Music
SNACKTIME didn’t start as a band so much as a community initiative.
What was originally an event series of the same name led by Sam Gellerstein that highlighted local Philadelphia chefs and musicians was forced to pause when the COVID-19 pandemic brought in-person gatherings to a standstill. That pause became a turning point.
“Following [the pandemic], we all decided to get together and then slowly but surely the momentum kept picking up on these live public performances,” Gellerstein says.
The group got their start by playing free live shows — primarily covering other artists’ songs — in Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square in summer 2020.
“Throughout the years, it mutated into something that was a little bit more, I guess, ‘normal.’ We stopped doing the street performances and morphed from the ‘outside band’ to more of something you’d see: we’re on tour, we’re playing festivals, we’re supporting tours and we’re having a great time,” Gellerstein says.
Their 2024 EP THIS IS DANCE MUSIC was the group’s first foray into writing music for the band and crafting its sound.
Many of the group’s seven members know each other from the local scene in Philadelphia, Gellerstein says. Gellerstein and fellow band co-founder Ben Stocker have known each other since high school.
Properly knowing your bandmates is a net positive for a group that works together creatively, but that’s not to say there are never artistic disagreements.
“We are seven highly creative people who all have bubbling ideas,” says Nico Bryant, who joined the group as frontman in 2025.
“When we’re writing by committee, it gets to be a little testy and frustrating sometimes because everyone is fighting for what they believe in,” Gellerstein says. “Once you find that middle ground and everyone is like, ‘Whoa, this is sick,’ that’s when it comes together.”
Sometimes, the group walks away from a song to clear their heads and return to it from a different vantage point.
“It’s cool to come back to something with different mindsets and also with other perspectives in mind to make it work for everybody,” Gellerstein says.
Now, the band is working on a debut album, with songs he calls the band’s best yet.
Sonically, the album is a blend of the group’s songs “ENOUGH.” and “SUNSHINE,” Bryant says. “Somewhere in the middle of that is the ground floor.”
The group incorporated rock and pop elements, too.
“It’s more expansive, but not to the point where it’s not cohesive,” Bryant adds.
“We have been trying our best to write songs that not only are enjoyable in the way that we love making music… but also we’re trying to be a little bit more emotionally bare in all of this. We’re trying to write songs that people can connect to, actually pulling from real life experiences and hardships and successes and joys,” Gellerstein says.
After all, that’s the ethos of SNACKTIME.
“We started this band as essentially a response to a hard time, and we were just out there performing for the people and allowing them to have a bit of peace and joy in their life in a hard time, and I think we are still trying to do that,” Gellerstein says. “It’s almost revolutionary to enjoy yourself sometimes.”
The band is about to embark on their first headline tour with stops planned across the East Coast. The group is also set to play a handful of festivals, including the Hudson River Music Festival and Chicago’s Lollapalooza.
“It’s a rollercoaster every time of going through the highs and lows of the set and feeling the crowd’s reaction and energy to it. It’s a beautiful thing,” Bryant says.
SNACKTIME is already proving successful in their ability to gather people and embrace community, but success to them also includes people connecting with the music to the point where it becomes the soundtrack of your life, Bryant says.
“There’s a lot of stress, there’s a lot of responsibility, there’s a lot of horrible things happening [in the world] right now, and it’s not to say ignore those things, because we would never say that, but to take that energy and have some fun,” Gellerstein says.
Don’t miss out — SNACKTIME is only getting bigger.
As Bryant puts it, “Those who weren’t there are going to wish they were.”
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