The story behind Nothing But Thieves’ band name is an elusive one.
“We try not to say what it’s about, but we met as kids in juvie, that was the first thing that happened … Juvenile prison, because we were stealing stuff,” says Conor Mason, before he pauses and bursts out laughing. “I’m joking, I’m just mucking around. We make it up every time, it’s just ridiculous … it’s just a name that we found and we really like.”
Clearly, the frontman of the Essex band doesn’t take himself too seriously. A sold-out British tour as well as performances on the international festival circuit and supports for the likes of Muse, Twin Atlantic and George Ezra have done nothing to rattle him. Neither have the comparisons made between his band and icons like Radiohead and Jeff Buckley. If Mason feels pressure, he doesn’t show it.
“I don’t know why anyone should feel pressure, cause it’s, like, your own band. You know, we build things up in our own way. We don’t worry about it. We don’t even look back on what we’ve done in the last few years … we really do just keep going on and on, and moving forward to the next thing.”
Nothing But Thieves released their self-titled, genre-bending debut album last year. “The foundation is rock,” says Mason, “but we want to do more than that, so it does touch on loads of different elements. It’s mainly just because we have so many different influences and such broad music tastes.”
Indeed, Nothing But Thieves tangibly glistens with an eclectic range of influences, oscillating between sounds, themes and ideas. Yet it never feels like a second-rate imitation. The album is a unique and erudite blend of soaring vocals, dark guitar riffs and emotive lyrics, under which pulsates a stadium-ready heartbeat. It is a post-rock tour de force.
“I grew up on jazz and blues, and I’m still obsessed with that to this day,” Mason explains. “And then also classic rock. And Joe [Langridge-Brown, guitar] and myself are always gravitating to classic rock, so Led Zeppelin and Foo Fighters and AC/DC – and then there’s more atmospherical rock like Pink Floyd.
“Jeff Buckley and Radiohead are where the band first started. That was our first kind of vision for the sound, and then we touched on all these other aspects. And then Dom [Craik, guitar/keyboard]’s really into dance music and producing, so then there’s elements of that.”
The five-piece officially formed in 2012, but the boys had known each other for years before coming together. Mason first met Langridge-Brown when he was 12 years old. “Him and his mates who were forming a band asked if I’d like to be the singer of their band,” Mason recalls. “I was so excited … I got to hang out with these 15, 16-year-old kids every day … so we started doing blues covers and it was just like a rocky kind of funky band. It was cool, like Chili Peppers meets, I don’t know – it was just bluesy.”
The covers band endured for another six years before Langridge-Brown went off to university, at which point Mason met Craik at high school. “We started jamming and I felt older and a bit more creative and a bit more serious about it,” the singer says. “Things were really taking a turn and we decided, you know, to properly put a band together. Met our management, who really believed in us, who said, ‘Give it a year.’ You know, ‘Defer university and see what happens.’ … So I called Joe immediately and he dropped out of university like the next week. And then the other two boys [Philip Blake and James Price] are just like local mates. They all really work really well.”
Despite their youthful roots, it would be another few years before the release of Nothing But Thieves. It came down to the fact that “we had to learn everything about the music industry and about writing, cause we just didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into,” Mason says. “So we worked our arses off for like a year, two years, just writing and writing and writing and getting better, and finding our sound and our kind of vision musically, before we released anything.”
The perseverance has paid off. Nothing But Thieves have crafted a slick, confident and mature sound, and the boys are also proud of their live show. “We’ve worked hard on it,” says Mason. “[We] almost think to a degree it’s better than the record, cause it amplifies everything on the record that we feel and want as our sound, you know?”
Sadly, the Nothing But Thieves live show is something Australian fans won’t be able to see for themselves, at least for the near future. The Brits were all set to perform at Soundwave and their own solo gigs here, until the festival was cancelled. However, world domination is calling, so they will surely be on our shores soon. Mason laughs, “World domination, that’s funny.” For now at least, they’re happy living the dream.
“There was a band [The Horrors] when I was about 14, 15, [and] I remember being so succumbed to it cause every kid in my year that was into them … everyone was writing their name down on their homework planners, and you know, talking about The Horrors. And then when we went back to shoot a documentary in Southend before our album came out, we went past our school and some kid came out to talk to the band and was showing me his homework diary with our name on it. And I was like, ‘Oh my God!’ That really got to me, cause it’s exactly like what happened to me when I was that age. Cool, very cool.”
