Theo and The London Outfit Speaks To Rob Smittix About Background and Direction

RRX: You’re a young man and you’ve started a music career, tell us about how you got started and your background.

Theo: Oddly enough, I play punk rock music but my origin as a musician is with classical cello. I started playing cello at 7 years old, that was my main instrument for a long period of time. I think that really gave me a great background and foundation. Technical music, good habits and good music discipline. And then when I was 13 or 14 years old, I started punk rock music. I loved the sound, I loved the attitude and the messages. It was really sweet to me at the time as to who I was and it inspired me to pick up a guitar in a super casual way, totally different from what I’ve been doing in music up until that point. I started teaching myself and learning songs off of the records I had in my room and it just grew until I wanted to try writing songs. Eventually my love for that took over.

RRX: Did you still pick up the cello?

Theo: I do. I do studio work on cello. I like to keep it around, it’s a very useful diversifying tool.

RRX: My heart is with punk rock as well, as far as your band, how long have you been around?

Theo: Theo and The London Outfit has been going since about August or September of last year. It kind of got kickstarted because I was at a Green Day concert at Citi Field in New York City; I lined up for 14 hours to get in the front row, the front barrier. I knew that at every show they bring someone on stage and that night I was lucky enough to be that person that got on stage and played guitar with them!

RRX: How’d that feel?

Theo: That was incredible, it went so fast. I mean there was 40,000 people there. It was such a rush and so much to take in, standing up there and playing with my idols and for all these screaming fans. That kind of was like, okay I’m going to get down with this and put out songs casually. I knew I had to get out and play and play and play to get this thing going for real.

RRX: What an experience, being young and just getting things going it’s going to take a while to see that many people in the crowd again.

Theo: For me at least, it was like I had all of my senses taken away.

RRX: Are you from the New York City area?

Theo: Originally yes, I was born in New York City but actually for most of my life I grew up in London.

RRX: Oh yeah, hence the band name.

Theo: We moved to London when I was 1 year old and I lived there for 15 years. Most of my education and upbringing was in London. I love it there, I’m very proud of my British background.

Theo and The London Outfit are playing Putnam Place in Saratoga Springs this Friday May 6th (8pm) with Celsius and Grape Juice, buy TICKETS HERE!