WEB EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: THURSDAY—THESE POST-HARDCORE SENSITIVOS ENJOY BEING THEIR OWN BOSSES

In March 2007, post-hardcore group Thursday announced that they and their then-label, Island Records, had mutually decided to split. Since then, the band has been enjoying a hiatus, with the members focusing on other projects. “I tried to convince everybody to work on other stuff for a while, because the last 10 years it’s just been the band,” frontman Geoff Rickly says. “Sometimes I feel like bands change because people are so sick of doing it, they just lose interest in it. So I tried to get everybody to do their own thing.” Rickly focused on United Nations, a grindcore group rumored to feature Glassjaw/Head Automatica frontman Daryl Palumbo and Revolver scribe Jonah Bayer, among others. Guitarist Tom Keeley worked on a shoegazer project, guitarist Steve Pedulla worked in cinematography, and, perhaps most visible, drummer Tucker Rule picked up sticks for My Chemical Romance for their world tour.

Somewhere in there, the bandmates decided to get back together and start recording as Thursday again. They teamed with like-minded Japanese screamo quintet Envy for a split release, to be issued on both CD and vinyl, packaged together via experimental indie-rock label Temporary Residence (Explosions in the Sky, Mono, Grails). And they’re currently working on a new album, with plans to enter the studio in a couple of months to lay down the 13 songs they’ve written so far and whatever else they come up with. For the band, being label-less is wholly liberating. “There’s just something about knowing that there are other people working with you and wondering what they’re going to think of it,” Rickly says. “It’s just nice to be a band with no label, no nothing.”

REVOLVER How did you come to make this split with Envy?
GEOFF RICKLY I’ve always thought that that vocally, it’s obvious that there’s nothing in common between us, but musically, like guitar lines and stuff and the keys we use, I always felt they were brothers from Japan. I just went to see them, and I walked up and talked to [Envy vocalist-sequencer] Tetsuya for, like, 15 minutes before the interpreter came over and told me the dudes didn’t understand what I was saying. [Laughs] I seriously was just talking to him as if he understood me. And he was going, “Ooohhh. Oooooh.” And I thought he knew what I was saying, but he totally didn’t. [Laughs] So it was a fun night to meet those guys, and then it just turned into the idea for the split.

Also, it’s really flattering that a label like Temporary Residence would put out a record by us, because I think right now in the American music scene, there’s this indie-rock hipster thing that says anything that’s not in the “cool” category is total bullshit. And the funny thing is, the bands and the labels don’t really feel that way. It’s some weird fashion statement of kids that have ironic mustaches or something. They think there’s this police code of who gets to be a good band and who doesn’t.

How has your attitude towards labels changed?
My attitude now is you don’t really need a label anymore. At this point I think you should only work with the label if they’re going to bring something to you, if they’re really going to help you do what you want to do, and if you think they’re nice people and want to work with them as a partner.

Why don’t you just do something like Radiohead or Nine Inch Nails, then?
We’ve talked about it. And now it’s like, well, some of these labels might have some good advice about different things. A label like Epitaph has all this experience and knows the indie world enough and can connect us with a bunch of people, or a label like Temporary Residence knows all these people that we don’t know and does a great job with their art and with the packaging and with the quality of the vinyl and the distribution…I think for us it’s more that we want to keep making music. We don’t want to have to spend so much time on the business side of it.

How else are you working with Envy? Is there an arc between two of the bands on the album?
Not yet. But we each have one track left to go, so we’ve been talking about doing something like that. Initially, I was like, “Dude, I would love to do one of your guys’ songs and translate it into English.” And they were just like, “Why would you want it to be like that, it’s already the way we want it?” I guess that’s just not an idea that mixes culturally with what they’re doing.

You’re packaging the LP with the CD for this split, and because of vinyl’s size, bigger chain stores won’t be able to stock it. Does that concern you at all?
I think it’s nice that we’re gonna be helping out some indie stores keep a little business for a little longer. Those guys have it so hard. The last few weeks, I’ve been at a few indie record stores because I have been wanting to get a new record player so I can listen to a bunch of stuff. Like, I have a lot of Portraits of Past and Antioch Arrow vinyl. I’ve downloaded a few MP3s of people ripping them, but it just doesn’t sound the same. If it takes a little tiny bit of business away from a chain and brings it to an indie, it feels nice. But I’m going to try to sell records in general, most of our full-lengths, anywhere I can.

What was the last record you bought?
The last record I bought was Rise Above by the Dirty Projectors. That was them trying to remember Damaged by Black Flag. They recreated the whole album without listening to it again. So it was this weird, indie-rock, folk version of Damaged. When I read about it I was like, That’s fucking cool. You’re riding around in your van with acoustic guitars trying to remember your favorite hardcore record of all time, and instead of going and buying it, you’re like, Fuck it, let’s remake it.

Is there a record you would do that with?
[Laughs] We joked around for a little while with United Nations that we wanted to do Nation of Ulysses’ Plays Pretty for Baby but call it Plays Pretty for a Bunch of Fuckin’ Babies and redo it as a kids’ record, like a Kidz Bop. But it probably will never happen. [Laughs] It’s for no other reason than you get to call it Plays Pretty for a Bunch of Fuckin’ Babies. Just for a good title. [Laughs]

Since we’ve been talking about your recent influences, how has Thursday changed creatively lately?
Every time I try to answer that question somebody tells me when the record finally comes out that I’m wrong. I’ll be like, “This record’s more punk,” and they’ll be like, “Are you kidding? This sounds like Michael Jackson!” And I’ll be like, “OK. I guess so. I don’t know.” I think the cool thing about this record is instead of trying to write something to sound a certain way—like with War All the Time, we tried to make it heavier, and with City by the Light Divided, we tried to make it noisier and more introverted—and this one I don’t feel like we’re trying. And now they’re starting to take their own shape. And now I’ve started stumbling on a lot of the themes for this record…I guess I did that with Full Collapse, but even at the time that was not letting it happen, just not knowing that you could even direct a record. It happened by default then. And now it just feels natural, which is great. KORY GROW