Kieran Wilson took time out to chat with Terry Taylor about Thieves of Liberty’s debut album, their breakthrough moment and the challenges facing modern musicians
For a band that nearly didn’t survive lockdown and has only had a settled lineup for the last couple of years, the success that Thieves of Liberty are currently enjoying is particularly satisfying for founder member and lead guitarist, Kieran Wilson.
“It always felt a bit tumultuous before with people coming and going all the time so it’s been nice to have had a core for two years now and we all get along so well. I got very lucky being able to work with James [Boak]. To start with he’s the most incredible singer. … it’s hard to think where we would be without someone with as strong a vocal and live performance as well… cos he is crazy, that’s for sure… and loud! Tom [Bushby] just gelled with us instantly… He’s just so reliable and his timekeeping is immaculate… And I don’t know where to start with Pete [Kinmond]. He’s just on another planet most of the time. Again, he’s steady, he’s reliable and he’s just the most loveable guy in the world…for a bass player at least! And then Liam [Lindsley]. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with him because he’s an unbelievable guitarist, but that’s the problem… he steals the limelight from me! No, seriously, Liam joining the band actually transformed the sound and his playing and songwriting are just incredible!”
Since being crowned Hard Rock Hell Champions in 2022, the band’s star has been on the rise but, according to Kieran, they can pinpoint exactly when their career really took off and everything changed: “I don’t think we particularly realised how big a moment it was at that exact time but looking back now we can see it clearly. It was when we won the Firevolt Battle of the Bands [in 2023]. That was when the support just doubled, tripled, quadrupled overnight. We’ve been lucky enough to do Firevolt two years in a row and the following has grown even more. Now we see people who we met there from all over the UK coming to our shows.”
Having built that following, the band were really keen to get a full-length album out there for their fans but it took a little longer than planned. “We started writing Shangri-La in January 2023 so it’s [been] almost two years in the making… mainly because it had to be perfect. We really wanted to capture the live energy we have at our shows and to bring that energy into the album recording so we kept going back over and over and over until we felt like we’d perfected it… and we got there in the end!”
“We have two versions of the album: a standard edition which has nine tracks and a deluxe which has twelve. The deluxe has reworkings of two of our most popular current songs, Ain’t Goin’ Home and Calypso. They’ve been totally re-recorded from the ground up… And then there’s a third track, Ground Zero, which is totally different to anything else on the album. It’s barely even recognisable as Thieves of Liberty but it’s one of my favourite songs to play; it’s so much fun!”
“What you’re going to hear as you listen through the album is the genres kind of take a ride all over the place. Rock is obviously the theme throughout… but we take such drastic twists and turns from rock. There’s sort of jazzy elements in there; we’ve got brass in Casual Tragedy; Ground Zero is very pop rock; Luminescent [Daydream] is a piano ballad with possibly my favourite solo in it (in rock you get to do a lot of fast playing but this is one where I’ve got to put a bit of soul and a bit of feeling into it); and Until The End has string sections and choirs: it’s a big anthemic piece with a long atmospheric intro and all sorts of crazy stuff going on…”
“We’ve been playing some of the songs [on the album] live for about two years now and lots of people will be familiar with those ones, like the title track Shangri-La and Sick Pup which recently won Classic Rock’s Track of The Week vote, but there are three songs that we’ve purposely never done live, so when the album drops they’ll be completely new. We didn’t want people to know everything ahead of time!”
The relationship between the band and the fans, especially at live shows, is very important to them and it’s one thing they will never take for granted. “It was always the point of ours to not be up on stage totally robotic and scripted… There’s no overall plan to our shows. Obviously, the songs are in order but beyond that it’s just go and have fun and I think that connects with people. Our following is unbelievable, beyond what we ever expected. It’s why we do it: to form bonds and friendships with the people who come to see us.”
But to maintain those links with fans, they often have to travel long distances to play live shows. As Kieran explained: “Sunderland is so far away from where most of the music scene operates. We travel because that’s where the gigs are and gigging is what we want to do. Manchester is really good for us, we spend most of our time there… it’s like a second home at this point, but then you’re looking towards London and the outskirts for a lot of shows. We’ve done some silly ones before though. We’ve driven six or seven hours, played a half hour show, then driven six or seven hours home. But it’s what you have to do…”
“Probably the most memorable [gig] is the one at The Castle Hotel in Manchester [in 2023]. It’s one of my favourite shows. I mean, it was a disaster but sort of in a good way… no-one in that room will ever forget that night! We oversold the capacity: there were people who couldn’t physically get in the room. It was so hot the walls were literally streaming with sweat and condensation. The stage was soaking wet and it was so slippery. Pete actually fell over in the last song; he just slipped on the stage, knocking the amps and the mics over. James was really ill and at one point he had to run off stage to go throw up and I had to do a little standup routine until he’d recovered, which was a new one for me! It was one where everything was kind of going wrong but I think the fact that we managed to get through it all and still put on what I thought was a good show kind of proved to us that we could make it through anything!”
What comes across very clearly when speaking with Kieran is that there is a real spirit of friendship and collaboration in the band and that is also reflected in their approach to songwriting. “It usually starts with someone having a small idea but it’s always all of us. Thieves of Liberty wrote every song… We all have to like our own parts and feel everything’s right so certainly there are more ideas thrown out than are kept by the end of it, but I think that sort of goes in line with the pursuit of perfection I was talking about earlier. Everyone has to be 100% into the song otherwise it doesn’t become a song.”
With twin lead guitarists in the band one could imagine that there could be tensions or arguments as to who plays the solo but that doesn’t seem to have been something with which they’ve had to contend. Said Kieran, “You know what, it’s actually never really been a conversation. As much as I joke about the love/hate thing, it tends to be a case of whoever wrote the main riff that turned into the song will take the solo. There has been a couple of times where, say, I’ve written the song and it’s gotten to the solo section and I’ve just went, ‘Nah, you take it’, because Liam would really do well on that track… But if we both want the solo, we both just take the solo. There’s plenty of songs on the album with both of us on lead.”
There’s a lot to be optimistic about in the emerging rock scene right now from Kieran’s perspective, though he acknowledges that there are some significant challenges. “The talent level is really high, [as is] the support, but it’s a bit niche at the moment. We’re all sort of trapped and struggling to grow beyond the scene’s current means… With so many venues closing down there are certainly fewer opportunities out there. Bands are generally supportive… of each other but you are also effectively competing against other people to get on these gigs so there’s more saturation in the market but less actual availability.”
“And the modern musician isn’t just a musician anymore. [You’re] also a graphic designer, video editor, social media manager, content creator… and you’ve also got to be in charge of promoting our own stuff, doing all the marketing and a lot of the time you’re booking your own shows as well… It’s very rewarding but it’s also a lot of work.”
The videos they’ve produced to promote their recent singles are a good illustration of that and further evidence of the collaborative approach adopted by the band. Whilst it is usually Kieran who comes up with the general storyline and who has the vision of what it’s going to look like in the end, there’s always a group discussion before things are finalised.
“The initial plan for Sweet As Today [for example] was to send a brief out to loads of bands, industry people and family and friends to film themselves singing and dancing along but it was Tom who suggested we just do it at Firevolt and do a montage of fans having fun, which was risky because we were on quite a tight turnaround… but I think it was the right decision in the end cos it turned out amazingly. It’s definitely my favourite video I’ve ever worked on… We got loads of good shots on stage as well with us playing to possibly the biggest crowd we’ve done. It captured the vibe of that festival perfectly… though the editing took about four weeks and it stressed me to bits!”
The filming of the video for Shangri-La was not quite as straight forward as originally planned either: “It was on top of a stupidly big hill in Yorkshire and we carried that drum kit all the way up and it was a nightmare! It was so windy! We had to constantly face towards the wind to keep the hair off our face. It’s done well though so I guess it was worth it, but it was a difficult shoot for sure…”
Anyone familiar with Thieves of Liberty will be aware that the artwork they’ve chosen for the new album campaign is something of a departure from their previous style. The band wanted the cover to have impact and be immediately recognisable but, as Kieran explained, it took some time for them to decide on the design. “Nothing was really blowing us away. We were looking at what other bands had done and one of the reference bands I used was Massive Wagons and their House of Noise album cover… it’s just such an iconic piece of imagery. We said, ‘Let’s go for a theme we can do for the album art and all the singles as well…and go for something that’s tattooable’. That’s why they’re all on a light background with the image in the middle that represents the theme of the song in a sort of inky stroke art style.” It’s something of a relief to them that the feedback they’ve received from fans has been really positive!
Having touched on finding inspiration in the work of their contemporaries, the conversation turned to Kieran’s musical influences and the question of whether he had any guitar heroes. “I’ve actually got three. The first one [is] Joe Perry of Aerosmith. I mean, I fell in love with Aerosmith as soon as I discovered them when I was twelve or thirteen years old. They were one of the main reasons I picked up a guitar. Then, as I started to play more and learn more, it was Slash and Mark Tremonti and they’re probably the two guitarists I’ve tried to emulate most in my playing.”
Asked whether there was anyone in the emerging rock scene who’d impressed him, Kieran had no hesitation in singling out Chris Buck. “I think he’s one of the best guitarists I’ve ever seen. I discovered him a few years back opening for Myles Kennedy (who is probably my biggest idol in music) and he blew my mind! Every time I’ve seen him since I just stand there in awe. I love seeing somebody play lots of crazy new things that I’ve never even thought of or didn’t know were possible on a guitar. I’ll go home and it’ll be like 1.00 am and I’ll be picking up my guitar and annoying the neighbours trying to replicate what I saw.”
From the way Kieran speaks it’s clear that he loves playing the guitar and being part of Thieves of Liberty, despite all the pressures that come with being the driving force behind the band. So, with the release of the album imminent, it seemed appropriate ask how he was feeling about people finally getting chance to hear it in full.
“[I’m] excited, stressed, nervous, happy… all at once! The album comes out on November the 15th (so pre-order it now!) and we’re doing a couple of launch shows for that… one in Sunderland [on the 15th at Independent] when we’ll be playing the album in full (and that will be the live debut of those three songs I mentioned earlier), and then we’ll be in Stockport [on the 17th November at AMP], also playing the album in full.”
And what does the future hold for the band? Well, there’s a lot they can’t share just yet but one thing they can confirm is that they’ll be headlining the Trailblazer stage at next year’s Call Of The Wild festival. They’re also hoping to land a few other festivals they haven’t played before plus some supporting tours. They’ve already been busy writing new songs and Kieran expects they’ll be going back into the studio to work on album 2 before the end of 2025… so watch this space!
Band Members
James Boak – Vocals
Kieran Wilson – Guitar
Liam Lindsley – Guitar
Pete Kinmond – Bass
Tom Bushby – Drums
