PropertyOfZack sat down with Sergio of Thieves & Villains in their van when the band hit North Jersey on their recent tour with Just Surrender. Sergio was an absolutely fantastic guy to interview; we discussed the reception to the band’s recent release, previous touring, and their future tours as well. Read up and enjoy! 

For the record, could you state your name and role in Thieves & Villains?
I am Sergio Otaegui and I sing and play guitar in Thieves And Villains.

It’s been a busy few months for the band. South America was released this past August. How has the reception been in your eyes?
We’ve been happy ‘cause it’s been really well received critically, which we wanted, and it’s also gone over really well with people. Any band obviously assumed that people will like the music, but we were really happy that it’s gotten great reviews and as far as at our shows, we’ve seen with each tour it’s grown a little bit more and more kids are singing along every night, so thumbs up positive. We’re completely happy. Everything’s going the way we expected it. Slowly but surely moving along. Very well received and very happy.

The band sort of regrouped in 2009. Did that play a big part in the writing process of the new record?
Absolutely. Once we settled on our current lineup, this was the first time that we really felt comfortable as a band. Before it was kind of me and our other songwriter, Chris, and dudes that we didn’t necessarily connect with even though we were friends. This time around it was great having good friends join us. Our bassist, Chris, actually was in our very first band with me before I was ever in Thieves & Villains, so this lineup really felt like home and I think that just made us feel more free to do more creative stuff on this album.

How would you say the tracks differ from Movement?
Writing wise, on the first album, it would be me or Chris writing the song at home and then we would show up and really kind of just show the band how to play it. On this album there was a bit of that, but a lot of the songs I would write half of and then we would kind of let it jam and let everybody see where it fell into place. I would say this one was a little bit more organic with things not being as structured at the start. We kind of just let everyone’s feelings just leave us into the next section and everybody else in the band had way more input.
POZ: So it was more of a full effort rather than an individual?
Sergio: Yeah, I’d say so for sure.

Did you guys enjoy your time in the studio? You got to work with a pretty rad producer.
It was absolutely awesome. Working with Tim as a producer was great. It was the first time any of us had worked with someone who was like an actual adult, adult. We’ve only recorded with people who were in their 20’s before, but to work with someone 50-something years old who has worked with tons of different people was really cool. He used to engineer for Rick Ruben who’s done records for like the Chilli Peppers and shit so we just learned so much from him about life and music. It was definitely one of the best experiences of our lives and careers.

How has your relationship with Victory Records been to this point?
Always good. We’ve never had a problem. We ended up signing to Victory about nine months into starting the band. They’ve really been with us since the start and they kind of understood with all our ups and downs that we kind of had to find ourselves and that this wasn’t going to be like a “boom” kind of situation, but that it was going to grow slowly, especially with the new record. The kind of album we put out, South America, doesn’t really pander to the current The Maine/All Time Low type stuff that’s going on right now and they knew it would be kind of a slow build and they’ve been nothing but supportive. We’re great friends. When we go out there we just hangout with everyone and we all go out. It’s a really family type situation.

The band is currently on tour with Just Surrender and With The Punches. How has your time out been?
It’s been good. It’s been fun. It’s cool ‘cause we’ve known the Just Surrender guys for a bit since we’re from the same area and we’ve played like one-offs with each other, but never done a tour of any kind. And With The Punches are from the area, but we’ve never met them period, so it’s been fun. The shows have been good. It’s just good to be on a tour where it’s all the same kind of people that just like the same kind of stuff and hangout. That’s what it’s been like.

How is the new material being responded to live?
Really well live because this album was way more written for the live set then the first album. All the tempos on this album are faster, the songs are more energetic, and they’re a lot more instrumental parts. It kind of lends itself to live and it’s cool ‘cause we’ve gotten a lot more acceptance from hardcore kids off this record for some reason. We’ve been doing a little with bands from that nature, like we played a show with the band Such Gold the other day who are like a hardcore band from upstate. We’re going to be doing a tour with them in the future. It’s been good. Kids like it way more live.

Thieves And Villains will continue to be busy right on through the end of the year with tours featuring Secret Dino Club and The Motel Life where you’ll get to hit most of the country. How stoked are you guys to just keep on moving?
Really happy, actually. We finished our record in March, we took April to get stuff together, and then we’ve been touring just about non-stop. We give ourselves like eleven days home at a time usually between tours since May and we were getting a little tired, but this tour and the last one we’ve started to see things grow show by show, so we’re actually really stoked and motivated now to just keep going. We’ll be back in Cali, we were over there this summer, but now we’re going to be doing the west coast exclusively with The Motel Life and we’re playing a lot of venues like The Roxy. We’re really stoked for that and then it’ll be nice to go home for Christmas, but next year we’ll be right back out and we’ll be getting overseas for the first time next year as well too. We’re really just excited about everything.

Might we see another single or video released for one of those tours?
We shot a video for “Virginia Woolf,” but we weren’t pleased with how it came out, so we’re going to be shooting about two more to make up for it. We’re putting together one right now that’s kind of hard to explain, but there should be two coming sometime within the next few months to try to make up for the fact that the “Virginia Woolf” one got messed up, which sucks.

When should we see those New Year’s tours being announced?
The new tours will be announced probably sometime within the next few months.
POZ: Both support?
Sergio: Yeah, basically everything. We’re trying to just go support stuff as we’re coming up.

Will the Europe stuff be Europe or UK?
It will be UK. When we get over there we’re definitely going to be trying to hit as much European shit as possible to make the most of our time there.

Might we see any b-sides off of South America?
The only one was the song “Women,” which is on the vinyl version of our album. That’s the only leftover, but every Christmas and New Year’s we try to release something for free, so we’ll be releasing something for free. We were planning on having our friend Louis, from The Secret Handshake, remix one of the songs form South America. So that will probably be out.

Sergio, you got to interview blink-182..
Yeah, Rock Sound Magazine from the UK seems to treat us really well and they just emailed our publicist at Victory one day and they said, “Hey, we want the guys to submit a few questions over for Mark and Tom,” and me and Chris were like, “Hell yeah.” We typed up some stuff in the email and sent it over and they sent it over to Tom and Mark and they answered. It’s really cool. We haven’t seen the magazine, but we saw a page of it online. We’re really stoked about that. I definitely want to check that out when I get the chance. Those guys are like half the reason why we even play music, so.

Thanks so much for your time, is there anything you’d like to add?
Thank you if you’re supporting the band and if you picked up South America, thanks a lot, but even if you download it, just spread it to some people and hopefully come out to a show. Thanks to everyone and thank you for speaking to us.