Nothing But Thieves: "After pushing through for a year and self-medicating, everything got to breaking point and I nearly quit the band"

Nothing But Thieves singer Conor Mason has a lump in his throat and a quiver in his voice, as he thinks back to the struggles he went through touring the band’s second album, Broken Machine. A retiring sort, he was overwhelmed by the physical and mental challenges of life on the road. The toll on his psychological health was significant – to the point he considered walking away from music.

“After pushing through for a year and self-medicating, everything got to breaking point and I nearly quit the band,” he wrote in a soul-baring 2017 essay in the UK Independent, which debunked the cliche of rock stars as 24/7 party animals, and which instead portrayed Mason as a sensitive young man, caught in the headlights of a lifestyle that was an unfortunate byproduct of his passion for music. “Why would I want to do something that takes me away from home so much, and the people I love, and puts a huge strain on my health?”

Looking back, he is glad he spoke out about what he was going through and that he sought the professional help he needed. It’s important to be honest about your feelings – a philosophy he stands by as Nothing But Thieves count down to the release of their fifth LP, Stray Dogs.

“It was never strange to be open about that stuff,” he says. “On Broken Machine, there was a whole period of time where it was a real mess for me – touring was hard. I was massively struggling. That mindset of being open-minded was helpful for me and hopefully helpful for others to encourage them. It’s so awful to discourage people to not feel the way they feel and talk about it.”

He says all this in the matter-of-fact fashion of someone who has come through a storm, older, wiser and surer of himself. He has applied those lessons to the group’s new single, ‘Evolution’, and to Stray Dogs, due for release on September 25 and poised to catapult an already popular band into the stratosphere.

Mason explains that Nothing But Thieves are leaning back into early influences such as Radiohead and Jeff Buckley – to which they are adding their own arena-rock maximalism. Imagine Thom Yorke fronting

Enter Shikari and then make it louder and more ludicrous: that is the essence of Nothing But Thieves in 2026.

The decision to strip things down to their most foundational elements is, he continues, a reaction to their previous record, 2023’s Dead Club City –  a concept LP about a nightclub that wants to take over the universe (yes).

Once you’ve gone full sci-fi prog, there’s no option but to dial things down, he elaborates. “I enjoyed the experimental, explorative stage we were in for the last few records – trying out every avenue,” Mason explains. “But then we pushed it further with Dead Club City.”

This time, they wanted to take it back to basics. “It feels good to actively be like, ‘Let’s get rid of everything and have the band in the room and write the best songs we can’. It’s almost a more difficult task, where you’re not relying on all the things you can play at, and pull out and experiment with, to make it interesting.”

Nothing But Thieves’ origins go back to 2012 and Southend, a seaside town in Essex, that has a history of free-thinking and eclectic rock bands. When the group started, Southend had a healthy and creative music scene – something that has fallen away in recent years.

“I don’t think it feels as alive as it was, and I don’t know if the grassroots venue culture is as big as it was. Our government needs to help keep it alive. I don’t want to get too political, but it’s a dying art. People make amazing music in their bedrooms. But the best part of music is touring and connecting with people on stage."

He’s glad Nothing But Thieves started when they did – when record companies were still willing to take a punt on a bunch of scruffy unknowns.

“This system of music nowadays is so different, where labels won’t even sign an artist unless they have already made a hit from the bedroom,” says Mason. “Whereas, we were so fortunate that our label was like, ‘Okay, we like your voice.’ Now, you have to have a hit on TikTok to even get noticed – and that’s difficult to get my head around.”

• ‘Evolution’ is out now. Stray Dogs is released on September 25. Nothing But Thieves play 3Arena, Dublin on February 2, 2027.