After just releasing a number one album, touring with The Snuts and Lewis Capaldi and now headlining their own gigs, this year has certainly not been a quiet one for Scottish band Mark Sharp & The Bicycle Thieves. Luckily for us, they freed a spot on their schedule to talk to us.
“When you start, that’s what you obviously try to aim for, and now that these things have happened to us, it’s quite amazing.”
Unsigned band Mark Sharp & The Bicycle Thieves released their first song ‘Fools’ in 2017, but it was not until 2021 that they gained enormous attention. But where does their name come from? Lead singer Mark Sharp, started off as a solo artist, but began doing shows with a band not too long after- and eventually decided that they needed a band name to give the other band members an identity. Contrary to popular belief, they are not actual bicycle thieves: their name derived from an Italian film of the late 40s. They saw it in a DVD shop when coming up with names and decided it “had a nice ring to it”.
Writing a #1 album does not come without inspiration, and notably, Mark Sharp & The Bicycle Thieves have not only taken inspiration from other musical artists, but also from the poet Charles Bukowski. As the band members have a broad music taste, several different artists are named as influences for their music, including Johnny Fontaine, Phoebe Bridgers and Dead Sea Souls. The Scottish music scene was a big part of the band members’ childhood, making them want to write their own music when growing up. Not too long ago the Scottish music scene took a backseat. but now with Lewis Capaldi, The Snuts and Mark Sharp & The Bicycle Thieves, it’s back alive and kicking.
Besides taking inspiration from other artists and music genres, the band hopes that their music does the same for other people too. “If anyone can take anything away from a song, we’ve done our part. It’s a cliche, isn’t it? As long as one person feels happy or sad or takes something away from you, you’ve done your job.”
Working on an album is a lot harder than they thought, but a lot of their previously written singles ended up on their latest album. “The singles that were already recorded made this album easier, because we knew what sort of direction we wanted.” The band added on to the earlier recorded songs and changed the songs to fit the album.The band has a unique approach that they feel works best for them, when it comes to the song writing process: “Sharpie ( so the nickname for Mark Sharp) will come up with a main structure and the lyrics and that, and then we kinda do our own bit separately, and then come together. It’s very difficult starting a song from scratch if you’re sitting in a room with someone.” Producing an album takes even more effort than producing songs, as each song needs to fit the album. For their number one album they took old demos and recorded some of them again to fit the album. Some of these songs, like Stubborn, were written four or five years ago. Even though they bring recording devices on tour, they usually work on their lyrics only, rather than recording or producing songs while on the road.
With success comes recognition and a fanbase, something that Mark Sharp & The Bicycle Thieves have become familiar with over the last year. There were multiple instances of people recognising the band and asking for pictures during Lewis Capaldi’s tour earlier this year. “In Amsterdam, we met that big guy Dave? Big Dave. He’s an absolute legend, that guy. He was about seven feet tall. It was a good photo of him standing next to me, because I’m obviously quite short. It was good fun, shout out to big Dave.”
Finally, we asked Mark Sharp & The Bicycle Thieves what their last listened songs were. “Black Ties and Little Lies”, their own song for Mark Sharp himself as well as “Cause I’m A Man” by Tame Impala for lead guitarist Cameron McKay.
Mark Sharp & The Bicycle Thieves are playing gigs in Manchester and London in November and hope to see you there!
Listen to their latest album here.
