Guitar riffs reverberate around the small apartment living room while a group of college students violently shake their bodies to the beat of the song. A small blue light illuminates the frontman as he jams away at his similarly light blue guitar. As the guitar, bass, and drums slowly increase in tempo, so does the movement of the crowd. James Ammirato thrusts his head back and forth with such intense force that it throws his hat off—he’s feeling the music. In a brief moment of rest, Ammirato collects himself and raises his face to the microphone. Through a veil of long curly brown hair, he lets out a blood-curdling scream. The crowd loves it. 

Earlier that day, Ammirato is much calmer. He’s eating a freshly cooked batch of bowtie-shaped pasta and sits in a folding chair at a small plastic table near a window that looks out onto the street. An acoustic guitar rests beside his chair, with two sets of bongo drums leaning against the couch. A box of Raisin Bran sits suspended in midair on the kitchen wall while a painting of Elvis Presley watches over the rest of the room, which consists of a bookshelf with an XBOX 360 and a Nintendo 64 hooked up to a small television. The small apartment screams struggling artist.

Ammirato is the frontman of a band called Snoozer, a group he describes as genreless and can best be summed up as sometimes fast and sometimes slow. The group consists of his roommate Ian Downie on bass guitar and friend Brendan Dunphy on the drums—who replaced his roommate Ian Vidal. Ammirato sings and plays the electric guitar, an instrument he picked up in middle school after watching the movie “School of Rock” and growing tired of playing off of sheet music on his saxophone. 

“I was kind of a quitter as a kid, so my parents didn’t want to get me lessons at first because they were like ‘oh, he’s just going to not do it’,” Ammirato said. “I kind of showed that I wanted to keep doing it so after like three months of just learning ‘Smoke on the Water’ and all those shitty beginner riffs they [signed me up for lessons].”

After starting lessons, he got involved in a band at his local YMCA, where he played covers of popular songs with other local musicians. When he was 18-years-old, however, he grew tired of playing covers and began writing his own songs. He saved up $1,000 and recorded his first ever solo album called Armadillo at the YMCA. Ammirato described his original music style as “guy with guitar” but said as he went on to college, he realized this style would not work. 

“I was getting more involved in the local underground scene and I realized ‘wow, guy with guitar really doesn’t cut it around here,” Ammirato said. 

It was then when Ammirato decided it was time for him to form a band. He teamed up with his two roommates Downie and Vidal to form Snoozer. Ammirato and his bandmates played their first show together at the Brookline Teen Center in October of 2018 at an event called YES FEST. 

“It was a really nice environment,” Ammirato said. “‘I really like those kinds of events where kids can go and see kids performing and just showing off what they can do. I think it’s really inspirational and if I was 14 it would make me want to do that.”

Vidal left the band after its first gig and Ammirato enlisted his friend Dunphy as a replacement. Ammirato, Downie, and Dunphy play at various different venues throughout the underground scene in Boston, from house shows to open mics. While they are often recognized at other house shows, Ammirato was realistic about how popular and successful Snoozer is so far. 

“We don’t really have a following at all I would say,” Ammirato said while laughing. “I don’t really know of anyone who would really name us as one of their favorite Boston acts.”

Snoozer plans to head into the studio in April of 2019 to record their debut album though, which Ammirato said will help them gain more of a following through getting booked at bigger shows and venues—something he said is hard when bands don’t have anything released. Since Ammirato writes all of Snoozer’s songs, he is almost exclusively funding the record. Ammirato said he’s financing the album with leftover birthday money and by selling things in his apartment he doesn’t need—his old amp, some of his records, his clothes, and even his skateboard.

“Anything that I didn’t want anymore I decided I didn’t need,” Ammirato said. “I care about [Snoozer] more than a skateboard, so that was a pretty easy decision to make.”

When it comes to his songwriting process, Ammirato said he doesn’t have a defined method that he follows. Most of his songs are born out of him trying out new riffs on his guitar. When a certain riff piques his interest, he’ll record it on his phone and then try to match it with some of the lyrics he keeps written down in his notes app. Ammirato said his songs generally don’t follow the conventional style of songwriting but he doesn’t sacrifice anything in the process.

“I am very perfectionist about my songs,” Ammirato said. “It takes me a very long time to write a single song. I don’t try to force it because then I feel like that I wouldn’t come out with something I want.”

Ammirato was always surrounded by music growing up. His parents introduced him to many popular artists like The Beatles, Coldplay, and Norah Jones, while also exposing him to some more obscure artists like David Bowie and King Crimson. He later got into Led Zeppelin and from there began listening to a lot of classic rock, which he said was an effort to stand out from his peers at his private high school he attended. Ammirato said, however, one of his biggest musical influences is Kurt Cobain, the late frontman of the popular grunge band Nirvana. 

“It’s very cliche, but he was such a literal visionary,” Ammirato said as he ate more of his home cooked pasta. “He really just did his own thing and was really responsible for bringing ‘hard rock’ to the pop forum.”

Ammirato said the hardest part about being in the band is paying for the limited practice spaces in the city, as well as performing in the extremely competitive underground scene in Boston.

“It’s an artist’s city. It’s full artists,” Ammirato said. “There are like three or four art schools and a lot of music venues. With a lot of art available comes a lot of art that is produced.”

Despite the competitive atmosphere, Ammirato’s message for any young discouraged musicians in the city is to just keep playing. 

“It’s really hard to be able to find a band that’s willing to play with you,” Ammirato said. “I’ve been in the situation where I have no one else to play with, and if that’s the case, do your own thing and you will eventually find someone who wants to play with you.”

Later that night, Ammirato slowly bends over and collects his hat from the ground. Before going into his band’s final song, he plugs the group’s Instagram page to the crowd and tells them to be on the lookout for their new album they are planning to record. The small crowd cheers. At the conclusion of his elevator pitch, Ammirato kicks off the closing song of Snoozer’s act and strums away at his guitar. The crowd begins to dance again, thrusting and twisting their bodies in all directions. The show continues on—sometimes fast and sometimes slow.