The Joy Is the Point: Why The World Needs SNACKTIME
- Josh Kitchen
- a few seconds ago
- 8 min read
By: Josh Kitchen / December 22, 2025
SNACKTIME are a pride of Philadelphia.
Formed in 2020, the funk and soul collective began playing free outdoor shows during COVID, coming together to fuse eclectic musical tastes, vibrant personalities, and Philly’s spirit of brotherly love — showing up for their community when people needed connection most. That ethos defines SNACKTIME: a band that truly has something for everybody, without sacrificing serious musical chops. What started on Philly streets has since expanded nationwide, with festival appearances across the country and a recently wrapped West Coast tour.
The band just released a soulful take on The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows,” inspired by the passing of Brian Wilson and D’Angelo, and they’ll close out 2025 with a New Year’s Eve show at Philadelphia’s Brooklyn Bowl. I caught up with founding member Sam Gellerstein and recent addition Nico Bryant to talk about what makes SNACKTIME such an important force for good in a moment when we need good guys — and good music — more than ever… plus the most important question of all: Wawa or Sheetz?
You guys just dropped an incredible cover of the seminal Brian Wilson/Beach Boys classic, "God Only Knows." I saw you released it early because D’Angelo passed away. It feels like a love letter to their genius, and I love that you connected them that way. Can you talk to me a little bit about that?
Nico
Well, it started as a crazy idea I had about two years ago, way before I even got the call to join the band. When I stepped into the role of being a member of SNACKTIME, and we were all kind of thinking which way we were going to go musically and whatnot, I was like, “Hey, I have this wild idea I’d like to bring to the table. Let me know what you guys think.”
So I brought in the arrangement, and the guys added their sauce to it. Like you said, it is a love letter to the genius of Brian Wilson for crafting such a beautiful song in the first place, and then using it in the style of D’Angelo—his ability to take a song and reimagine it in such a soulful way.
I can’t even say it was a no-brainer, because those two sounds feel opposite to most people. But somewhere in there, we found this connecting through-line. I’m glad it’s being received the way it is.
Sam
Something I hear, especially on Black Messiah, is that Wall of Sound thing. Brian Wilson’s favorite song was “Be My Baby” by the Ronettes—Phil Spector. That musical interchange runs deep through the history of music.
There’s a direct through-line between those songs that totally makes sense to me. Outside of being the artist that he is and an amazing original music maker, D’Angelo took so many songs and really made them his own. He would do sets like that, and people would think they were his songs. That’s something that back in the day—and occasionally now—we do with SNACKTIME. We can take eight covers and make it feel like a full set, and people are like, “Are those their songs?”
Combining the styles of D’Angelo and Brian Wilson really speaks to your ability to take those different musical ideas and turn them into something unified.
Sam
That’s something we’ve always been really proud of. Even back in the day, before we even had original music—before we had electricity, before we had anything—we would take cover songs and mix them up, making arrangements on the fly. That’s still really pervasive in the way we make music now. If we’ve been playing a set for a year, we’re like, “Alright, time to shake it up.” We’re about to go back on tour, and if people heard us a couple months ago, they’re going to hear a basically different set.
Like D’Angelo, like Prince, like James Brown, we like to keep things fresh. You might hear the same song, but we love to reimagine the arrangement. Giving songs new life and new meaning through different lenses is really important to us. You hear so many musicians talk about how they got into music—they heard somebody, they saw something on TV. It’s a long tradition of taking what came before you and putting your own spin on it.
“Enough” has blown up on TikTok. What has that been like for you this year?
Sam
“Enough” is a really fun one, because it came out of our first real touring experience. You think you’re going to be productive every single day—doing push-ups, writing music—but then you’re driving eight hours a day straight to a show, and you realize how hard it actually is. I recorded the idea on my phone while driving and put together a light version on my computer. Mike and I worked on it during a day off in Oklahoma City. The song came together really naturally. Later on tour, during a long drive, we were figuring out lyrics together. The experience was informed by what was happening around us. The message is about productivity—this pressure to always be doing something—but also about recognizing how far you’ve come. It’s always cool when the answers lie within the work.
Nico, you crush it. You can tell it’s a blast to sing.
Nico
It is. On tour with Fitz and the Tantrums, there were days when I was exhausted, singing “How much can I give until it’s enough?” and really feeling it. Before SNACKTIME, I was a solo artist, pushing and hitting ceilings. That lyric meant a lot to me. Recording the song was strange—Sly Stone had just passed, and I used all of that emotion. When you hear it on record, the tiredness is real.
The way it was written - you being reactive to what's happening around you reminds me of your sets and your live show. You never know where a set or a show can take you. To hear you talk about writing a song that way is so exciting, because you can now see it evolve more on stage.
Sam
I mean, that’s really what it’s all about with SNACKTIME, right? From the beginning, regardless of what instruments we’re playing—then to now—it’s always been about this thing where we work best when we’re all communicating with each other and everyone’s feeling good. Speaking about myself, I have a really bad habit of occasionally being a bulldozer. Like, whatever the work is, it’s gonna get done. And that works sometimes. But the best way things happen is when we’re all on board. It teaches you empathy. It teaches you patience. It teaches you how to see things outside of your own perspective. Life is too short to be bullheaded all the time. And if you’re going to be on a team like we are—we are not an artist, we are a band—that’s a rare thing in 2025, 2026.
Eric from the band always says something like, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” I always mess it up, but that’s the quote. And I remember we tried to write a song around that idea years ago—it ended up being a bad song—but the idea stuck. That really is the best way of doing things, even though it’s tough. Financially, it’s harder to split money. Decisions are harder to make when you have to make them seven ways. Getting everyone on the same page is hard. Getting everyone out the door at 9 a.m. is hard. But there’s this unique experience that feels like winning. When you win together, it’s like winning a football game. I grew up playing sports, and that feeling—having a squad, everyone with their roles, celebrating together—that’s really special.
When you go to a show, you might go alone, but the person next to you—you might not know them—but you’re both there because you have something in common. You can connect through that. You could leave with a best friend. That’s why live music is so special and important and integral. And the way you guys exist as a band speaks so much to that.
Sam
It’s uninformed to say there aren’t lots of things in the world that divide us—how people were raised, socioeconomic stuff, all of that. But honestly, there’s much more that should gather us. There’s much more that should say, “Hey, we’re closer together than we are apart.” We believe in the band that there’s this force trying to pull everyone apart and make everyone pissed off at each other and not communicate. Because when we communicate, we win.
When the normal folks who actually make this world work communicate, the people trying to pull us apart lose. And so much of the news, social media, everything, is about saying, “You’re different, you’re different, you hate each other.” But if we actually got together and realized—not necessarily the common enemy—but the common teammate, we’d be a lot better off.
That’s massive. That’s how change happens—starting with one person.
Sam
And believing it.
Switching gears—what’s the most Philly thing about SNACKTIME?
Sam
I think that Philadelphia, something I always say, is that from the beginning of our experience, we’ve been so loved by Philadelphia because people are so proud of what Philly gives to the world. That’s why you look at the sports and the people are psychopaths, and I love it. You look at the pride, the food, the neighborhoods. Philly has a bit of a chip on its shoulder. Not just in an egotistical way, but I think SNACKTIME always comes into a performance with a chip on our shoulder too.
People are like, “Oh, who’s this band? Who are these people?” We’re still very new to a lot of people, and we like to come in—not to kick everyone’s ass—but to prove why we were brought there, and to make the people who took a risk on us proud of their investment.
So we come in with that Philly spirit of, like, “Oh, you thought you knew.”
Nico
I’m gonna piggyback off that, and I’m actually gonna steal something Sam says sometimes. Philadelphians are the type of people where, if you fall or something—can I curse a little bit? Like, “What the fuck you doing, bro?” But they’re gonna help you up. You feel me? And within SNACKTIME, I’ve learned there are moments where we’re like, “What the fuck are you doing?” But then we help each other up and say, “Listen, tie your shoes next time. Have a good day. Go Birds.”
Finally, the most important question: Wawa or Sheetz?
Sam
So to me, it’s not necessarily a hard answer, right? It’s hard only because Philadelphia is a Wawa place. We don’t even have Sheetz until an hour and a half west. To me, unfortunately—at least where I live in Philadelphia, and maybe at large—with the expansion of Wawa, I’ve noticed a big drawback in food quality. I don’t know if it’s because Sheetz is a little bit smaller than Wawa, or maybe because they’re going for a lower common-denominator thing. You can fry anything, and it’s pretty fucking good.
So I don’t know, I like Sheetz more. But ultimately, I do appreciate Wawa. You’re able to go get something a little more real than fast food—still pretty much fast food—but it’s a good place to get your coffee or an energy drink, and if you need a breakfast sandwich or something a little more nutritious than Burger King or McDonald’s, that’s always great.
But I do think Sheetz has a lot more to offer.
Nico
Funny, I’m glad you mentioned Burger King and McDonald’s, because where I live—since I’m in Delaware, born and raised, still there—around the corner from my house there’s a Wawa and a McDonald’s, and then a little bit down the road there’s a Burger King.
I’m always going to that Wawa. They’ve got good hoagies. It’s not the best hoagie in the world, but it’ll get me through. And as my uncle Kevin would say, I’ve put enough money into that company that I should own stock at this point. I will say, though, Sheetz is pretty darn good. When we stop at Sheetz, I’m never disappointed. I think Wawa has disappointed me only a few times in my lifetime. And just because of how much money I’ve invested into that company, I’d still have to say Wawa.
You know—as an ambassador.
Listen to SNACKTIME's latest live EP below and catch them on New Year's Eve in Philly!
