Nothing But Thieves reveal how Green Day respect their support acts on tour
1 July 2024, 14:26 | Updated: 3 July 2024, 11:36
Conor Mason and Dom Craik told Radio X's Sunta Templeton what they learned from touring with the punk trio.
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Nothing But Thieves have praised the way Green Day look out for their support acts.
The Southend-on-sea quintet have been among the special guests on the trio's UK and European dates for their Saviors Tour, joining Maid Of Ace in warming up the crowd on their massive stadium dates.
Asked backstage at this year's Glastonbury Festival what they had learned from the Basket Case legends, guitarist Dom Craik revealed to Radio X's Sunta Templeton:"Well actually I was talking to Billie Joe [Armstrong] after the gig last night and he was talking about how those guys all met in fifth grade and it's one of the reasons he believes they're still a band in their 50s."
He went on: "And Actually we all met at school, not when we were quite that young, but when we were teenagers and I think that's one of the magic things and why we're still together. We're all friends first and I think there's that special chemistry that you can't necessarily get when you put an advert in a newspaper, saying 'We're looking for a drummer'."
"I also love that a band who have been touring for 30 years, they made us feel like we were such an important part of the bill and they don't need to do that," added frontman Conor Mason. "They let us have the sound dB [Decibel] level as high as theirs for the gig, which is pretty unheard of for a support act.
"They were incredible with our crew, just simple things like they allowed us to eat at their catering. It's like they respect their supports and that's just so lovely to see for such an established act."
"That's inspiring," added the Amsterdam singer. "You've got to be nice on the way up because people have got to be nice to you on the way down".
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Talking about supporting Green Day at at Wembley Stadium in particular, Dom added: "For us and I guess for many bands, that is a bucket list venue. It's one of the biggest venues in the UK and we walked out like 14-year-old boys thinking, 'This is so surreal'.
"And also Green Day for us were one of the first bands we were jamming [to] at school, playing terrible covers of American Idiot, so it was a real full circle moment. Like, 'How on earth are we here?' And we thought whatever happens we should just enjoy it and it may sound lame and cliche, but we just wanted to soak it all up and I think we did that."
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Quizzed about their pre-show rituals and how they'd be getting into the zone ahead of their Glasto set, Dom replied: "It's actually quite boring at the moment," to which Conor added: "It's always been boring."
Dom went on: "Conor's very sensible and making stuff like lemon and ginger tea, doing some warm ups," to which the Impossible singer added. "Some annoying voice warm ups that piss everyone off".
Asked about what plans NBT have for writing new music, Conor revealed: "We're actively not touring at all next year, so we can have a bit of brain space, but also time to write and get creative and loose and just see what happens, which is nice for us.
"we never actually had - maybe when we were first about but the first album we had just a year to write records we're going to be able to do that next year. Just hang out and see what happens and that's going to be really fun."
Nothing But Thieves went on to play a 14-track set at 4.30pm on the Other Stage and there were plenty of Radio X Flag bearers assembled to watch them in action.
See Nothing But Thieves' setlist at Glastonbury 2024:
- Oh No :: He Said What?
- Futureproof
- Is Everybody Going Crazy?
- Tomorrow Is Closed
- Trip Switch
- Impossible
- Welcome to the DCC
- Unperson
- Ce n'est Rien / Gods / Number 13
- Sorry
- I'm Not Made by Design
- Where Is My Mind? (Pixies cover)
- Amsterdam
- Overcome
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