Austin, TX might be better known for blues and BBQ, but it was punk rock that put the city on the rock & roll radar back in the early ‘80. Bands like the Skunks, MDP, and the Big Boys packed small clubs near the university with their brand of hard, fast and relatively technical thrash music. Thieves carry on this tradition in the music capital of the world. Their sound is a bit slicker, but just as ferocious as the scene was back then.

The quartet grew up on ‘90s staples such as Weezer and Green Day, introduced to them by their older siblings. Their 2014 Colorchange drew comparisons to Hit The Lights, Jimmy Eat World and The Starting Line. In terms of technicality and musical proficiency, though, their material exceeds the limits of a traditional pop-punk understanding, placing the band squarely in the realm of Manchester Orchestra or even Thrice.

Thieves will continue to push the needle in 2016, with two new releases slated for this year. The first, an EP that features two covers of songs by the Beatles and Weezer (hence the title Two Covers, duh) drops on February 26. (Get it here!) We talked to Billy Canino (vocals/guitar), Chris Skiles (guitar/vocals), Nathan Helton (bass/vocals) and Max Stratmann (drums) about the challenge of covering their favorite bands, and got the story of how Max’s tattoo landed him a spot in the group. Read the interview below and listen to the exclusive premiere of Thieves covering the Beatles' "A Little Help From My Friends" above.

Hometown:

Billy: Austin, Texas, the live music capital of the world.

Homebase:

Billy: Austin, Texas, the best place on earth.

How did you all meet?

Nathan: I was a fan of Billy and Chris's high school pop-punk band and when everyone's bands broke up a few years later, we decided to join forces and started Thieves.

You’ve said that watching a Green Day show when you were 11 changed your life. How did you discover them and other acts that shaped your musical taste?

Billy: My parents were really into Elvis, The Beatles, and lots of other classic artists. My sister was a teenager when I was a kid and I picked up Nirvana, Weezer, Green Day, and a lot more from her. My friend Jeff’s older brother, Jack, showed me tapes of Rancid, Operation Ivy, and The Screeching Weasels when I was in elementary school.

Why are you called Thieves?

Billy: We wanted "Thick As Thieves”, but it was taken. We liked Thieves because we just wanted to make music and do what we want with no rules or genre boundaries and that name seemed to capture an outlaw vibe.

Your EP is called Two Covers because you covered Weezer and the Beatles. Why those two bands? And how do they relate to Thieves and your music?

Billy: Every great rock band has its own unique sound that can’t be captured by anyone else, while somehow remaining universally relatable. Both Weezer and The Beatles have that quality, and it’s what we’ve always aimed to capture in our music.

Wasn't it intimidating to cover the Beatles?

Nathan: We had been threatening to cover that song for a while now. We liked the idea of making a punk version of a Beatles song and we also liked the idea of singing about getting high with our friends and getting away with it.

What was the creative concept for the video?

Nathan: We went on the "With A Little Help From My Friends Tour" this summer. We planned the route around visiting bands and friends we had made over the past few years of touring the north east. We also played that cover for the first time all tour. I try to film a lot when we're on the road so we decided to make a video with the footage of all our friends from that tour. We wanted it to play out as a sort of home movie.

How do you describe your music to someone who's never heard you before?

Nathan: You should come out and see us live.

Who would you love to collaborate with?

Billy: Personally, my dream would be for the guys from Thrice to help us make a record. They produce most of their own work and it’s always genuine and beautifully captured. If anyone knows those guys personally, put in a good word for us, will you?

What's the craziest fan story for Thieves so far?

Billy: Back in 2011, we were on tour and a teenager in Louisiana came out to a show to see us for the first time and was super supportive. A year or two later, the same kid, Max, gets a huge tattoo of our Achiever album artwork on his arm, his first tattoo, and we were all blown away. There’s only a handful of Thieves tattoos out there and they always remind us that the effect of music is much bigger than the artist who created it. Fast forward a year past that, and we need a drummer to help us make a record in California with Sam Pura who worked on The Story So Far records. We wanted to work with a drummer who had chemistry with us and Max was the only guy who really seemed to understand where we were going with our music. He nailed the record and since then he’s toured the whole country with us. In my opinion, that’s the coolest story from our band’s history.

If you were a hashtag, what would you be?

#nomotive