Legendary post-hardcore band Thursday spent six days a week for an entire year recording their latest offering, Common Existence. Screamer Geoff Rickly, who claims not to talk in between gigs in order to save his voice from the strains of a relentless tour schedule, speaks to yourGigs from halfway through two hours worth of interviews.
YourGigs (yG): Did the recording process of Common Existence differ at all from your previous releases? One of my workmates thinks it sounds more polished.
Geoff Rickly (GR): Wow, that's so funny. In America, everyone thinks it's really raw and dirty and crazy, so that's really interesting. Americans think that a band like MGMT sounds insane, but when I was in Australia they were all over the radio. Us, MGMT and the Flaming Lips have the same producer. Maybe your sense of what sounds polished is just different.
yG: Is there a message in it you could sum up?
GR: It's about connecting with other people. A lot of living in the city and touring has made me live more. I do less watching TV and more going out and getting drunk, doing karaoke, talking about books and movies, life and love: Basically just walking around and being with people. The record is a reflection of me learning that really the only thing worth it in life is other people. I think Sartre wrote that "hell is other people"; this record is the opposite of that.
yG: Is there anything about it you'd like to go back and do differently?
GR: There's always a tonne of stuff. If you have a record where you wouldn't do anything differently then that's probably a good time to stop being in a band. To me the idea for the next record starts when you find something you hate about your last record, like "f***, every song is so goddamn slow, they're all ballads, what the f***?" So then you go, "Let's do a really fast aggressive record, I wanna get up on stage and sweat!"
yG: Your tour schedule is pretty insane with shows every night for the next couple of months. How do you survive?
GR: We're gonna be flying directly from the last date of our American and Canadian tour to the first date of our European tour. The completely candid, honest, no bullshit answer is that I take sleeping pills every night so I get 12 hours of sleep. If I don't, I will lose my voice without a doubt. If that happens we have to cancel the tour, we lose money, we go home and we can't pay rent.
yG: Doesn't sound very glamorous...
GR: I would be lying if I said it was all work. It's definitely got its moments of glamour. But there's a lot more work than most people realise.
yG: You've done a split with Japanese band Envy; if you could do another one with any band, living or dead, who would it be?
GR: Fugazi? Most bands I'd wanna do it with I'd be embarrassed cause they're legends. We got tour with The Cure and we collaborated on stage with The Buzzcocks. I lost my virginity to The Cure and then I got to hang out with them and [got] to know them. I got drunk and told Robert Smith, "Dude, I lost my virginity to 'One Hundred Years'", and he was like [putting on an English accent], "'Oh that's great, f***ing great, you're a real f***ing baby, you're making me feel old.'"
yG: I've noticed most major label bands nowadays release double albums or albums with intricate packaging, as if to combat downloading and give people a reason to spend $30 on a CD. Does this concern you?
GR: Being broke concerns me! But when you're the band, you just gotta do the band thing, and let all the accountants try and figure the rest of it out. The artwork on this record is really understated. In some ways it's the opposite of how complex our music is. I wanted it to be simple and aesthetically pleasing and beautiful and true. I download records, I'm not gonna lie. But if I love it I'll get the vinyl, bring it home, look at it and feel like "Wow, this is so simple. It's a picture and some words and I don't even need this, but it's 10-f***ing-dollars and I love it." I cherish it. You know?
Aimee-Lee Curran
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