"I never planned on playing music.”

It’s one of the first things Motel Thieves bassist Zak Halimi tells me, matter-of-factly, when he joins the video call with me and his bandmates. Despite growing up with a dad who is a bassist in a band of his own, Zak says he didn’t play the instrument much growing up. He knew one of the band’s guitarists, Sam Ellis, from playing basketball together. Somehow, when the opportunity to join Motel Thieves came up right as he finished secondary school, it was just a case of the right people at the right time. Now, Zak says, “I think it was meant to be, to be honest.”