'We Leave Our Egos At The Door': How Nothing But Thieves Harnessed The Light On 'Dead Club City'

You don’t hear many rock and roll concept albums anymore.

If you try to think of a recent concept album by a popular band, you’re likely coming up blank or only thinking of Tranquillity Base Hotel & Casino by Arctic Monkeys, basically anything by King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard, Blurryface by twenty one pilots, or the not-so-recent Arcade Fire LP The Suburbs.

Before the 2010s, you might have thought of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon, The Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness, Prince & The Revolution’s Purple Rain, or even My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade.

Just when you think the era of the rock concept album is over, enter UK rockers Nothing But Thieves with 2023’s Dead Club City and last month’s Dead Club City Deluxe.

Since forming in 2012, Nothing But Thieves have been one of the UK’s most exciting bands, with rock music that sits comfortably with Foals and Muse on playlists. They’ve released four albums: their self-titled debut album in 2015, Broken Machine in 2017, Moral Panic in 2020, and Dead Club City—marking their first UK #1 album, which also went to #10 in Australia.

With his gorgeous, airy falsetto and walloping chest voice, singer Conor Mason has received comparisons to Jeff Buckley and Thom Yorke throughout the band’s career, especially early on. From the band’s beginnings to now, Mason has developed his own style, embracing a modern, hip style of singing when the song calls for it (Keeping You Around), but still lets it rip on a classic tune like Amsterdam.

Dead Club City opens with Welcome To The DCC, a futuristic banger anchored by a catchy guitar riff and accompanying synths alongside Conor Mason’s effortless, slick vocal. Welcome To The DCC heralded a new era for Nothing But Thieves, one where listeners can exist in a groovy yet dystopian landscape.

According to a statement from the band, Dead Club City’s “overall narrative is formed by different characters and story arcs from in and around the city.”

The band ask, “Is it a shared consciousness? Another planet? The next corporate wasteland? Heaven? Or somewhere else?” Maybe it’s about all of those things. But Overcome feels like pure catharsis, a get-in-the-car-and-drive-away anthem of escapism from the dingy streets and bright lights Dead Club City evokes, acting as the modern soundtrack to films like The Fifth Element or Blade Runner.

Nothing But Thieves toured around Australia in support of the album, playing at last year’s Groovin The Moo and a string of sideshows, and next week, they’re back and performing in their biggest venues in Australia and New Zealand to date.

Welcome To Dead Club City

When discussing Dead Club City Deluxe, the band commented that the additional songs leave the door open to the album’s world, and would allow Nothing But Thieves to revisit down the track—maybe ten years later? What would the world even look like by then?

“Oh gosh, it’ll be blown apart,” Mason laughs over Zoom ahead of the band’s upcoming Australian tour. The band landed in Bogota the night before our chat, and he’s buzzing thanks to a “really strong coffee” and traditional food.

Mason explains that the creation of Dead Club City was supposed to be the antithesis of Moral Panic. “I think it [making Dead Club City] came from more of a practical place. We felt like we were writing Moral Panic forever. It was, you know, pre-pandemic, going through [the] pandemic, and then post-pandemic with Moral Panic. We were writing about all the cultural and political turmoil, and it felt angry and endless. It was difficult to get yourself out of that space,” he says.

Nothing But Thieves weren’t interested in being angry anymore, and they wanted to explore new things musically. “It was this idea of, why don't we use this idea of doing a concept as a tool to change and to write something different?” The concept for Dead Club City came quickly from there, but the band still had to figure out how to navigate a new kind of songwriting.

“As soon as we realised we were into the concept, we were like, ‘Let's do an introduction to this world,’” which ended up being Welcome To The DCC. “It was magic,” Mason states and future songs became easier to write with the concept in mind. “It made us go musically different and more expansive. I remember being like, ‘Let's do a glam One Night In Bangkok sort of song, like this really over-the-top musical introduction, because it wasn't supposed to be about us. It's supposed to be about what it would sound like in the DCC, introducing it like it was on TV.”

Welcome To The DCC instantly became an “introduction” song. The band had themes and an album growing after utilising elements in certain songs almost immediately. “Suddenly, you've got this whole musical landscape,” Mason says. “That’s the way most people write, I believe. I don't think anyone can ever set out to go, ‘We're making an ‘80s theme record’, because it will never turn out that way.”

Leave Your Ego At The Door

Ever since Conor Mason was little, he’s listened to all sorts of music, and that’s contributed to the creative peak Nothing But Thieves find themselves in. “I grew up on jazz and orchestral music, and R&B [and] soul music, and then rock, as I got a bit older,” Mason tells. He’s since embraced pop and hip-hop music, and that diversity in music taste is the same with his bandmates.

“I think what makes us experimental is that we're a rock band at our spine, but all of our limbs and edges, you know, our tangents, are about experimenting and the other genres we listen to,” he adds. “Because if I just made rock, if I'm honest, I would be bored because I listen to 50 other genres.

“It wouldn’t make sense to me to just do rock because that would be one part of me and who I am. It’s the same with the band—that would be one part of them because [guitarist] Dom's [Craik] massively into French dance music like Justice, so that's just one example. It wouldn't be being true to ourselves if we weren't experimenting with the different genres.”

Everything they’ve tried has worked so far, from hard rock to crooning balladry (Lover, Please Stay) to disco-influenced rock tunes.

And they’ve grown as storytellers. In the months between Dead Club City and Dead Club City Deluxe, they still had something to say and more world-building on offer.

“They're panicked by the monster they've helped to create,” the band commented about those currently running Dead Club City upon releasing the Deluxe track Oh No :: He Said What? The statement adds, “The grifters have moved in. A utopia that was meant to be beyond borders or traditional government control has been dragged back down by the human condition; maybe it was inevitable.”

Mason believes the creative freedom and impressive results are a result of the band’s “high achiever complex.” Nothing But Thieves push themselves hard, challenge each other, and hold a higher standard in songs. But Mason—as well as the band’s other two primary songwriters, guitarists Dominic Craik and Joe Langridge-Brown—have reached a point where they can admit if an idea isn’t working and trust each other with the process.

“The most important thing is the song and making sure that we're making the best song,” Mason says, “and we leave our egos at the door at home. I love that.”

After ten years of consistent writing and touring, Nothing But Thieves have honed and now understand their strengths. Mason explains, “I know that I'm the emotional one, and I know that Dom is incredibly logical, and Joe sits between the two. And I think that's beautiful. We work really well together.”

The Plus Side Of Playlist Culture

Nothing But Thieves exist in a unique spot in which they’re not beholden to fans’ (or media) expectations. It’s an advantage in an age where acts experiment no matter the category people place them in.

“Our whole shtick is that we don't even know what we're going to write next,” Mason admits with a laugh. “We don't know what the next song is going to be, let alone what the sound of the album is, and I think that's so exciting. It gives you the freedom to experiment with whatever you want, and I love that.

“I think the best artists do that, like the artists that stick around for generations, constantly experimenting and changing the sound. But it became our thing.” he continues.

As Mason explains, Nothing But Thieves were born at the beginning of playlist culture — “As Spotify was growing, and Apple Music and all these sort of DSPs, our genre-fluid way of writing and listening to music and import/export, to a degree, was latched on with that wave of playlist culture.”

The band found fans in people like themselves: “Kids who were like, ‘Oh, I listen to hip hop, and I listen to heavy rock, and I listen to pop’, and now everyone listens to everything,” Mason explains. “That's the way it should be because it's about how it makes you feel, and the song, rather than the genre. It’s just about what you connect with. I think it's the song that's more important than the genre.

“So, we were lucky that we were on that wave, and we were naturally on that wave,” he says. “We weren't trying to be; it's just the way we wrote. And we still are! I have no idea what's going to come next; no one does, and I love that. As soon as we get to go at it, we'll see what happens.”

Dead Club City Deluxe is out now. Nothing But Thieves are touring Australia with special guests The Moving Stills next week. You can find tickets via Untitled Group.

Nothing But Thieves

Welcome To The DCC Australian Tour 2024

With Special Guests The Moving Stills

Tuesday 30 April 2024 - Hordern Pavilion, Sydney

Wednesday 1 May 2024 - Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane (SOLD OUT)

Saturday 4 May 2024 - Margaret Court Arena, Melbourne

Tuesday 7 May - Hindley Street Music Hall, Adelaide