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Genevieve Schatz
The Company of Thieves’ vocalist is modest about next-big-thing status
By Lisa Balde
Published: November 29th, 2007 | 3:00pm
The day before her second trip to New York in two months, Genevieve Schatz couldn’t sleep. And who could blame her? She was about to make her debut at The Bitter End, the club where Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell each got their starts, and a quick snooze in Coach was the last thing on her mind. So the fact that Schatz and her band — blossoming Chicago pop outfit Company of Thieves — found slumber in a couple of NYC Bloomingdale’s couches wasn’t as much a surprise to her as it was a shock to the locals. “We’re kids,” she says, “and for all they knew we were homeless people.”
Schatz laughs. She tries to convey the exhaustion of the whole scenario (up at 4 a.m., no sleep the night before, and barely navigating the city’s subway), but it was all too much: Images of the sleepy fivesome sprawled out on Bloomie’s fineries while stuffy shoppers perused the living section “fixtures” cracked her up. “We were like, ‘Can we crash here?’”
The nap was worth it. Company of Thieves went on to win the New York Songwriters Circle contest finals (and a shiny new Gibson guitar) for “Oscar Wilde,” a gem of a lounge-pop song that matches Schatz’s sharp vocals with a slick backing of Costello-plucked riffs. They added the award last month to a slew of accolades the band recently received from the likes of Billboard and Yahoo!, not to mention general love from sold-out shows in Chicago. Schatz admits summer 2007 was unexpectedly successful, and it’s safe to say that Billboard’s observations have proven convincing if not buzz-worthy: Company of Thieves could be “one of the best unsigned acts of the year.”
There’s just one problem. “We actually have a bad habit of not knowing when to stop writing music,” Schatz says. “We have so many songs. We have to [tell ourselves], ‘We have to stop; we have to stop writing.’”
The chicken and the egg goes something like this: Schatz and guitarist Marc Walloch, who met through friends at Chicago’s Union Station, ended up becoming an unlikely writing pair with varying music tastes that always seemed to meet within a few steps of the Beatles. The more they wrote, the more fodder they had for their self-produced album, Ordinary Riches (recorded by Fall Out Boy–Hush Sound producer Sean O’Keefe), released in May 2007. And the more compliments they received, the more fuel they had to write — except that touring and travels to New York seemed to beg more attention. “We’re sort of a lucky team that’s being made,” she says.
Their big break came upon finding their way onto Yahoo!/Billboard’s showcase in October 2007, where one of Yahoo!’s music big wigs introduced them at the B.B. King Blues Club as “the most talked about band in the industry.” That just about set their Midwestern spotlight on fire, earning them media buzz, a few House of Blues shows with popster Teddy Geiger, and a December 22, 2007, holiday show at Chicago’s Metro with CMJ Fest favorites Skybox and hometown up-and-comers the Young Sea.
“We’ve got a few things up our sleeves,” Schatz says about the upcoming Metro set, noting that fans should expect at least two surprises from them that night. All three bands also will be collecting school supplies in support of Dave Egger’s Chicago writing program, 826 Chi, which show proceeds also will go to benefit. It’s all part of their plan, Schatz says: “To go out there and tour and play.”
Schatz is the type of frontwoman who means it when she says that live shows are the absolute key to success. To hear her talk about it, you’d think her idea of onstage music conversations (“to not only hear the music but experience the music with us”) are more important than the writing process itself or any kind of offstage label support, of which they choose to have none — for now.
“Both times we’ve been to New York, we’ve had just such a great response from everyone,” she says. “I think they understand where we’re coming from.”
Schatz comes from a musical past, from a childhood filled with her own hummed-out melodies and a slew of teenage years full of fronting part-time punk bands and ska outfits. It was a tough, mostly male-dominated scene to conquer, but she admits to finding comfort in her place within Company of Thieves, a sort of grown-up role in the scene that puts her formative rock years into perspective.
Thankfully for new fans, her art imitates every lesson she’s learned. Her all-but bursting vocals create such an unrelenting buildup — seemingly effortless for her — that you forget she’s in complete control until she lets you down easy with a cool swirl of lyrics that are at once smart, personal and so touchingly universal you feel like you’ve known her for years.
Though Schatz and her company of creative musicians plan to focus on touring after the holidays, they don’t plan on stomping their writing habits so soon. Definitely expect to hear more from them — via Bloomie’s and beyond.
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Company of Thieves
Company of Thieves MySpace page
Issue #34
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