Nothing However Thieves‘ Conor, Joe and Dom information us by the making of their sprawling new idea album, ‘Useless Membership Metropolis’.

From writing lyrics and portraying characters to taking part in with new soundscapes, that is how the band created their formidable fourth studio album.

Learn Nothing However Thieves, ‘Useless Membership Metropolis’ | The Album Story under:

(Click on full display screen for digital characteristic or scroll down for textual content solely model)

TEXT ONLY VERSION BELOW

“In true Nothing However Thieves trend, we don’t overly take into consideration what we’re creating, we’re very current and it’s simply within the second for the tune.”

As frontman Conor Mason explains, in the case of the band, there aren’t any limits to the place they’ll go musically or conceptually. Coming off the large success of third studio album ‘Ethical Panic’ and its accompanying EP, they had been free to discover new territory and problem themselves to transcend the everyday confines of a rock band.

The result’s the sprawling, multi-faceted idea album ‘Useless Membership Metropolis’, a triumphant mixture of catchy melodies and Nineteen Eighties synths wrapped in a darkish morality play exploring fame, success and the necessity to really feel seen. Conor joins us alongside his bandmates Joe Langridge-Brown and Dominic Craik to discover the inside workings of the brand new world they’ve created.

THE SOUND

“In hindsight, with ‘Ethical Panic’ and ‘Ethical Panic 2’, we had been pushing ourselves and each ingredient of it up to now that it was a bit ‘strive laborious’ at instances” Dom displays. “On the time we had been like ‘that is nice’ however we glance again and there are restricted moments on that file that present restraint – it’s loads of going to 11, as Spinal Faucet would say. I don’t assume it was acutely aware however with this new file, perhaps that had an element to play. Perhaps we did attempt to present restraint just a little bit extra. Making an attempt to be a bit extra assured within the much less is extra strategy. It feels as if it may need been a little bit of a response to the final file.”

Restrained or not, the ‘Ethical Panic’-era led to a number of the greatest reveals and moments of their profession, headlining London’s legendary O2 Enviornment and stepping as much as the headline slots at UK festivals. After that stage of economic luck, did they really feel any stress when growing a follow-up?

“We in all probability had that extra with ‘Ethical Panic’” admits Conor. “We had develop into a longtime band, now how do you are taking that to the subsequent stage? That in all probability pushed us to try to increase the room and push the partitions so far as we may. However I don’t know why we didn’t do this this time. It’s like we simply stopped caring. We simply wrote no matter we needed to put in writing. It felt like we had been beginning once more, on that first file and first EP. Not placing stress on ourselves and simply making an attempt to put in writing the very best songs and be inventive.”

“We’re all perfectionists in our personal proper so I feel the stress comes from simply wanting it to be the very best it may be for ourselves” provides Dom.

With the album’s singles ‘Overcome’ and ‘Tomorrow Is Closed’ arriving early within the course of, the band got a specific amount of area to loosen up and experiment, figuring out that they’d some key moments able to go. A turning level got here after they put collectively the file’s title monitor, ‘Welcome To The DCC’, which subsequently grew to become the primary style followers heard of the brand new materials.

“Earlier than the album, you may type of design how individuals give it some thought based mostly on what songs you decide up entrance” says Joe. “With ‘Welcome To The DCC’, it was idea pushed. Initially we had been meant to launch a minute of that tune. However within the studio, the tune got here actually alive and we thought, no, we’re fucking idiots, we must always launch the entire thing. It simply actually made a hell of loads of sense. It’s an idea file, we’re welcoming individuals into the world.”

“I feel we had a little bit of a lucky accident with it” Conor continues. “After we had been writing it, we had been nearly ‘taking the mick’ in a way – made it very pastiche and excessive, very ‘80s. An invite to this idea and this world. So we had no restrictions on it. We didn’t have a single mindset on it after which it simply turned out to be a single and we had been daring sufficient to launch it.”

Elsewhere, there’s a clear disco affect on ‘Do You Love Me But?’, a tune written for a fictional band inside Useless Membership Metropolis, which was one of many guys; favorite tracks collectively.

“It was in all probability the one time within the historical past of our band the place we wrote the tune within the studio” says Dom. “It spawned from an concept Joe had. He despatched me, with all due respect, fairly a ropey voice notice of what the refrain could possibly be. An analogous factor occurred with Conor on ‘Overcome’ the place I used to be despatched an embryonic however clear course as to the place the tune may go however on the similar time, relying on how you might be listening to it, you can pull it into 1,000,000 totally different locations. I do know that sounds weird however you may gown up the tune in no matter garments you fancy.”

‘Life Is However A Dream’, the latest album from Avenged Sevenfold, strikes in comparable multi-genre territory, a comparability that Joe acknowledges.

“I used to be studying about that album and the way they really feel a little bit of an obligation at this level of their profession to do issues a bit otherwise and they’re pulling at very totally different threads to what they had been. We really feel the identical. That’s why the album has these totally different influences and areas. It is extremely a lot a consideration as we’re writing that the worst factor we really feel we may put out is a really inventory rock album. That will be the shittest factor we may do.”

Conor in the meantime factors out that by establishing this refusal to adapt to style early on of their profession, it set them on a path the place they had been far more prepared to take probabilities.

“It gave us freedom without end” he says. “It meant that we by no means actually had a totally fledged sound. It simply gave us the liberty to do what we wish for the subsequent three information. It means on the subsequent file you by no means know what’s going to occur, and neither will we, which I completely love.”

THE COLLABORATIONS

Whereas all three contribute to the broader writing course of, Dom was sat behind the manufacturing desk, balancing his roles as each a band member and a guiding hand with an goal view of the broader image.

“It’s one thing I thought of quite a bit” he shares. “We’re fairly fortunate in that we’re largely on the identical web page and excellent at speaking. If somebody doesn’t like one thing, that’s completely fantastic. We’re three people within the writing room and everyone seems to be entitled to their opinion – music is, by its definition, subjective.”

“Then on the writing aspect of issues, it’s the longest period of time we have now spent writing a file and the proof is within the pudding, as they are saying.”

At this level of their discography, the trio have developed an unstated bond, capable of collaborate with a stage of understanding that solely comes from years of touring and performing collectively.

“I feel I’ve been writing for the voice for thus lengthy and bringing in concepts for Conor to sing, I swear my inner voice is Conor’s at this level” says Joe. “I can simply hear a melody or how a lyric goes to sound.”

THE LYRICS

Targeted round a members solely membership and the usually power-hungry, social climbing residents of town it’s based mostly in, the idea really solely appeared to the band round midway by the file’s writing course of.

“I knew I used to be writing in character, I simply didn’t know what the precise factor was going to be but” says Joe. “After we began writing for this album, it actually felt like I used to be nonetheless in ‘Ethical Panic’ headspace. It was fairly laborious to not write in the identical lexicon. It simply felt like I used to be writing for a similar album and it wasn’t pleasant. It didn’t really feel recent. So I knew I needed to put in writing an idea file earlier than the idea happened.”

After approaching the band with the concept, they shortly wrote ‘Welcome To The DCC’ and ‘Members Solely’, solidifying the plot and its place inside their wider plans.

“As soon as we had these two songs, all the things else can dangle off that idea so I began tying the opposite songs in” Joe explains. “One factor that was actually useful was the language of the band – there may be loads of stuff about heaven, I lean into spiritual imagery quite a bit. That meant that different issues tied in.”

Dom provides “we had the dialog the place we determined that if we do that, we have now to verify the songs stand on their very own two toes and also you don’t want the broader context to nonetheless take pleasure in them and have them join with you. That’s an enormous ask.”

“It was a consideration proper from the beginning” Joe continues. “I had to think about issues on two totally different ranges. An idea album is fairly pointless if it has not obtained one other which means behind it – in any other case you might be simply telling a narrative.”

Not solely was this a lyrical problem, Conor was then additionally confronted with the duty of portraying totally different characters in his vocal performances.

“I’ve to really feel emotionally linked to no matter we’re writing” he says. “It’s so necessary to get my head into what we’re saying. I’m a really emotional individual anyway so once I sing it turns into a launch of my emotions. So after we’re within the studio, I’m finding out what I’m singing and connecting as closely as I can with it. I do this on each tune we do, whatever the idea. There are some actually heightened feelings inside this file, they’re simply layered in a metaphor.”

THE TITLE

“There have been totally different concepts of ideas earlier than that had been nothing to do with a member’s membership. I had an concept of receiving a name out of your future self. One thing that intricate might be fairly tough” Joe displays. “Actually the album is about that feeling of being in or out of the membership, whether or not that’s celeb or a political motion or social circle. I used to be studying an article about ‘Darkish Aspect Of The Moon’ and the way all these songs are totally different variations of madness. That made me take into consideration ideas another way.”

“However so far as the title, that is the god’s sincere fact, I had the phrases ‘Useless Membership Metropolis’ in my cellphone notes from one thing. I had written that drunk or one thing. I all the time have 1,000,000 notes of concepts I’ll come to sooner or later and I used to be scrolling alongside and got here to it. Previous me got here up with that however I don’t bear in mind when or the place. I assumed it had a hoop to it and years later it has discovered its place which is sort of cool.”

THE ARTWORK

Artist Luke Brickett was tasked with presenting the eerie, sunset cityscape adorning the album’s cowl, taking inspiration from footage of Expos just like the World’s Truthful – an older, outdated view of what the longer term may appear to be.

“He was so intrigued by the entire story and couldn’t get sufficient info” says Joe. “I began writing out pages and pages of album lore. He got here up with a couple of concepts from that. The album art work feels semi church-like which actually match into the narrative another way. So far as the method of it, we obtained an architect to 3D print it then Luke lit the precise mannequin and photographed it on movie and that’s the way it happened.”

“We’d seen some idea albums and the artwork the place you simply know they’re making an attempt to be so futuristic and glitzy and glamorous and it simply falls on its toes the minute you launch it” provides Conor. “It was actually necessary for us to not have a single timestamp or location stamp on any of this – not simply the art work however the movies, the march, the styling. Luke understood that and was messing round with the previous EPCOT, futuristic model the place you don’t have any concept if that’s within the Nineteen Fifties or 2050.”

THE FUTURE

With a packed touring schedule together with some large UK area reveals later this yr, how do the band see this grand idea translating to the reside stage?

“We don’t wanna give away an excessive amount of however that’s the order of the day” Joe reveals. “We try to make it really feel like we’re doing gigs throughout the Useless Membership Metropolis world.”

Getting into the venue, they need their followers to really feel as if they’re wandering by town itself, with larger venues lending themselves to extra theatrical ambitions.

And when it comes to future music plans, now that they’ve created this different world for themselves, do they see a chance to return for an additional album?

“I don’t assume we’ll know that till we end the marketing campaign and as soon as the mud has settled” admits Joe. “I like the concept of all through our profession writing a tune from Useless Membership Metropolis. They will simply be one-offs the place we revisit the world for no matter motive. As we end the album, issues are fairly open-ended and town continues to be thriving in a manner. That’s in all probability a query to ask us once more in a couple of years.”