Teen quartet We’re Only Here for the Snacks to release debut album on limited-edition Winnipeg-inspired vinyl

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This article was published 21/11/2025 (320 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

We’re Only Here for the Snacks are now also here for the spins (and the streams and the downloads).

The teenage instrumental indie-rock quartet will launch its debut album, Missed Our Stop, Sunday at the West End Cultural Centre.

Wolseley 13-year-olds Bennett Erum-Rieger (drums), Madis Paas (guitar), Sal Tait (synthesizer) and Sebi Zurzolo (synthesizer) have known each other from their kindergarten days and have been writing and performing together since Grade 5.

Highlights of their burgeoning musical career include playing their first club show at Good Will Social Club on its closing day, and gigs at the Ellice Street Festival, Maryland Music Fest, Moose n’ Fiddle Music Festival, Festival du Voyageur and Big Sun Festival; the quartet was included in a Globe and Mail spread last Saturday focused on young rock groups across the country.

The 10-track record has been in the works for the past two years and was recorded in two parts earlier this year.

“We wrote the 10 songs on the album here and there in our jam space in the basement,” Madis says.

Half the songs were recorded in January at Traditional Grip Audio, the home studio of Sal’s father, Jason Tait, a well-known drummer on the Canadian rock scene (the Weakerthans, Bahamas), and the rest were recorded in August at No Fun Club with J. Riley Hill.

“Riley mastered them all so they would sound nice together on the album. After all of that work, we were all excited about the idea of pressing the album on vinyl, so we decided to go for it,” Madis says.

The record — a limited run of 100 pressed on opaque apple-red vinyl — features Nutty Club-themed cover art.

The creative process was relatively smooth and there were no “galactic wars” fought while the band was putting together the album, Sal says.

“It took some time to write and record all of these songs, but we trusted the process, and we feel that it’s paid off,” he says.

“We’ve been building up to this concert for a long time now and it would mean a lot for people to support us by coming out to the West End on Sunday and by streaming our album and buying a record.”

The teenagers have no plans to venture into lyric writing just yet, although it could be something they do in the future.

For now, that’s just not their vibe.

“Our music doesn’t really fit into a specific genre. Being an instrumental band also allows us to be a part of different music communities easier than if we were singing about kid stuff, Madis says.

“We’ve been invited to play at francophone shows at the Centre culturel franco-manitobain, which has been a unique opportunity because we are all in French immersion at school,” Bennett adds.

The quartet will play the full album Sunday. Longtime fans should also keep their ears open for a few older tunes — and their hands open, ready to snag the odd snack or two the boys are known to throw out during gigs.

“We have been throwing Hawkins Cheezies into the crowd at every one of our shows since the beginning, but we are pretty done with giving Hawkins free advertising,” Sebi says, laughing.

“They have never answered our requests for sponsorship. We might need to mix it up for this show and start something new.”

The album launch kicks off at 5 p.m. with three other equally youthful bands, Ardere, Paradise on Fire and KolaKolaPop and the Soda Cans, playing before We’re Only Here for the Snacks.

Stream the album on Spotify and Apple Music.

av.kitching@freepress.mb.ca