Thursday
Continued Velocity
Band of the Month |
Music - Rock |
By: Jason MacNeilPhotos: Ryan Bakerink+ Aug 4, 2006 at 12:42am |
Article Views: 1,366
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After signing to Island Records, New Jersey rock group Thursday released its 2003 album War All The Time, but after touring behind the critically and commercially successful record, and being on the road for nearly four years, the band was basically spent. "We were at the point where most
bands would probably call it quits," drummer Tucker Rule says. "Our family lives were going to hell and we were getting pulled in so many different directions that it got really hard. We almost didn't know who we were anymore."
As a result, the band decided to take a well-earned rest for several months before commencing work on its new album, A City By The Light Divided. Produced by Dave Fridmann (Mogwai, Flaming Lips), the record took over a year to write. "It just gave us the opportunity to experiment with certain sounds," Rule says. "We never had a certain formula that we followed so we just stayed with that non-formulaic way of doing things. We pushed the ceilings away."
Thursday recorded approximately 19 songs for the album, with "Sugar in the Sacrament" being one of the hardest to finish. However, Rule also says the group often finds it difficult to leave any song alone. "It gets to a point where we're happy with it but if we had all day just to tweak different parts then I'm sure we would," he says. "We're very critical of ourselves. Each one of us has our own view on how it should go or something should be. When we can get all six of us to agree on something then we know that it's pretty much done." And when Thursday writes a song, they write it for themselves first and foremost. "We never wrote for an audience, we never wrote a song that we thought kids would like," Rule says. "We're very non-elitist; we want to make music where if you have somebody who is into hip-hop, they might like it. So we're not writing for a certain genre or trying to get a part of the market or any of that jargon bullshit that labels like to throw out. We definitely don't like to pigeonhole ourselves."
Since the group formed in 1997, the music industry itself has undergone massive changes. None of these have been more simultaneously beneficial and damaging then internet downloading. The medium has been both a blessing and a curse for Thursday, who had five early demos from A City By The Light Divided leaked online last August. Ideally, Rule would like to see fans buy albums and continue downloading.
"I remember getting Guns N' Roses' Appetite For Destruction, he says. "I wanted that artwork, I wanted to open up the cassette at the time and smell the paper inside, just have a record in front of me where I could read all the liner notes. I think with a lot of the stuff on the internet, you kind of lose that sense. A song is just a song then. It has only what it means to your ears."
"We like to make records and make artwork and have little things in booklets that tie everything together to make it a record, not a series of songs.' It's a record. It has meaning. It has blood, sweat and tears behind it. There's more to it than just throwing on your computer and turning up your speakers and listening to songs."
As for the business side, Rule says Thursday basically has full creative control over everything. It's something that's extremely important to them. "We don't really like decisions to be made without us, this is our baby," he says. "I'm sure there's a route you can go to sell a million records that you can just go with the flow and have the label work the record in this certain way or have a target market. That's not us. We came from playing basement shows and seeing bands that really had something to say, not bands that are on the radio whining about their girlfriends."
Earlier this year, Thursday, for the first time, also accepted an offer from Saturn to have the song "Running From The Rain" included in its television advertisement. The decision, which often brings the term "sell-out" from the mouths of musical purists, was done after a lot of research. "We found out the Flaming Lips did one and we found out a bunch of bands that we respect did those kind of things," Rule says. "So we thought why sell ourselves short? It just seemed like it wasn't going to be very obtrusive, it wasn't going to have much of a backlash. In the end, I think it was a good choice."
Aside from music and the business side, Thursday also lends its name to several different charities, including PETA and Shirts For A Cure. The group headlined a Shirts For A Cure tour earlier this year, with proceeds from certain t-shirt sales going towards breast cancer research.
"It's nice to actually be out and have something be bigger than the music," Rule says. "I think that music is something that gives back to everyone. If you're in a position where maybe a couple of people are going to listen to what you say, you might as well take advantage of it. It's nice to feel like we're doing good by going out on tour and having people that want to hear our music. I think that goes beyond just a band playing a show."
The group is playing a lot of shows this summer as part of the annual Vans Warped Tour, about which Rule says the arduous trek of 49 gigs in 60 days can be rough but a great opportunity to reach a wider audience. From there the band will mount another North American co-headlining tour with Rise Against this fall, then will head to Australia before Christmas.
Rule says that while Thursday has been around for nearly a decade, there is no long-term vision or plan.
"When we started out, we just wanted to play in our singer's basement," he says. "From there everything else has been icing on the cake. I just want to keep doing this. If kids are willing to listen, then I am still definitely willing to play."
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