SOURCE – Congratulations with the new album Bleed, Memory, because it is really amazing! Can you tell something about those songs, please?
Dylan Neal – Hey thanks so much. There’s quite a lot I could say. I’ll say that the album as a whole is loosely based on my father’s descent in dementia. He started showing signs of dementia around 2020 so a lot of the songs are dealing with the emotions and experience around that, as well as with concept as a memory. This dotted line of a theme is told less in a way of, “‘x’ happened and made me feel ‘y’” and more in a way like, “‘x’ is a ghost that appeared and caused me to scream”.
SOURCE – How would you describe the sound of the band Thief to anybody that’s maybe not familiar with you?
Dylan Neal – I like to tell people Thief is a sacred space between Nine Inch Nails and Portishead. I think that kind of covers it as it can be aggressive, moody, pensive, etc all in just a few songs. I didn’t really listen to much NIN growing up, which is interesting to me. I must drink the same water as Trent Reznor or something. I did listen to a lot of trip hop though, hence the Portishead.
SOURCE – You released a large number of singles before the album. How important do you think are singles in this era in comparison to full length releases?
Dylan Neal – They’re important in different ways depending on your goal, and for Thief they function as a way to get people excited for a new full length. We just did the normal three single releases we’ve always done that a lot of labels have an artist do for any full length album. I think that’s somewhat standard. Singles are important to help create some buzz and get people excited as well as to have more opportunities to get some press leading up to the release.
I’ve been told that a valid strategy for new bands to gain fans is to release a flood of singles as a way to get noticed by the Spotify algorithm. It’s not a method I engaged in as I started Thief before that method came to be. I wouldn’t want to do that method because I like to write full lengths to be taken as a whole. Imagine reading one chapter out of a book once a month for 6 months… it’d ruin the spell! But if it works, it works and maybe they can get a big enough following to facilitate releasing a full-length to fans.
SOURCE – Nowadays in every album the person responsible for the sound production is strongly mentioned especially when he is a known one. How important do you think is the producer to the sound of a band?
Dylan Neal – I produce everything, so it’s pretty important for the sound of Thief I think haha. I do everything in Thief and have never had a producer so I don’t know how informed my opinion is. It would be an interesting experience to have one on an album. Ideally their touch should be transparent.
The producer’s aim is to serve the music alone. Anyway, I don’t think it’s important for bands to have one, but maybe a useful tool to help a band congeal all their ideas into something substantial. I can think of some artist’s I really like that used a producer on an album I wasn’t a big fan of (Bjork’s work with Arca comes to mind – the album is fine, but it’s not my favorite which is strange because I love both of those artists individually). The only The Mars Volta record I like is Deloused in the Comatorium and maybe that’s because Rick Rubin was the producer. How much of this is because of the producer? I can’t say.
SOURCE – What are your thoughts regarding AI and its potential effects down the line when it comes to the music industry?
Dylan Neal – I think the biggest issue AI will cause is creating more signal-to-noise. There will be so much AI generated stuff for new artists to compete with for attention and eventually you won’t be able to tell what is or isn’t AI. However I don’t see it as a threat, just a nuisance, because I feel like once someone learns something was created by AI, they lose any emotional affinity with it. If I don’t know something is AI-generated and then learn it is, I lose all interest in it because there was no human craft behind it.
For a more positive spin, I’m sure it will help create some incredible production tools. It already has actually: Soothe and Ozone are two software plugins that come to mind that use some of that technology to make things easier. Soothe for example is this multiband compressor type plugin that will identify potential problematic frequencies and then you as the artist can dial in how much it attempts to “adjust” that. That’s where I think AI will shine, where an artist can direct it to help with something.
SOURCE – What can you say about the Cinderland video. It’s not quite what you’d expect from a band as Thief, with the color schemes (grey scale) and so forth, and I think that’s a good thing.
Dylan Neal – You’re right, it’s quite a shift visually as most of Thief’s videos usually have a lot of red. To be completely honest with you, I just didn’t have the budget to do the video I had in my head. The ideas and inspiration I had for the video came from the Japanese Onibaba, so once I found out that the actual film was public domain, I thought, “fuck it, we’ll re-cut it into our own film!”. It’s like sampling music, but with film. Fin.
SOURCE – When you think about the concept of success, what does that word mean to you as far as being a musician – and has that definition changed from your initial years getting into the business versus today?
Dylan Neal – Success for me now simply means making a great song. Whatever happens on top of that is extra and whatever doesn’t happen, that’s okay, because as long as I create music, I’m successful.
When I was younger, my idealistic self thought success meant fame, fortune, etc etc. But as I got older and realized that those things are a crapshoot and aren’t necessarily inline with the kind of music I make (or even a good thing, for that matter), I had to look at things differently. I had to redefine what “success” means to me and my relationship to it. It’s the ego that wants those idealistic things success brings and if that is what you’re after, you’ll never be satisfied, because the ego’s thirst can’t be quenched. True success is just giving your all. I also try to separate “success” from “goals”. My goal is to have the means and the privilege to share my music with the world and maybe even be able to quit my job. But that’s just a goal out of many, and you can be successful regardless.
SOURCE – What are your plans for 2024 with the release of the album?
Dylan Neal – We are doing a small west coast tour in July with SRSQ and Ex-Heir and then we’ll be heading over to Europe to play at Prophecy Fest and are in the process of booking some more shows around that while we’re out there!
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Photo Credit: Davy Greenberg