Grace Hathaway sat down with Nothing But Thieves on their recent jaunt around the UK and this is what they spoke about…
Quench Music (QM): So firstly, congratulations on the album! How does it feel for it to have gone straight into the top 10, with the UK leg of this tour all sold out?
Dom Craik (DC): It seems like a really good strong start. We didnÔÇÖt really have any expectations of how it would work and how it was going to go moving forward, so itÔÇÖs weird when you say both of those things. We had a really good album response and with the tour sold out, it feels like people are recognising the band and theyÔÇÖre into it and thatÔÇÖs really nice for us.
Phil Blake (PB): ItÔÇÖs quite an achievement and itÔÇÖs still a bit of a shock now even to know that people have the album.
DC: ThatÔÇÖs more of a thing for us. ItÔÇÖs great to have got top 10, weÔÇÖre really thrilled with that, but its just amazing to know people finally have it.
QM: So would you say then that the fan response to the music is more important to you than reviews or official media criticism?
DC: Not saying that we canÔÇÖt take criticism, but your fans are going to be nice by the nature of fans and reviews just by the nature of reviews will have negative things.
PB: Because weÔÇÖre so obsessed with the record and we love it, we do tend to read everything written about us, any kind of reviews whether theyÔÇÖre good or not, we read it all and weÔÇÖre not really bothered by it. WeÔÇÖre happy that people are happy with it, if you donÔÇÖt like it you donÔÇÖt like it, its not for everybody.
DC: WeÔÇÖre confident in what we do.
PB: Because weÔÇÖre obsessed by it!
DC: Its what we love doing, and I feel like if bands are insecure about what theyÔÇÖre doing, you should make sure youÔÇÖre fully confident, secure and happy about what youÔÇÖre putting out there. If youÔÇÖre not then youÔÇÖll get criticised for it and then change what you do based on that.
QM: In some reviews of the album, people have criticised you for having lots of different elements to your sound? But thatÔÇÖs also one of the things thatÔÇÖs so good about your music.
DC: Well thatÔÇÖs it isnÔÇÖt it. ItÔÇÖs funny because we take pride in the fact that itÔÇÖs an eclectic album, and some people say thatÔÇÖs a negative thing, but it was a conscious decision to do so. WeÔÇÖre not a one trick pony and we can do a lot of things, and without sounding cocky, we wanted to explore that. ThatÔÇÖs the idea of our debut album.
PB: You only get to do the debut once, and we wanted to make sure that we had a spectrum out there.
DC: I get sick of albums that are just the same.
PB: It tends to be a running thing at the moment with new bands and their albums. Not to name any names, but you listen to things and itÔÇÖs just like hearing the single another 10 times. Spending ┬ú10 on an album thatÔÇÖs just all the same is just not what we want to hear as music fans, so thatÔÇÖs why.
DC: ItÔÇÖd be weird if we then did that with our album.
PB: Believe me, we had a lot of tracks when the album was in pre-production, when weÔÇÖre doing songs that weÔÇÖve cut out, so that we could have made 10 of the same song, it wouldÔÇÖve been really easy.
DC: But we like the challenge, and weÔÇÖre happy with how it turned out.
QM: Have you got a favourite song that youÔÇÖve been playing live, maybe one that crowds have been more responsive to, that you might not have expected?
PB: WeÔÇÖve been gigging a lot of the album for a while now, so putting new stuff into it like ÔÇÿDrawing PinsÔÇÖ and ÔÇÿHoney WhiskeyÔÇÖ live, and seeing the reaction to ÔÇÿDrawing PinsÔÇÖ has been really fun.
DC: Because it was never heard at all, it was fresh with the album for fans and theyÔÇÖve really latched onto it. WeÔÇÖve seen that feedback online and in person at the gigs and thatÔÇÖs been really great. It was the last song we recorded for the album so its still really fresh to us, and that combination of it being new to the fans and to us is quite exciting.
PB: And since itÔÇÖs only been out a couple of weeks, already seeing people singing along and going mad, itÔÇÖs overwhelming.
QM: Have you had a favourite crowd so far? London must have been pretty huge!
PB: It was the Electric Ballroom, and we did it not too long ago as support. To come back and do it on our own a few months later, to sell it out, is an amazing feeling. We walked out, and by the first song we knew it was going to be one of our favourites.
DC: Biggest headline crowd weÔÇÖve ever played and they were so into it. Connor would sometimes just stand away from the mic and let the crowd sing, and we were looking at each other. When I turned around and saw all those people it was like ÔÇ£wowÔÇØ.
QM: Whilst listening to your track by track album breakdown, one of the things that was really interesting was that how you as a band write songs quite collaboratively? Any one of you will throw up some lyrics or a bit of melody and youÔÇÖll work it into something, as opposed to exclusively writing for your instrument. Do you think that changes the way your sound works?
DC: Absolutely. ItÔÇÖs a fundamental part of the writing process for us and how the songs get finished. If youÔÇÖre changing the way you write a song and how each song starts, just by the nature of doing it that way youÔÇÖre not going to write the same song twice, which is something weÔÇÖre very conscious of.
PB: ThereÔÇÖs different approaches isnÔÇÖt there.
DC: ItsÔÇÖ really important to us that we donÔÇÖt have a formula. I donÔÇÖt know if you have to be really good to have a formula or if itÔÇÖs bad to have one because youÔÇÖd be churning out a similar thing? So the fact the results keep morphing is good.
QM: Have you started to think about what you might do next?
DC: Not over-thinking it, but weÔÇÖve written a load of songs for album 2 already. WeÔÇÖd written songs for album 2 before album 1 had been released! Its weird to write for an album, so we just write what we want to write and the album will form itself. The last few songs we wrote before tour are some of the strongest I think weÔÇÖve written.
PB: ItÔÇÖs an exciting time, weÔÇÖre already looking forward to recording it, which is stupid because itÔÇÖll be a while off. But weÔÇÖre not crazy, weÔÇÖve all got the same goal of continuing to write, and we want to be looking to get it out as soon as we can. WeÔÇÖre not fans of when bands take too long, and I think it really shows with certain bands if they take too long and theyÔÇÖre touring the first album forever, the ÔÇÿdifficult second albumÔÇÖ becomes difficult because theyÔÇÖve left it for so long.
DC: The pressure will build up, and thatÔÇÖs not really what weÔÇÖre about.
PB: WeÔÇÖre not going to put pressure on it.
DC: ItÔÇÖll happen when it happens, sooner rather than later hopefully.
QM: Following on from this sold out UK leg of your tour, any plans for more UK dates in 2016?
DC: There’s talk of doing shows, and IÔÇÖve got to be really vague here, around Easter time.
QM: So people may have a chance to see you next year, before festivals, if theyÔÇÖve missed this tour?
DC: They will, yes.