Never Trouble Trouble Until Trouble Troubles You

Background and recording

In 2007, vocalist Ken Chinn reformed SNFU after a two-year hiatus with former bassist Ken Fleming now playing guitar. This was the first SNFU lineup not to feature founding guitarist and principle songwriter Marc Belke. The group spent its first four reformed years performing old material from the band's previous eras only.

The group's rhythm section had solidified around drummer Jon Card and bassist Denis Nowoselski by 2010, when second guitarist Sean Colig was also added. The following year, they were dealt several blows. Chinn contracted a severe case of pneumonia, forcing the band to cancel several tour dates. Rehearsing further became complicated when Fleming emigrated to Japan, and Nowoselski relocated to the Northwest Territories.

Despite these setbacks, the group remained active. Late in 2011, Fleming, Colig, and Card recorded a five-song demo in Adam Payne's recording studio in Vancouver. This was their first new material since reforming in 2007 and first studio recording since the In the Meantime and In Between Time album of 2004.

The band led the When Pigs Fly tour in 2012 in support of Chris Walter's SNFU biography What No One Else Wanted to Say. Nowoselski departed and was replaced by Kerry Cyr for the tour's final two shows. The band continued to circulate the unfinished demo among record executives. They received interest from Dan Lefrancois and his Cruzar Media imprint, who had helped them complete the demo by arranging to have Chinn's vocal tracks added in July. Liking the demo and Fleming's additional new material, Cruzar agreed to release a new full-length album, the band's eighth. Steve Loree, a former member of the bands Deadbeat Backbone, Jr. Gone Wild, and Greyhound Tragedy, was enlisted to record and produce the album via his mobile studio Crabapple Downs.

Organizing the recording sessions proved to be logistically difficult due to Fleming's relocation and Chinn's chronic health problems. With only short period of time to rehearse and record, the band spent January 2013 rehearsing extensively and recording with Loree under an old bakery in East Vancouver. They played a 30th anniversary show in Vancouver on February 1 before Fleming returned to Japan. Chinn's vocals were recorded in the basement of the DV8 venue in Edmonton the following month. Colig recorded all the back up and harmony vocals at Crabapple Downs Studio in Nanton Alberta. Along with Colig, Dylan Wolfspyder was an additional guest vocalist on some parts of the track Crude Crude City.

Release

The release of Never Trouble Trouble Until Trouble Troubles You was originally scheduled for May 2013, but it was delayed by several months. The band shot a music video for "Voodoo Doll Collector" with guitarist Tobias Chobotuck standing in for Fleming, who was unable to make the trip from Japan.

With Fleming, the band toured Canada in July. They embarked on the band's first tour of Japan in September and toured Canada again in October, with drummer Junior Kittlitz replacing the ailing Card for these tours. The final performance from this era of the band came on October 31. This lineup featured Kittlitz, and did not feature Fleming, who had returned to Japan.

The album was released in November. When the band finally toured behind the finished record in 2014, only Chinn remained from the lineup which had appeared on the recording.

Reception

Despite mild controversy surrounding the exclusion of founding member Belke, the album was generally received well by audiences and critics. Many praised the album's authenticity, characterized by SNFU biographer Chris Walter as "not some pale SNFU imitation but the real deal in almost every respect." Walter describes the reviews of the album as "uniformly good." Punknews.org reviewer teacherman wrote that while "SNFU’s musicianship is strong, tight, and heavy on the riffs" and "[t]he guitar solos are harmonious," the "real treat [...] is Chi Pig’s longevity and the fact that he carries on with a desire to bare the punk rock torch into his 50’s [sic], in spite of numerous reported obstacles in his own life."

Nonetheless, some critics published tepid reviews. Bryan Birtles, of Edmonton's Vue Weekly, gave the album two out of five stars and assessed it as merely "OK". Birtles described the album as "disconnected", and worried that Chinn's abilities had deteriorated.

Musicians