What are your Full names and ages?
Seb Olrog, 20.
Sam Handy, 21.
Mike Parker, 21.
What is your band’s Genre?
Blues Rock
Give us a little bio of the band and you guys as individual.
Can be found on website 😉
Where did you get the band name from?
Two random words we put together, thought it sounded cool and realised no one else had the name so we went with it.
Who does what in the band?
Seb plays the drums and sings a little, Mike plays the bass and writes the songs with Sam. Sam is the lead vocalist and guitarist.
Are You Signed?
Only on a super flexible release by release agreement, so no.
How did the band come about?
We formed as a type of blues cover band back in the day, and gigged around Reading, as well as other areas like Guildford and Basingstoke.
How did you guys meet?
Seb and Sam met at a Berkshire Maestros band skills class. Sam and Mike knew each other from secondary school and as neighbours. Seb met Mike through projects with Sam.
How did music come in to your lives and when did you start doing it?
Music was always there for us. For Sam, as a kid, music was just in the car. Sam would go everywhere with his parents in the car just to listen to his parent’s records. We’ve all had instruments in the house and have always played them, until one morning we decided to take them a little more seriously.
When will you be releasing material?
We released our EP ‘Time To Move’ back in September 2014 with five tracks on it. We hope to release our next EP by July or August this year!
How do you get inspiration to write songs?
I guess inspiration comes from experience, and it’s hard to take from experience having only just turned 20/21 years-old – we’re still learning the ropes. It’s easy to write a song about ‘love’ because we’ve all felt it at some point in some form or another, but it’s hard to write a song that isn’t inspired by love. It’s the first thing that comes out, either that or your singing about passing trains and crossroads. Sam always compares songwriting to a muscle. The more you work on it, the stronger it’ll become. In this case, the more you write, the more creative you’ll become and you definitely develop a sense of awareness which aids your abilities as a songwriter. You hear and see things differently, and you eventually become a perfectionist about every tiny detail. Similar to how an athlete strives for a perfect form.
What’s the best bit of advice have you ever received?
Was it not Rocky Balboa who said “… it’s not about how hard you can hit, but how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward”? That seems to apply every day, especially in music and most other jobs.
Where do you see the band in 2-5 years time?
In 5 years time? Hopefully on a tour bus halfway across Europe, promoting our debut album under the wing of a major label. As you do.
Where would your dream place be to perform in the UK?
Wembley Stadium I guess. We’ve never really given much thought to that. We’d love to play at as many historic venues as we could, like the Royal Albert Hall. Follow in the footsteps of the legends and gods.
Where is your dream place to perform in USA?
Sam would love to perform in Atlanta, Georgia. He always calls it his home even though he only lived out there for a few years. We’d love to perform in every last state, and if we could get on Clapton’s Crossroads Festival that would be awesome too!
If you could do collaboration with anyone in the UK who would it be?
Not a clue. To fuel our own nostalgia we’d probably pick our own childhood favourites if not our current favourite artists. Working with Keith Richards or Eric Clapton would be awesome though.
If you could do a collaboration with anyone in USA who would it be ?
Mike: it would probably be Ben Folds Five,
Jimmy: Eat World and Lionel Richie.
If you wasn’t doing music what would you’s be doing?
Someone spoke to me about working as a deck hand on a super yacht which probably belongs to either a footballer or politician. That’d be cool, living and working on the mediterranean or caribbean sea.
Do you have a website, social media pages and music pages for your fans?
yes we do! our website is www.vintagethieves.com – fans can find out everything there including links to all our social media pages and a free streaming service of our EP ‘Time To Move’.