New Age Thief Interview

Chicago’s New Age Thief is rewriting the emo-rock playbook with their explosive debut album, Stars Align, out now via Wax Bodega. The duo, composed of vocalist/guitarist Gino Savarino and drummer Brady Corcoran, fuses raw basement-show energy with atmospheric flourishes, drawing comparisons to Basement, Microwave, and Balance and Composure.

We caught up with the band to talk about their relentless drive (yes, even after a stage-dive mishap left Savarino with a fractured collarbone), the inspiration behind their hard-hitting single "Bleeding Out" and how Stars Align captures both the grit and hope of their journey so far.

- Let’s start with the name—New Age Thief is pretty intriguing. What’s the story behind that name? How did you come up with it and what does it represent for the two of you?

Truthfully, we just picked it from a list of tentative names we had. There isn’t any deeper meaning other than “we thought it sounded cool” lol. We’re both really indecisive people though, we went back and forth on names for almost a year, so I guess that could represent us just committing to something. I remember thinking, “we’re probably gonna hate the name eventually regardless of what it is, let’s just pick something cool and go” haha.

- Gino, you transitioned from your successful solo project Safe Bet to forming New Age Thief with Brady. What motivated you to make this shift from a solo act to a duo, and how did you two connect creatively?

I’d been writing songs for what ended up becoming NAT for a while, since 2020-21. My heart wasn’t in the old project anymore - I wanted something different, fresh, and I sent Brady a few demos, Bleeding Out being one of them - we started jamming in early 2022 and eventually the pieces all started falling into place. We were writing, figuring stuff out - we work super well together and the songs just started to take shape very naturally.

- "Stars Align" your debut album is now out.. Can you talk about the overarching theme or mood you aimed to capture with this record? How did you balance those raw basement-show vibes with a more mature, atmospheric sound?

There’s a few themes of the record, but lyrically, the overarching themes touch on gratitude, self-reflection, acceptance, things like that. Sonically, we brought these songs to Brett in a very raw form - he is primarily what gave these songs the more atmospheric sound that they possess. There’s a lot of weight on the record - the guitar tones are awesome, there’s layers upon layers of guitars and vocals on the songs, weird little sounds and effects here and there - we did so many cool things to build up the atmosphere of the record itself, and again, all thanks to Brett. We both agree that we left Barbershop as better songwriters after working with him. But I guess the rawness of the songs comes from the fact that they start out “the old fashioned way” - written with a guitar and drums in a room. We expand upon stuff from there, once we have the framework for a song, like what other elements we can blend into each track and whatnot.

- Tell us more about the single "Bleeding Out" which is the first you wrote for the project. You’ve expressed mixed feelings about it. Savarino could you elaborate on why you “like it a lot but also hate it”?

I think my words were too strong when I said that, haha. I don’t HATE that song, in fact it’s one of my favorites to play live - I think it’s just one of the more “simple” songs of the bunch, more straightforward, because as stated it was the first song I wrote for NAT - nearly 5 years ago now. It’s a natural thing to get better at songwriting as you continue to write songs of course, so I guess I just meant that it’s kind of the younger sibling of some of the other songs, like Under Your Wing or Found My Flame. Basically, Bleeding Out walked so Cherish could run haha.

- You’ve mentioned influences like Jimmy Eat World and Microwave, and people have compared you to bands like Basement and Balance and Composure. How do you feel your sound fits within or breaks away from, the emo-rock scene?

We love those comparisons, both of those bands are among our favorite artists. It’s nice to hear that our influences shine through in the songs we write, that people can hear it. We don’t feel too in or too out from the emo-rock realm, either. We play in a bit lower tuning than some emo bands, which I guess gives some of our songs a slightly “heavier” feel, but our songs are very much just rock/emo songs, structurally. We did a lot of different things on Stars too, like I said earlier - and I think that gives us some room in the future to further expand on what genres NAT’s music falls under, which is cool! But I think a lot of bands that make good music just naturally end up shaping their own “sound” as they continue to write, and that’s what we hope to achieve as well.

- With "Stars Align" being your debut, what are you hoping listeners take away from it? What emotions or thoughts do you want to evoke?

This is a tough question haha. I hope that listeners hear what we were going for sonically, and what I was trying to convey in my lyrics. I’m not like, this profound poet or anything - I feel something and it becomes a sentence or a phrase and that’s what came out of me when I felt that feeling. Sometimes it’s very on the nose and makes sense, and other times it’s maybe a bit more cryptic or obscure. Whatever. Personally I feel that most music is meant to be interpreted however the listener would like to interpret it. If there’s something to cling to on an emotional level, then that’s awesome. If not, that’s cool too - you can just enjoy the songs for how they sound. I hope this record inspires people to live fully and to go all-in on their endeavors.

- You’re hitting the road with Equipment and Riley! this fall. How do you both mentally and physically prepare for a tour, especially with a debut album that hasn’t been played live as much?

We’ve been preparing by just practicing our songs a bunch, really trying to get our set to be super cohesive and stuff. I haven’t been on the road in years, the last time was filling in on guitar for Homesafe in 2021. So I’m definitely a bit rusty. We’re also not 20 or 21 anymore, and I wanna make sure we treat our bodies somewhat well on the road. Bringing “healthy” snacks and stuff with us, instead of getting Dunkin’ every morning and Taco Bell every night haha. Mentally, I think we’re just very excited to get out there. The songs mean a lot to us, they’re fun to play, and we’re just amped to have the opportunity to play our songs to more and more people, really. It’s new for us and it’s new for everyone who will hear these songs, so it’ll be a cool shared experience I think.

- How do you two work together as a duo to bring your recorded songs to life in a live setting? What can fans expect from a New Age Thief performance?

We perform as a 4 piece with the help of our friends filling in on lead guitar and bass, but this upcoming tour will be done as a 3 piece. Despite our songs having a lot of body to them (on the record) they fortunately still translate super well when we “strip them down” in a live setting - even when it’s just Brady and I writing as a 2 piece, we still sound very “big” in our practice space. Seeing NAT live seems to be a really sick experience from what we’re told, haha. Our sets are energetic, we’re able to captivate a whole room as soon as the first song starts playing - we’re really just here to have fun and rock, and we want everyone to rock with us.