most part, the rumors are true.

After inking a three-record deal with Jade Tree and embarking on six tours across the United States and Europe within a year’s time, Snowden frontman/guitarist/principle songwriter Jordan Jeffares wasn’t happy with how things were proceeding and he wanted out; so much so that he got his lawyer involved.

“It was really freaky,” Jeffares explains. “I started having doubts about the label and I realized that everything that I love and do was completely in someone else’s hands that didn’t have the same values I had. I wish I had been more careful.”

Eventually he got out of the contract with Jade Tree and now the group – made up of Jeffares, Chandler Rentz (drums), Corinne Lee (bass/keyboard/vocals) and David Payne (guitar) – operates as a free agent.

In the meantime, Jeffares spent the summer working with various producers and engineers, trying to develop the sound he wants for the group’s next album, which he says will be much darker and moodier than the blend of noisy and goth-afflicted rock of

Anti-Anti.

“I never wanted to write rock songs,” Jeffares says. “If anything on Anti-Anti sounds like rock songs, it’s because I was trying to get heels to move on the dancefloor in a live setting. When you’re a young band, all you have is the live show, and it’s hard to win people over with pretty and melodic,” he says. “Radiohead had to write The Bends before they could do an album like Kid A, and that’s how I’ve thought of Snowden’s albums.”