Del Water Gap

Motion City Soundtrack and Say Anything

“Don’t Call It a Comeback” isn’t just the name of a song off Motion City Soundtrack’s 2003 debut I Am The Movie, it’s also an apt way to summarize the band’s mission statement. During Motion City Soundtrack’s initial run from 1997 - 2016, the Minneapolis-based group released six celebrated albums, toured the world countless times and achieved gold status for their hit single “Everything Is Alright.” After taking a three year hiatus, the band—vocalist/guitarist Justin Pierre, guitarist Joshua Cain, bassist Matt Taylor, keyboardist Jesse Johnson and drummer Tony Thaxton—started performing live again in 2019, but even the most optimistic fans didn’t necessarily expect a follow-up to 2015’s Panic Stations. “When we started conceptualizing the idea for this record, I was thinking about what we loved about doing this originally,” Cain explains. The result is The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World, an album that sees the band transmuting the last decade of life experiences into the most catchy songs of their career. Some of these songs were originally conceived during the making of Panic Stations, such as the first single “She Is Afraid.” However it took some time and perspective for the songs to finally come together in their final form. “I love the opening riff of “She Is Afraid,” I knew it was one of my favorite things the first time I heard Josh play it,” Pierre says of the distorted guitar bends that immediately set the tone for this alt-rock anthem. “Sometimes we can get caught up with the idea of if a song is punk rock enough; we realized that for the song to be a success we need to have a great time playing it,” Cain adds when asked about the mindset behind Motion City Soundtrack’s first new collection of songs in a decade. That feeling of carefree exuberance is evident all over The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World from the instantly infectious palm-muted power of “You Know Who The Fuck We Are” to the motivational bent of “Things Like This,” the latter of which features vocals from Deanna Belos of Sincere Engineer. Over the course of their career Motion City Soundtrack have worked with legendary producers ranging from Ric Ocasek to Mark Hoppus, but for The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World they reunited with Sean O’Keefe (Fall Out Boy, Plain White T’s) at the legendary Chicago studio, Electrical Audio. “Working with Sean was really comforting because he’s so laid back and I love that he’s a drummer, so he’s obsessed with drum sounds,” Taylor explains. “He’s super open to experimenting and it’s like hanging out with a friend you feel comfortable around.” That sense of experimentation is especially evident on the atmospheric, bass-driven “Mi Corazón,” which sees the band embracing their post-hardcore influences without sacrificing the keen sense of melody that has always defined their sound. “I don’t like hearing the demos with fake drums because I’ll get those parts in my head, so I literally showed up to the sessions not even hearing the songs,” says Thaxton, whose improvised creativity led to some of the album’s most memorable moments. “I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable doing that and trusting myself,” he adds. Fully realizing the potential of their music without overthinking the execution is the secret to The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World’s success—and it’s evident on “Particle Physics,” a song co-written with and featuring Fall Out Boy guitarist/vocalist Patrick Stump. “We met Patrick in the early days of Fall Out Boy and had more recently talked about having him contribute to this album,” Cain explains about the song’s origin. “He told us he had an idea running through his head about a song Motion City Soundtrack would have written but haven’t written yet. It was this little riff and chorus to ‘Particle Physics’ and even though it was just part of the song, the vibe was completely there.” From there the rest of the band scaffolded the verses and bridge around that section while Pierre added his signature brand of pop culture-influenced lyrics, which reference everything from the indie band That Dog to celebrated neurologist Oliver Sacks. The result is a track that sounds distinctly like Motion City Soundtrack while still featuring one of rock’s most recognizable voices. However the most impressive aspect of The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World is the fact that instead of relying solely on nostalgia and album anniversary tours, Motion City Soundtrack continue to experiment outside their comfort zone. In that spirit, another standout song is the moody meditation “Your Days Are Numbered,” which features an impassioned cameo from Citizen’s Mat Kerekes that Pierre describes as “fucking brutal.” “ It's a very interesting thing to feel like we made the most important record of our career this late in the game,” Johnson says when asked about how he views the album in the context of the group’s discography. “ You might have some callbacks to some older stuff but it wasn’t intentional, it was because we were just being ourselves.” Motion City Soundtrack will be the first ones to tell you that The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World wasn’t necessarily an easy album to make, but now that it’s finished it’s a document of the last ten years that shows them growing as people alongside their music. “I think that if you look at a lot of our past records, it’s about ‘What’s wrong? What am I not getting right? Why do I feel fucking crazy? Why can’t I figure this out’… and I figured it out,” Pierre admits. “It’s almost like I felt I didn’t have an identity [in the past] and now by working through the hard stuff, I know who I am.” That sense of self-discovery is mirrored by the music, so when the final track fades out with just acoustic guitar and Pierre’s vocals it may be the conclusion of the album, but it’s the beginning of another chapter for Motion City Soundtrack’s collective journey.

The Wombats

 Staring out to sea, Matthew “Murph” Murphy seemed to see himself for the first time. He’d found himself down on the beach after “a fucking terrible morning” on holiday with his family earlier this summer, truly taking in the enormity of his surroundings: nature’s unceasing ebb and flow, its timelessness and tranquility.   He had, right there, what he now calls a “mushroom-esque spiritual experience”. “It was a moment of complete awe, but also a shock,” he recalls. “There was this revelation that I had been living a life caught up in my own head, or in some kind of racing helmet or with blinkers on. It was really a potent experience. I felt like I saw everything new for the first time, and was aware that I had been so selfish to not take in how crazy the world and life is. I’d been caught up in my own BS for way too long.” He found himself asking difficult questions. “Why are my head and body disconnected all the time? Why am I incapable at times of seeing any form of beauty in the world or in others? Why do I expect the world to conform to my will? Why do I never stop and smell the flowers?”   The album that follows – Oh! The Ocean, The Wombats’ sixth, and their most sonically adventurous and superbly melodic yet – sets about trying to answer them. Its sophisticated, ahead-of-the-curve grooves (the richness of Death Cab for Cutie combined with the adventuring mindset of St Vincent and Tame Impala) still tremble with the sort of confessional emotional honesty that has made the Liverpool band’s music as cathartic and relatable to their growing young fanbase as it is catchy and playful. From behind the band’s deceptively cuddly façade, Murph has sung openly about his anxiety, depression, marital issues and addictions (he’s now “sober as hell”); here, he lays bare his social discomfort, internal strife, compulsive behaviours and the dilemmas and tribulations of life in his adopted Los Angeles. But, like this year’s second album from Murph’s side-project Love Fame Tragedy, Life Is a Killer, there’s also a sense of progress towards confronting, accepting and coping with his issues.   Success, after all, can play havoc with the troubled mind. Since they emerged as leading lights of the late-‘00s indie rock scene with 2007 debut A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation and its hit singles ‘Let’s Dance to Joy Division’, ‘Moving to New York’ and ‘Kill the Director’, Murph, bassist Tord Øverland Knudsen and drummer Dan Haggis have maintained an incredible upward momentum. 2011’s electro-flecked second album This Modern Glitch made them Top Ten regulars; 2015’s third Glitterbug saw them embraced by the TikTok generation, with “Greek Tragedy” a viral hit several times over. By 2018’s Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life they’d stepped up to arenas and 2022’s Fix Yourself, Not the World consolidated their unstoppable rise with the band’s first Number One album. Headline shows at Crystal Palace and The O2 followed amid the band’s biggest touring cycle so far, taking in arenas across the globe and culminating at Reading 2024, where the band headlined a rammed Radio One tent overspilling with crowds of 18-24-year-olds that remain their core audience twenty years into their career.   “I don't think I understand that, but the tent was flowing out,” Murph says. “There hasn't been a concerted efforts to move sonically with the times, we just hope for the best songs and play around with them in the studio until we're excited. I’m still trying to wrap my head around how it's happening. I think we have the bodies of 40-year-old men and the souls of 13-year-old girls probably. But it's great that the songs are still resonating to new audiences. It's great that our music still clearly has youthful vigour.”   Oh! The Ocean marks a new era for the band, moving on from the synthetic sounds they evolved with producer Mark Crew to embrace a warmer-blooded approach. Taking 50 new songs into a studio in Echo Park, LA, in July 2024 for six weeks of sessions with new producer John Congleton (St Vincent, Wallows, Death Cab for Cutie), The Wombats shunned the AI studio techniques that have become prevalent in modern-day recording, in order to make a far more natural and human album. “One of the big things for me was that it had mistakes in it,” Murph explains. “That it had the feeling of three humans in a room playing instruments, not trying to overly perfect something and just letting it be. I don’t think computers are great when it comes to art.”   To that end, Congleton had the band play every song in complete takes rather than shorter stretches, then adding sprinkles of sonic necromancy. “He's a bit of a wizard with guitar pedals and making things sound unique,” Murph says. Hence Oh! The Ocean finds Murph tackling his troubles over a smorgasbord of fresh sounds and genres. Lead single ‘Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come’, for instance, delves into lush tropical pop, falsetto funk and futuristic orchestral textures as Murph details, but also comes to terms with his anti-social side. “I just wanted a song about the flaws of being human and being mega awkward,” he says, speaking for the reluctant party-goer in us all.   ‘Blood on the Hospital Floor’, a note-to-self not to catastrophise situations (“Blood on a hospital floor, everyone's used to it,” Murph says, “they wipe it up and they crack on”), is a driving future-rock classic dappled with intergalactic noises, like cruising Saturn’s rings with the top down. ‘My Head Is Not My Friend’ builds from subtle alt-rock tones to a punchy finale as Murph soldiers through hungover regret in search of “one fucking peaceful day”. And, to glorious space pop, ‘Can’t Say No’ examines the human need to throw ourselves into wild, often self-destructive experiences in order to distract ourselves from our inner anguish. “We’d rather run away than feel at all”, Murph sings of in-song escapades including car theft, vandalism, far eastern voyages and demon worship.   As the album expands, the band explore glistening tech rock, merge infectious, crackling guitar pop with seamy hip-hop grooves on ‘Reality Is a Wild Ride’ and, with ‘The World’s Not Out to Get Me, I Am’, even lash Muse’s futuristic fuzz rock to The Wombats’ first documented foray into bluesy rock’n’roll. All the while probing Murph’s conflicted nature in search of a salve.   “A common thread in my lyrics, and generally these days, is that my thoughts aren't really in my best interests,” Murph admits. “Ninety-five per cent of the time it's like my brain is trying to take me down and I have to just keep on top of that and remember that it's not a big deal.” ‘The World’s Not Out to Get Me…’ particularly, seems to tackle his past addiction issues. “It’s about when the escapism goes too far,” he says, “looking back at places where those processes, if gone unchecked, will leave me.”   As the songs become more lyrically playful, the sonics keep pace. ‘I Love America and She Hates Me’ is a piece of gleaming disco concerning Murph’s love/hate relationship with America, with its striving ambitions, divisive politics and lax gun laws. “I do love it, but it's such a competitive place that it feels like a battle sometimes,” he says. “I liked the idea of personifying it as someone that you're in constant conflict with. There's something in-built into the American way of being that is supportive of success and supportive of growth, which is not as prevalent in Britain. We are told to shove that shit down, don't put anything on a parade. Here it’s more supportive when you’re trying to achieve goals.”   The haunting, epic pop of ‘Swerve (101)’ touches on LA status anxiety too (“people scrambling up the totem pole,’ Murph says) interwoven with hints of obsessions reaching crisis point. And ‘Kate Moss’ – part tech noir rock-out, part dream pop twinkle – is a mini-Peyton Place, digging into the raging gossip around Murph’s LA neighbourhood. “We’ve got sorrow behind our eyes, but we look so good,” he sings, spilling the tea about model couples he knows with hidden secrets. “There's a lot going on,” he says. “OnlyFans stuff happening which I’ve been alerted to, everyone’s having a breakdown…”   For once, Murph is amongst the most well-adjusted in his universe, his evolving tactic of facing down his woes working wonders in the end. “In my journey of being in this band I’ve learned to run towards the bullets rather than run around them or do anything other than taking the issue head-on,” he says. “It's good for life in general. It’s pretty horrendous for about twenty years but then it feels amazing.” And the results, on Oh! The Ocean, are just as rewarding: a line in the sand from which The Wombats are sprinting onwards into a mature new phase. Time to see them anew.

Big Head Todd and the Monsters

In this life, very few friendships withstand the test of time. Naturally, people go their separate ways and chase their own dreams. As rare as it may be for friendships to last a lifetime, it might be even rarer for a band to stick together for the long haul. For close to four decades, the members of Big Head Todd and The Monsters—Todd Park Mohr [vocals, guitar, keys, sax, harmonica], Brian Nevin [drums], Rob Squires [bass, vocals], and Jeremy Lawton [keyboards, lap pedal/steel guitar, vocals]—have continued to both throw down in the studio and light up stages worldwide. Rallying around a core vision, the platinum-selling Colorado quartet kick out the kind of blues-drenched rock ‘n’ roll bangers that make you want to rev the engine a little louder, sing along like no one’s looking, and live a little freer.  This holds true on their 12th full-length offering, Her Way Out. “To me, my band means four people who listen to each other, work hard, and share a goal,” Todd observes. “The goal has to do with reaching out to people, catching their ears, and sharing a story we hope they relate to. Our fans have given us an incredible 40-year career, and we hope they’ve gotten great songs and performances in return.” They’ve most definitely delivered on both fronts…  As the story goes, Todd, Brian, and Rob unlocked their musical partnership during high school when they started jamming in the early eighties. Fast forward to 1986, they adopted the moniker Big Head Todd and The Monsters. BHTM released 2 successful independent records on their own BIG Records, Another Mayberry (1989) and Midnight Radio (1990) before drawing the attention of music industry titans and signing with Irving Azoff, Chuck Morris, and Frank Barsalona in 1992. They broke nationally  with the platinum-certified staple Sister Sweetly (1993) which yielded four top 10 rock radio hits. They continued to progress with Strategem [1994] and Beautiful World [1997] which yielded several more rock radio hits including Boom Boom featuring John Lee Hooker. The band is continually touring and recording and has continued to put out albums that have received critical acclaim from both fans and press. Among other milestones, their music literally reached the heavens when they played “Blue Sky” live at NASA Mission Control, delivering a celestial wakeup for astronauts aboard the International Space Station. They’ve toured and recorded with many rock and blues legends including B.B. King, Neil Young, The Allman Brothers, Hubert Sumlin, David “Honeyboy” Edwards, Dave Matthews Band, The Eagles and their personal favorite Robert Plant. Not to mention, they attained hometown hero status by headlining Red Rocks Amphitheatre 35 times in addition to earning induction into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame in 2023.  Her Way Out came to life organically. For two years, they hosted “Monster’s Music Monthly,” serving up either a new song or a new version of a classic online.  Working out of Jeremy’s home studio, they parlayed this momentum into their latest LP. “It had been almost seven years since our last album release, but we wanted to put the same energy of ‘Monster’s Music Monthly’ into a full-length,” Todd notes. “We have a very distinct personality as a band. I write to the sensibilities of each member, because they’re going to have to dig playing it. We’re a benevolent democracy. If one guy isn’t connecting with a certain song, that song is out. As an uncomplicated rock band, we like to do things that are ‘proper’—loud guitars, drums, big bass, and well-placed organ, keys, and lap steel. We road-tested every song on the record before recording a lick. All of that helped us dial in the arrangements, ditch tunes that didn’t work, and grow a strong sense of what our individual parts should be.” In this respect, the single and title track “Her Way Out” packs a concentrated and catchy punch. Anchored by a steady beat, the rough and tumble riff kicks up dust as soulful vocals ignite an irresistible refrain, “She found her way out, her way out—and it was me.” “It’s driven by the idea that relationships are frail,” he elaborates. “Sometimes, they are something one wants freedom from. A real-life circumstance drives this story. Something was said when a person had too much to drink. The relationship ended with words, but the drinker could never know what he said and the woman refused to tell him.” Ass-kicking guitar surges through “Thunderbird” as strains of organ coat a raucous refrain with a lyrical tip-of-the-hat to the Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas classic American Graffiti. He goes on, “‘Thunderbird’ is a collection of one-liners from the film knit together with a beat poet vibe. It has an AC/DC-like guitar riff and a cinematic-style vocal. It’s all about drag racing and love never caught.” Elsewhere, Big Head Todd and The Monsters nod to Annie Oakley with “Don’t Kill Me Tonight.” Then, there’s “King Kong.” A hulking groove lumbers beneath the frontman’s bluesy intonation as a piano solo bleeds into a skyscraper-scaling guitar lead. “It’s inspired by a large movie poster in my basement of King Kong on top of the Empire State Building,” Todd reveals. “I’m drawn to these iconic contemporary heroes who are also monsters. They are complicated because they destroy so much, yet are sympathetic to children and fall in love with human women. These ‘Titans’, as they are called, are often monsters of our own making. It’s exciting to perform live.” In the end, the future looks as bright as ever for these longtime friends. “We work very hard at being a great band,” Todd leaves off. “We’re also a group that cares for each other. We’ve been together for almost 40 years. Our audience has made it all possible, and we’re grateful and determined to keep playing.

Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit

Six-time Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Jason Isbell is one of the most respected and celebrated artists of his generation. The North Alabama native possesses an incredible penchant for identifying and articulating some of the deepest, yet simplest, human emotions, and turning them into beautiful poetry through song. Isbell sings of the everyday human condition with thoughtful, heartfelt, and sometimes brutal honesty. After releasing multiple albums and touring the world with his band, the 400 Unit, Isbell will begin 2025 with a change of pace. He will hit the road on his own, performing solo this winter and early spring at historic music venues across Europe and the US. In conjunction with these much anticipated shows, Isbell will be releasing a new album featuring only his voice and an acoustic guitar, an all-mahogany 1940 Martin 0-17. These recordings further demonstrate his pure talent as a songwriter and musician. Produced by Gena Johnson and Jason Isbell, and recorded at Electric Lady Studios in NYC, ‘Foxes in the Snow’ is set to be released on March 7th.

Mariah the Scientist

Mariah The Scientist is a singer-songwriter from Atlanta, GA, whose 2025 single “Burning Blue” has accounted for one of the biggest R&B hits of the year. The Top 25 single on the Billboard Hot 100 earned no. 1 spots on the Billboard Rhythmic Airplay and Mainstream R&B/Hip Hop charts and earned Mariah the fifth RIAA Gold plaque of her career. Her latest album, HEARTS SOLD SEPARATELY, released in the summer of 2025, is her biggest and most influential work to date, powered by “Burning Blue” and the album’s second Hot 100 hit, “Is It a Crime?” featuring Kali Uchis. Mariah’s critically-acclaimed fourth studio album debuted at no. 1 on the Billboard Top R&B Albums chart and no. 11 on the Billboard 200 during the first week of release, earning the new project the distinction of being the highest debut on either chart in her career. Release week also marked three hit singles on the Billboard Hot 100 for the album including “Burning Blue,” “Is It a Crime?,” and “Sacrifice.” “I’m dead serious about this love sh*t,” the singer says about the vulnerable songwriting that has themed her career. Mariah began building her loyal following with a four-song EP, To Die For, released to Soundcloud in 2018. Two EPs and two studio albums later, she established herself as a bonafide R&B star with the 2024 release of her critically-acclaimed third studio album, To Be Eaten Alive, her first full-length solo project released via Epic Records. The resulting To Be Eaten Alive World Tour and career highlights, which included co-signs from Rihanna and an induction into The Recording Academy’s 2025 New Membership Class, indicated the new heights her HEARTS SOLD SEPARATELY era has pushed her to reach.

Rainbow Kitten Surprise

As if channeling another dimension where genres simply don’t exist, Rainbow Kitten Surprise finds harmony in unpredictability – weaving together lyrical poetry, hummable melodies, and a rush of instrumental eccentricities. Now boasting over 2 billion global streams across platforms, the band first began building their devoted fanbase with independent albums SEVEN + MARY(2013) and RKS (2015). The band’s breakout full-length debut for Elektra, HOW TO: FRIEND, LOVE, FREEFALL, arrived in April 2018. Produced by GRAMMY® Award-winner Jay Joyce (Cage The Elephant, Lainey Wilson), the album featured RIAA-certified Platinum single “It’s Called: Freefall,” earned widespread praise from Billboard, TIME, Vice, and NPR who described their sound as “…a mix of jam and indie and whatever else you can throw into the soup…very earnest, beautiful, political, loving rock n’ roll,” and saw the band make several national television appearances, including performances on “CBS Saturday Morning,” “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” and PBS’s “Austin City Limits.” After gracing the bills of Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, and Osheaga, to name a few, RKS moved 80,000 tickets of their own on the sold-out 2018/2019 Friend, Love, Freefall Tour. That tour was earmarked by a sold-out debut at Red Rocks Amphitheatre and three consecutive gigs in Athens, GA (the latter of which were chronicled on their first official live album, LIVE FROM ATHENS GEORGIA, released in 2021).  The band released a two-track single Mary (B-Sides) in May 2019 – consisting of “Heart” and “No Vacancy.” The following year brought the release of standalone single “Our Song” – already a fan favorite in their live rotation prior to release – as well as a livestream concert in July, held for thousands of fans on what would’ve been the date of another sold-out Red Rocks performance (cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic). In March 2022, the band released the emotionally charged track “Work Out,” marking their first new music in nearly two years. 2022 also saw the band set out on their first full headline trek in nearly 3 years, a run that included their long-awaited, sold-out, two-night return to Red Rocks. And in 2022 alone, with the help of partners PLUS1 and Propeller, Rainbow Kitten Surprise raised over $170k for food banks in local tour markets, LGBTQ+ causes, and mental health initiatives. Rainbow Kitten Surprise is: Ela Melo (she/her; lead vocals), Darrick “Bozzy” Keller (he/him; guitar, vocals), Ethan Goodpaster (he/him; lead guitar, vocals), Jess Haney (he/him; drums)

Herb Alpert

Thievery Corporation

Twenty-five years into their genre-defying electronic music career, Thievery Corporation’s founding principles of D.I.Y. and inclusion have become key themes in mainstream social conversation. After a dozen highly acclaimed full-length albums, remix LPs, concert recordings, and over two decades of incendiary live performances that have thrilled audiences worldwide, Thievery Corporation’s music and message is more relevant and important now than ever.Independence is one of the primary factors in why Thievery Corporation have had such a long and fruitful lifespan. While co-founders Rob Garza and Eric Hilton bonded over their mutual love of Brazilian music in Washington DC in 1995, it was the local punk scene that became their North Star. Hilton says: !Ian MacKaye is a real hero of ours, his DIY philosophy. We modeled ESL Music after Dischord Records, how we ran our label and did recording contracts.” Garza concurs: !Being independent enabled us to be here for 25 years. Never having a boss or needing someone’s approval, we’ve always said what we needed to say with no filter.”That lack of filter enabled Garza and Hilton to mine their musical inspirations and create one of the most unique bodies of work in electronic music, respectfully incorporating tastes of international cultural styles, without ever falling into the trap of cultural appropriation. !We always wondered: with so much incredible music in the world, why would anyone limit themselves to one genre? Well, we found out - it’s far easier to stay in one lane than to genre hop!” laughs Hilton. Garza elaborates: !When we started, we were influenced by music from all over the world, flipping through bins in second hand record stores for LP’s from Brazil, India, Iran, Jamaica, jazz records…..we wanted to make music where you didn’t know whether it was recorded today or a decade ago." Thievery Corporation’s music has always looked toward the future while paying homage to the past, starting with their groundbreaking debut LP, 1996’s !Sounds From The Thievery Hi-Fi,” which both introduced the world to Garza and Hilton as producers and set their course as pioneers of song-based electronic music with wildly diverse vocalists.The band’s legendary D.C. headquarters, the Eighteenth Street Lounge, became an epicenter for a diverse group of people and staff from all over the world, which in turn had a profound influence on their musical output. !D.C. was very cosmopolitan, lots of places to see international live music and jazz,” says Garza. !We’d run into people from all over the world and invite them to play with us - so Thievery became an extension of that, both on our records and in our live performances.” Indeed, Hilton and Garza’s “Outernational” approach created a world reflected by the artist’s ideals of diversity and acceptance. "25 years after we started, it seems like the world is catching up,” Garza opines. !Social consciousness is more mainstream, awareness of the importance of inclusivity...it’s so encouraging to see so many people working towards these goals in America." Hilton agrees. "Thievery is a reflection of who we are, it evolved from our musical tastes. Artists who were for the people, like The Clash, Fela Kuti, Manu Chao were so important to us, and engaging in social ideas has always been a part of what we’ve tried to do." People don’t refer to Thievery Corporation as “World Music,” but it’s safe to say that their music and ethos is global in its scope and ahead of its time at every turn.In a live setting, Thievery Corporation avoids any electronic dance music tropes. Yes, you’ll dance, sweat and put your hands in the air….but their concerts are true performances, with a killer band of players and an array of vocalists from diverse global cultures. No two shows feel the same. !Our shows are VERY live, lots of energy, the combination of multiple instruments and singers that take you on a musical journey," says Garza. "We have a sitar player, songs are in different languages - it’s a multicultural experience, people connect to the band and to each other, it’s beautiful.” With a world cautiously beginning to emerge from isolation and towards communal events, Garza is eager to return Thievery Corporation to live performance. !I feel like people have been waiting to celebrate together after being forced apart for too long. We’re all craving that."Eric Hilton’s presence at Thievery gigs, however, has become an increasingly rare event. "I never really embraced touring; some of the world tours were interesting, seeing new places and cultures,” he says. !For me, touring was tourism. The creative process of making music is more my thing.” And Thievery Corporation have brought the sounds of the world to listeners throughout each of their albums. !There are so many highlights for me. 2014’s Saudade is my favorite record that we’ve done, a real creative stretch for us. Quiet music is hard to make! Symphonik also. To hear our music done with an orchestra was incredible.” Hilton concedes that over time live performance influenced the studio records. !After Cosmic Game (2011), we orchestrated jam sessions and built the records from those. For Temple of I and I (2014), we went to Jamaica to jam and record, which gave that record a different feel and authenticity.”Looking back over their career, Rob Garza and Eric Hilton acknowledge that what drives each of them may be different, but the mashup of personalities, sounds, cultures and experiences birthed something wholly unique. "We love all kinds of music, which is why Thievery Corporation sounds the way it does,” the founding partners agree. !We couldn't possibly incorporate all our tastes into the music, but we do it more than most.” By not following trends or the whims of major labels, and embracing the cultural diversities that make the world such a wondrous place, Thievery Corporation has created a legacy that runs deep and continues to expand. "Over 25 years, we’ve left nothing undone. We far exceeded what we thought we would do,” Hilton and Garza agree. And Thievery Corporation’s music will continue on to reverberate and influence the next generation of listeners with an ear toward a global musical experience.