Mark Sharp and the Bicycle Thieves - Questions for the Band
This week I am pleased to say that we have the fantastic Mark Sharp and the Bicycle Thieves answering the “Questions for the Band”. As usual I will the intros to the band themselves but it would be remiss of me not to let Mark and the readers know that their St Luke’s gig was my favourite gig of 2019, so over to the boys.
A gentle start, for those that don't know the band that well. can you tell us a little bit about yourselves ?
Yeah we’re a 5 piece band from West Lothian that consists of Mark Sharp (vocals and rhythm guitar), Conor Ward (bass), Darren Moran (keyboards), Cameron McKay (lead guitar), Michael McCrossan (drums).
Who are the bands musical influences ?
I think everyone has different influences throughout the band and that sometimes varies as well but recently I think musically we’ve all been taking some from bands like ‘Foals’ and ‘Bombay Bicycle Club’ as some of their tunes resemble that dance and feel good vibe in our songs.
What is your writing process ? Music or Lyrics First ?
Again that kinda varies as well but most of the time we’ll have the melody and lyrics down with an idea of structure and where we want to go with it then work on different sounds to take it to where it needs to be.
What is an average day like for you ?
I’d say a lot of our time gets spend on writing everyday, whether that’s musically or lyrically. Sometimes you lose inspiration for one but usually you find it in the other.
What is your favourite and least favourite parts of being in a band ?
The best thing about being in a band is being able to be creative and make music with your mates and travelling about to play live shows up and down the country and the flip side of that is the the down time when you’re not gigging or your mind won’t let you be creative, it can be a difficult industry to be in at times behind the scenes but you’ve just got to roll with it and keep at it.
Tell me, how do you interact and respond to fans ?
We like to keep on top of messages and stuff on social media and try to get back to as much as possible and just speak to people really. I feel it’s important to feel connected with the people that’s listening to your tunes and get to know them because after all our music is for these people and we want them to be apart of it as much as us.
So 2019 was a great year, from supporting Lewis Capaldi and then headlining St Lukes, what was your personal highlights ?
Yeah been a pretty mad few months to say the least. The Capaldi shows were incredible and it was an absolute honour to play those shows alongside him and an experience I don’t think any of us took for granted nor will we ever forget! But yeah I think personally St Lukes was our biggest achievement to date. Not an easy venue to sell out for an unsigned band and an absolute army of complete legends bought tickets and helped us sell it out a couple months in advance. It was a special night everyone sang their hearts out and danced all night and that’s what makes us happy seeing that in front of us.
Looking ahead for this year, what are your plans ? can we expect new music ? and do you have any ambitions that you want to fulfill this year ?
We’re all looking forward to the year ahead, we’ve got our first tour in place down south next month and excited to be at a few festivals as well so definitely a lot more new music still to come from us in the near future for sure and we can’t wait to let everyone hear it!
And finally, if you could only listen to one album for the rest of your life, what would it be and why ?
Great question.... individually we’ll all have a different one probably but as a unit I think we can all agree on ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’ by Pink Floyd. It’s just a great flowing album that takes you on a bit of a journey throughout and not to mention it fits perfectly in with the footage from ‘The Wizard Of Oz’ film.
Thanks Mark for sharing some of your time with us and giving us some very informative answers as to life in a band.
As the boys said they are about to go on tour and can be caught at the following venues:
London - Hope & Anchor, Thursday 12 March
Manchester - The Castle, Friday 13 March
Newcastle - Head of Steam, Saturday 14 March
Edinburgh - The Mash House, Friday 27 March
Get along if you can you won’t be disappointed, they are a fantastic live band, in the meantime have a listen to them below -