Interviews: Thursday

Kevin sent us an interview he recently did with Geoff Rickley of Thursday; click below to hear Geoff's thoughts on Victory, Glassjaw, and Island.

I also did an interview with the band back in 2001 after the release of their breakout record Full Collapse. Ahh... memories.

Kevin - How did Skate and Surf go?

Geoff - It went very well, actually.

Kevin - You headlined Saturday right?

Geoff - Yeah.

Kevin - How many people you figure were there?

Geoff - Like seven… seven thousand.

Kevin - Really? I went there for the first year when it was New Found Glory
headlining, Glassjaw played, but it's just a weird place.

Geoff - Yeah.

Kevin - Just a completely bombed out area.

Geoff - Yeah, totally.

Kevin - You played last year too, right?

Geoff - Yeah, last year was great. This year was just unbelievable; this year
was so much better.

Kevin - That's cool, what made it better?

Geoff - There was more of a family feeling. I feel like from last year to this
year, punk has gotten so much more corporate and so much more lifeless and
dead, and at least on the Saturday and Sunday days that I was there, I
wasn't there for Friday. On saturday and sunday it was this very good
feeling of family and what not. I don't know it just seemed so much more real
this year than it did last year. This year it was really different than
everything going on, you know what I mean? It was like, not a festival, it
was a big fun event.

Kevin - Yes, because for a lot of people to get to Asbury Park, it's [involves] staying in a
hotel for two nights.

Geoff - Yeah

Kevin - And people just made a weekend out of it, I just wish I could have
afforded to go.

Geoff - It was totally a memory and an experience for everyone, it wasn't just
a show.

Kevin - It's cool that they've been doing it and if they keep doing it that
would be something to look forward to.

Geoff - Yeah, that would be really cool.

Kevin - Ok.the new album. Is it definitely going to be called War All the Time?

Geoff - Yeah.

Kevin - What made you decide to call it that?

Geoff - It's actually not about the war that is going on at this time, it's a
Charles Bukowski poem. It's about love, this record is really about love.
I've never written a song about love before, the whole record is about love
lost and faith lost.

Kevin - What made the change?

Geoff - Not being able to stop myself from writing about it. I had a pretty
crazy year, I guess and it kind of came out.

Kevin - So does the direction of the lyrics, do they coincide with maybe a
little stylistic change with the music?

Geoff - You know what? People that have heard what we have done so far seem to
think that it's a little heavier and a little more direct. It doesn't shift
gears as much, it's a little more straight ahead.

Kevin - So lyrically its about loss of love?

Geoff - Loss of love, loss of identity, loss of faith, loss of humanity

Kevin - What's the difference between being on Victory and now being on Island?

Geoff - On Island we have people that really believe in us, which is really
awesome.

Kevin - Did you not feel that at Victory?

Geoff - Yeah, we had one person and she came… she left Victory with us.

Kevin - So she's with you at Island?

Geoff - She's actually with our management company, The Syndicate.

Kevin - Do you think with being on a label like Island it was easier to make a
record?

Geoff -Yeah.

Kevin - Because of time constraints or…?

Geoff - Well not even the time constraints. Victory just didn't like what we
were doing until we started getting successful and they always showed us
that they were unhappy with the direction that we were going in. They
wanted us, they always kinda of said, and I love the kids which made it
even harder, but they always said I wish you were more like Saves the Day,
and we were just like, 'we're not Saves the Day, we're Thursday' and they
just weren't having that. They were always telling us like 'this pop punk
band or that pop punk band is so much better than you and you guys should
be more like them.'

Kevin - What did it do to you to listen to your label tell you how to write
your music?

Geoff - It made us go the opposite way. I think that's why the first out of our
newer songs were heavier.

Kevin - Kinda like "Jet Black New Year"?

Geoff - Yeah we were just like 'fuck you' we're not gonna do that, we're not
going to do what you want us to do, we're gonna do what we want to do, so
we went in and.that's the thing it wasn't even natural, we weren't
naturally getting that much heavier. It was a reaction to them to leave us
alone. So at least on Island we sort of getting back to being comfortable
and being ourselves and making music that we want to make.

Kevin - So the album is done?

Geoff - Part one of the record is done. Basically we recorded a record that we
really liked and when we were done recording we wrote three more songs that
we liked even better, so we kinda asked the label 'Can we please record
these three more and we'll figure out which ones are going on?' and they
were totally cool with it, they gave us more money to record and they were
just really cool about it. So now we get to really finish the record the
way we want to finish it.

Kevin - So you recorded the other stuff?

Geoff - Yeah.

Kevin - Where did you record?

Geoff - Same place we did Full Collapse in Jersey City at Big Blue Meanie.

Kevin - Do you know that [Victory] repressed Full Collapse on eight
different colored vinyls.

Geoff - Yeah.

Kevin - Does that bother you?

Geoff - Kind of; I feel like they are exploiting the kids that like us, trying to
trick them and trying to get them to buy the same thing over and over
again.

Kevin - Like the repackaged CD?

Geoff - Yeah the repackaged CD with the videos. The videos you can get them on
the websites, you know? I think that's really cheap. I mean, to me Full
Collapse was the record that we put out two years ago and it should stay
that record. That's a piece of time, and a place and it should stay that
way and it shouldn't be updated to try and follow a trend or you know, it's
stupid.

Kevin - You say they're ripping off the fans, do you feel like they are ripping
off you too by taking your work and just kinda recycling it?

Geoff - Yeah, I do kind of. You know, that record was really fresh when it came
out, I think. I think it was a really new thing, and I think what we were
doing.it wasn't like we reinvented music or something stupid like that, but
it was just like kind of new and kind of different and it was us. And since
then, I feel like a lot of other bands have started doing what we're doing
which is cool, but to re-release it, to me it's like 'no, that was then.'
Like now, we're doing something else, we're trying to do something new
again.

Kevin - That's the whole thing.I always get in these arguments like 'they
should just record an album now like they did' with whatever band you want
to talk about. But its like, its art, you're not just going to repeat
yourself.

Geoff - That's the same, that's why it's taken us so long. We've written Full
Collapse like 2 or 3 times since it came out, and we just don't want to
release Full Collapse again. We have new ideas that we want to put out.

Kevin - Of course there's gonna be bands out there that say 'oh, this formula
worked' and it becomes paint by numbers and fill in the blanks.

Geoff - That's how it is with Glassjaw, I feel so bad for them. I've seen
literally 15 bands that are totally Glassjaw by the numbers. Some of them
even seem to be more popular than Glassjaw.

Kevin - It's weird for me with Glassjaw, I've been listening to them since I
was probably 14, they were one of the first hardcore bands besides Silent
Majority that I got in to. So to see them move up the ladder, it's a whole
new thing.

Geoff - But it's even weirder to watch the bands that have taken from them move
up even more. It's just weird because they started a whole thing, they
changed so much in hardcore and they did so much weird stuff and cool
stuff. I mean, obviously they have bands that they were influenced by like
Stillsuit, Yuppicide, and Mind Over Matter, like all the (Long) Island
bands, Silent Majority, all those bands obviously influenced Glassjaw, but
they did something new with it, and the bands that are coming out now after
them are just like, taking it and making it easier to understand. They're
making it more of a pop thing, making it stupid, making it scream-sing,
scream-sing and that's not what Glassjaw is about. It's not scream-sing
it's like.

Kevin - There's no formula to it.

Geoff - Right. It's not a formula. It's honest; it's whatever comes in that
part of the song. To me, I see some people kinda taking what we are doing
and making it a formula, not that there's anything bad.I mean, it's
flattering. Like if they love us and they want to be like that.

Kevin - Yeah, with your stuff there's no formula to it, you can't just sit down
and say 'oh this is where Geoff is gonna scream'.

Geoff - Yeah Yeah.