Glaswegian artist offers listeners a confessional look into his late 20s on his freshly released second album ‘Nothing Here Worth Taking’ offers listeners a confessional look into his late 20s.
Where his debut explored family, young love and growing up in the Scottish care system, his sophomore release keeps the witty storytelling that drew audiences to him.
The imagery differs too. The album cover’s subject is not Thomas, but a banjo leaning against an old wooden chair, shrouded in an autumnal forest scene. Thomas stands away from the centre, looking off into the distance.
The opening title track begins with an enticing brass part by , and Thomas’s instantly recognisable rasp follows. Thomas asks, “Tell me what you’re chasing / I can run no more.”
At TRNSMT music festival this summer, Thomas dominated the main stage. Big tracks like ‘Fever’ and ‘Jenna’, which together have amassed around 20 million Spotify streams, are well on their way to becoming modern Scottish classics.
Away from the numbers game, Thomas credits the crowd: “With indie fans, you can build up a crowd. Especially with this style of guitar music.” He continues: “People who love live shows will always want to go. It never leaves you.”
The past few years have been significant for Thomas. After six sold-out dates at The Barrowlands in 2023 and a debut album, he took time away from the main stages, picked up the banjo, and set off around Scotland singing old folk songs in golf clubs, and swung a few sticks in the process.
This trip helped mould the sound of ‘Nothing Here Worth Taking’. He says: “I was playing all the old golf courses. I’d already written a few tunes on the banjo, and naturally we decided to keep some of that sound in the studio.”
Playing golf has been a release for Thomas’s frenetic string of gigging: “Golf has honestly been one of the best things ever. It’s been a bit mad, like when you play arenas, and then the next day you’re hitting 20 awful shots in a row,” he laughs. “We don’t get too caught up in that music world.”
What drew Thomas to the banjo was the folk music he listened to growing up, particularly the finger-picking style.
“You don’t really strum a banjo,” he says. Playing the banjo also let him fulfil musical roles himself – “Nobody I knew really played music growing up. So if I wanted to play lead guitar, I had to find a way to play rhythm at the same time.”
‘Nothing Here Worth Taking’ was recorded in Dundee at Magic Box Studios with producer . Anderson has previously worked with fellow Scottish artists such as and . This collaboration came about organically: “I know Scotty through The Snuts boys because he tours with them and he’d done some records.”
Thomas’s first album was produced in Liverpool by Rich Turvey. For the second album, it proved easier for him to record in Scotland. He says, “With Scotty, I could just be along the road and could go in song by song, and figure it out from there.”
Blends of banjo and acoustic guitar are significant in ‘Nothing Here Worth Taking’. But one track in particular, ‘Come and Get It’, is an acoustic/dance hybrid earworm that shouts summertime in Glasgow and is likely to be bellowed by friend groups spending afternoons in Kelvingrove Park.
“I think most people who grew up in the central belt of Scotland, there’s a lot of dance music influences, especially when you’re a teenager, and you’re all kicking around parks, golf courses and whatever else. And someone’s always playing a tune with a high-pitched voice. I did love a lot of 90s dance tunes, and I still do. I ended up getting a piano last year, and I was playing a lot of old dance melodies. When I came up with the melody for ‘Come and Get It ’, we decided to move it onto guitar to fit with the record.”
Another aspect of Thomas’s upbringing had a hand in shaping his influences: “I grew up in a foster house, and for boys my age, most of the music you get is through video games. We had a PlayStation, and we used to play Tony Hawk’s Underground. I say play, but it was ten boys elbowing each other, trying to get a shot of the remote. When you weren’t playing, you were listening to the soundtrack. Johnny Cash’s ‘Ring of Fire’ would come on every ten minutes, and we’d all be jumping around the room.”
For a young music fan, the introspection and old-timey sound of country and folk can go underappreciated. But as you age, the cynicism and the lived experiences of artists like Leonard Cohen become increasingly relatable.
“The 60s stuff was the main foundation,” he says. “I got into Leonard Cohen when I was a wee bit older, just because I didn’t get it when I was a teenager. Because you need to go through that life to understand the lyrics.”
On musical influences, he says,” I like a lot of ska from the late 70s. The Specials are one of my favourite bands. I used to go and see them all the time. Dire Straits and Fleetwood Mac were big guitar influences. I never really bothered with 80s and 90s glam rock; it’s a bit of a meme, isn’t it? Just like wanking guitar.”
Thomas performed an acoustic cover of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Never Going Back Again’ for Virgin Radio, displaying the finger-picking style he grew up admiring.
Thomas is no stranger to performing stripped back, getting his musical apprenticeship busking on Glasgow’s Buchanan Street, where he soon caught the eye of fellow Glaswegian singer-songwriter Gerry Cinnamon.
“Gerry became a mentor and brother. He took me under his wing, and we went on tour with him all the way to the Hydro. He fostered a new wave where you could do it without a label, and you didn’t need the big machine behind you.”
Both of Cinnamon’s albums, 2017’s ‘Erratic Cinematic’ and 2020’s ‘The Bonny’, were released via his own record label, Little Runaway Records.
Having come a long way from singing to Glasgow shoppers, Thomas will embark on a UK and Ireland tour this winter, kicking off in Belfast on the 1st December, making stops in major cities like Manchester and Liverpool, not to mention his own headline at The Hydro on 11 December. Of touring, he says: “Everyone’s class and in their own world. There’s a bouncing feeling. I look forward to playing all the cities.”
“It’s really hard to put into words – the experience of being there and hearing the tunes sung back to you, songs you’ve written growing up, sitting in your room.” On October 9th, Thomas returned to play the Barrowlands. Despite having played there many times before, it’s still a pinch-me moment for him.
“We used to go to the guitar shops along the road; we’d get off the bus and try get to all the guitar shops. We used to try and get a shot of these grand guitars, and the guys like ‘no chance, mate’,” he laughs. “Those lights are so ingrained in our minds. I feel very lucky to have played there.”
‘Nothing Here Worth Taking’ is out now.