Nothing But Thieves frontman Conor Mason joins Elton John for Elton John’s Rocket Hour on Apple Music 1 to discuss the release of brand new album ‘Dead Club City’. They discuss the concept behind the record, having guitarist and keyboard player Dominic as the producer and how it differs to their last album, ‘Moral Panic’. They also discuss landing a number 1 album in the UK charts, moving from their hometown of Southend to London and being on the road for the summer.
Conor Mason (Nothing But Thieves) tells Apple Music about the concept for new album ‘Dead Club City’…
So it’s about a city-size members club and it’s about that feeling of how you feel being inside, outside the members club. Do you want to be in it once you’re in it? Or you’re on the outside looking in, do you want to be a part of that? And essentially, it’s a big play of elitism and feeling left in and out of a group. It’s nice for us to kind of move away from the last record, Moral Panic, and have this expression and creativity through a concept for once. It’s different for us.
Conor Mason tells Apple Music about Nothing But Thieves’ songwriting process, do they start with the melody first or the lyrics…
Both really. Some songs could just start from a small lyric. Some can start from a track. Dom in our band produced the record, so he’ll set up a track here and there. Sometimes it can come in with a whole shape of a melody, like a verse and a chorus and then we’ll just fit it around that way.
What I like about the way we write is that we have no idea each time what we’re going to do, and it keeps it… Every single song’s different. And the three of us, because we’re so creatively driven to make the best songs, we push and pull each other and we challenge each other and it’s all about the greatness of the song rather than the individual ego. I really like that about us.
Conor Mason (Nothing But Thieves) tells Apple Music about their summer touring schedule…
Obviously, we had the same release as you, like the summer, summer touring. And releasing in summer festival was a new thing for us. I think we’ve been feeling that a bit, but we’re loving it. Yeah, we’ve been here though and everywhere. Sat in Australia and now we’re all in the festival circle around Europe. I’m in Romania right now, albeit very high. I my best friend’s 30th yesterday.
