The previous night Thursday were playing to 15,000 people as tour support for My Chemical Romance, tonight they appear in front of just 175 people at the tiny Metro Club in London. There is no doubt that it will be a very special night for both the band, who are looking forward to leaving behind the giant stages and barriers and getting right up close and personal with the audience, and for those fans lucky enough to secure tickets. It seems almost too good to be true. Things are running slightly late as the band were caught in traffic, but there's still plenty of time and as we descend the stairs into the venue and emerge into the small basement room where the band are busy setting up their kit, it suddenly all becomes real. As we sit and wait for Geoff to be located for the interview, it's all we can do to keep our cool, after all Thursday are more than just a band, to us and to so many others, they are an inspiration.
IIFTM: First off how is everyone in the band? Are you all in good health?
Geoff: Actually we got over here and everyone came down with some sort of plague! They were so sick and the guys from My Chemical Romance said it was like Death was following Steve around! I got it a little bit, but it was really quick and it passed in like 8 or 9 hours. Steve is still getting over it but I mean now we’re all in good shape, at the beginning of the tour we were a little sick.
And how’s the tour been going?
It’s been fine. It’s been weird to play to like 15,000 people a night. It’s been really strange.
How do you approach playing that kind of venue?
It’s strange because no matter what you say people scream! So I kind of make a game out of it because if you bother trying to tell anyone anything serious it’s just lost on the crowd, so we’ll just kind of have a little fun up there you know. Tonight’s like more of a real intimate... like sort of what-we’re-used-to show.
So how did this special show come about?
It was Chris from Hassle’s idea. I thought it was a great idea. We figured one night getting to play whatever we wanted and having all the time that we wanted, being right up close and next to people as opposed to across the big barricades looking out.
You played a similar type of special show at Maxwell’s in the US recently...
Yeah we did it was fun. In Maxwell’s though it was specifically so we could play all our first record. This one’s not really like that...
Ah right, so will you still play anything from it tonight?
Well we haven’t really decided what we’re playing yet. But I guess we might play something from the first one... if you think people would want to hear it?
Oh yes definitely, I think everyone is hoping to hear some stuff from it.
Ah right, yeah maybe we’ll throw in some then.
So anyway, what was it like playing all those old songs again after so long?
Some of it was really fun, like some of the songs we were like 'oh yeah that’s cool, that part’s really cool', and some of it was like looking at each other like 'how could we have written that part - that part’s so dumb!', you know! Haha. A humbling experience in a good way.
Emotionally, when you play them, do you feel a kind of detachment from the subject matter after all these years or does it take you right back to when the song was written?
With some of the songs I feel total detachment from subject-wise, but you know, why name which songs it is. There’s a few on the record that we’ll never play again like uh... The Dotted Line - I listen to it and I’m like 'what?!'... and Ian Curtis – the beginning of Ian Curtis I think it sounds really dated and weird. But I still like the end of that song.
Are any of the songs on the new record linked to songs on any of your previous records - for example like Jet Black New Year from the EP was linked to Tomorrow I'll Be You on War All The Time?
Well the car crash on this record was directly referring to Understanding In A Car Crash, so those two were like a pair. This record actually was all about tying up the other records and making it sort of like the ending of that era. So the next thing will be something pretty different.
In the past you’ve said that Full Collapse was written from a very safe place subject-wise, sort of looking back on things that have happened in the past that you’ve got through, where-as War All The Time was very immediate, dealing with things that you were going through at the time you were writing it. What kind of perspective was A City By The Light Divided written from?
The new record was turned inward, everything turned inward. I think stuff classed as really innocent, it was sort of whatever came, whether it was like introverted or extroverted, it just sort of came out. War all the Time was like totally out, it was like let’s turn up to 11 and you know make it all about the world and about us and how we fit into the world and you know all the social and... and then the new record was way more like looking inward and sort of like going deep in that direction, and a lot of it was more subdued and more subtle. And it’s strange, you know, they’re so different, every record is different and like when I hear our new record, I like it so much but in this weird way where it’s almost like... I dunno, it’s like MY record. Not like all the kids who listen to us - they don’t like it, but WE like it! But I feel like if anything it’s our "Pinkerton". It’s like, not as many people buy it, but like in a few years there’s gonna be a small group of people that only like that record. That’s the way I feel about Weezer, with Pinkerton I love that record and the rest of its like give or take for me. but that record just like catches me.
Have you not been completely happy with the response to the new record then?
You know what, the thing is you can’t be like happy or unhappy. I was working with Tim from Cursive for a little while in between tours and he was saying ‘yeah you know the new Cursive record isn’t being received as well’ and I said ‘yeah the new Thursday record isn’t either’, and he said ‘are you kidding? I saw the last tour you were on, it’s being received SO well’, and I was like ‘ well not compared to War All The Time’. And he goes ‘ah well the new Cursive record sold 30,000 copies and yours has sold like 130,000’. And then we got really drunk and decided to go and see The Dixie Chicks’ movie, and they were all like ‘this record’s only gonna sell like 2 million copies!!!’ So we were just kind of laughing that everybody’s perspective is so different you know, like there’s so many bands that would kill to have a record received as well as our new record. So, I dunno, I think it’s kind of cool actually that people aren’t as into this record, because I just think it’s so much cooler in so many ways. But I understand why they don’t like it, it’s not like what they’ve come to expect. But I feel like I have a record now where I can be like ‘look - I can sing! I can really sing, see - and you all thought I couldn’t sing and now I can!’ haha.
Do you think there’s been a difference between the way your fans have received it and the way the critics have received it?
Well I think over here the critics have generally received it well, and in the States it was like half and half – like all the underground media loved it and all the like "Rolling Stone’s" were like ‘bah it sucks!’ And I guess with the kids it was like immediately they were thrown off and weren’t into it, and after we’d toured it a few times, now it’ll be all like everyone singing along and stuff. On this My Chem tour all the new stuff has gone over way better than the old stuff, which is really different for us. That was just really strange to see like, just because the kids don’t know us either way at all and with the new stuff they were all like ‘yeahhhh! ’and they were really into it. It was weird, we were actually cutting out old songs and putting in new ones!
Do you think you’ve made a lot of new fans on this tour?
I dunno, we’re playing to like 15,000 people a night. So one person is like 150 people, which is more fans than we usually make. It’s really hard to tell, because on the one hand I think they want to be super-excited and enjoy anyone that’s gonna come in front of them before My Chem, but on the other hand I’ve seen bands just get like torn up in front of My Chem. So I really don’t know, I mean I’m just trying to have fun over here with some of my friends.
Do you have an idea what direction you’ll be taking with the next record?
We do but we’re not telling you! We always tell everyone and then they get it in their mind that it’s going to be one way and then [puts on voice] ‘I thought it was going to be like this’ - yeah it’s good... ‘Nooo it’s not what I wanted it to sound like”. We’ve got some stuff that we didn’t release on the new record that’s totally different, but you know, we’re not saying anything about the next record, the next one’s our secret... for now!
So have you started writing for it?
We’ve just started. It’s hard on tour though. You can’t really get things done, you can get them started but that’s it.
Do you have any goal for when you’re hoping to have it out?
Probably early next year, that’s the idea – I mean maybe it’ll come out late this year. But we’re gonna really start when we get home. We don’t finish touring until like... we’ll probably start writing the first or second week of June.
Any more news on this DVD you’ve been putting together?
We’ve got all the footage, we just have to spend some time editing it. And also we don’t have a label right now and we get to decide whoever gets to put out the DVD and that’s pretty exciting too.
So will Steve be working on the editing?
Yeah he already has done a lot, he’s a great editor, he really is.
Have you got any footage from when you’ve played over here?
Yeah we do, we have some stuff from the Mean Fiddler, we have some stuff from the Astoria, we have some from when we played the main stage at Reading. That’ll probably end up on there, because that turned out really cool.
Will you be filming at all tonight?
Yeah we are, although I think some of it’s gonna end up on like some Kerrang! website thing.
When are you hoping to have the DVD out?
I dunno, cause we were shooting for this summer, but we haven’t done anything much so… it’s probably not gonna be summer!
Do you have any more plans for singles off the new album?
Nah we’re just gonna start working on the new one now. I mean in the States we don’t even have a label right now...
Of course, and it was only last night that you announced your departure from Island...
Yeah, it had been in the works since last summer. It was kind of a relief for everybody I think.
Why was that?
They weren’t the same label that we signed to. Everybody that signed us moved to Warner Brothers, and there was just like six months during War All The Time when we just didn’t have anybody working there. Then they brought in the new staff and it took us a long time to get used to them. I actually like all the new people, but they were much more focused on bands like Fall Out Boy, The Killers... more of like a real pop thing and so bands like us and Thrice they just kind of were like you know, didn’t know what to do. So right away when our record came out and we saw that like we weren’t gonna be a priority anymore, we were just kind of like ‘well let us go’, you know, ‘just let us go, cos we have so many labels that like us and would like to put out a record, just let us go and we’ll go and put out another record somewhere'. And they were all like ‘no waaaaaaaay, we love you guys, and you sell a lot of records for us’ and stuff and you know we just kept meeting with them and eventually they were just like 'well if you really don’t want to be here, you don’t have to be here'. So we just got all the paper work drawn up...
Have you been in talks with any other labels?
We’ve met with some and we’ve had some great offers but we don’t really see any reason to have one before we finish touring.
What kind of label would you ideally like to work with?
I think we’ve always kind of dreamed of... we have a lot of friends at different labels like Epitaph, Equal Vision, Saddle Creek... I mean there’s a lot of great indie labels out there and I think that’s something that we’d be into you know. I can’t say for sure that we’ll sign to an indie because then if I say it then we’ll somehow manage to end up on a major dealing with all this weird stuff again! I figure we’ve almost been in the band ten years coming this next year so after you’ve been in a band that long you realise you’re pretty much gonna eat your words no matter what you say. So now I try and say almost the opposite of what I want to happen cos then I hope that’ll make it go that way! Hahaha.
How would you feel if Thursday suddenly got big like My Chemical Romance?
Well I don’t think that would ever really happen to be honest, just from the style of music that we like and the bands that we’ve always looked up to like Fugazi, Refused and Quicksand and stuff like that. That’s been one of the jokes for us as a band is that we got to that level so quickly that it’s almost been like, well where do we go now? Everybody in the record industry wants us to go like My Chem big. But we’re like well 'this is what we always wanted', you know what I mean? But then where do we go? Like just musically you have to get more advanced, you have to think of more things to do to make the people still find wonder in you if you don’t write pop songs. That’s the thing - how do you keep people’s attention without writing pop songs?! It’s strange, but the thing that I’ve found is that if you keep sort of pushing new ideas through, they kind of surprise people and they’ll say ‘oh yeah I guess you could do it that way’ and you can keep a sense of wonder there. That’s sort of what we try to do. So I guess, I don’t know… sometimes I see those guys in My Chem and they like can’t go out in public without security and stuff. I have like the best life! I have so many friends, I go out to parties and have fun you know what I mean? I DJ in New York and it’s no big deal, a few people, 100 people will come out to see me but it’s like all those people I could sit down at the bar and have a drink with. Whereas like tonight all the My Chem guys were like ‘oh we really want to come see the Metro show’ and all the security were like ‘nah I think that’s a dangerous idea, it’s not really a safe place...
But surely once they’re in no-one’s gonna...
That’s what you’d think! But I’ve seen crazy shit happen! There are some super My Chem fans who are just coming tonight because they know we’re associated with them!
So what – just on the off chance that they might be in here watching the show?!
Yeah yeah yeah exactly! ...So when people are that 'crazy' you have to be a bit careful! Haha.
Haha hmmm... so anyway, what’s happening with this collaborative song you’ve been doing with Converge etc?
That’s recorded, I don’t know what we’ll do with that. I don’t think it’s like what the new record will be like at all, so maybe we will put it on the DVD. I don’t know, we haven’t kind of figured it out?
So has everyone all finished their individual parts then?
Well I think they’ve all done them, but they haven’t all sent them to us yet. It’s so hard, collaboration’s so hard. I have a band with Daryl from Glassjaw and it’s just so hard, we just recorded seven songs that I think we’re going to scrap... Just because Thursday wants to use some of the parts for the new record, and also there’s a noise on the recording that we can’t get out - it’s just like kind of ruining it. So... it was hard enough getting me and Daryl to collaborate on anything in the first place as we both have such different schedules, but we’ll see how long it takes to get us back together again.
How will it all fit together as one song?
Well we wrote the whole song and then we gave them like how it was played, it was like - here’s the key for the song, and here’s the tempo anything that fits between the tempo you can go any direction, you may move away from the key and the tempo but at least here it is you can have it in your mind like this is going to be playing while this is playing. Like Dillinger, you wouldn’t want them to... I mean they’re going to play in whatever key they feel like, you know what I mean and it’s just gonna be mad. So that’s kind of how it works. I’m excited, like I love the Converge guys, they’re one of my favourite bands Coverge, forever, since before Thursday’s been a band they’ve been consistently one of the best bands that I’ve ever seen and getting to like tour with them and play with them and collaborate with them has been really cool, it’s part of being in a band.
Going back to the United Nations project with Daryl, is that definitely still going ahead?
We’re trying, I mean I think it will be. The first section’s turned out cool, but like we definitely need to start over. I’m sure next time it’ll go way faster though because like I’ve already got all these songs written and the parts that are being taken for Thursday stuff won’t make that bigger a difference. What we do is we just like, we all have a bunch of ideas and then we put them together in the studio and as soon as we have it together we’re like hit record we’re doing it live right now before we forget it!
But your ideas might be going to the Thursday record now...?
Some of them are, the best ones unfortunately... Well fortunately for Thursday, but unfortunately for United Nations. But the parts that we’re taking out are the ones that are probably too Thursday to be in that band anyway. Gotta keep the grind going! Haha.
What records have you been listening to recently?
Uuuhm... have you ever heard Bear Vs. Shark? Their record Terrorhawk, I just listen to it over and over again, it’s so fucking good, it’s so good like I miss bands like that, that have that kind of energy, you know like the first Trail of Dead record, At The Drive-in, Bear Vs Shark, I Robot, Saitia. Those bands are just like so unpredictable, I think that’s why it’s always kind of weird for us being on a major label and being so big is that’s the kind of stuff we play. Stuff that’s gonna explode in different directions and you never know what’s going to happen. And that’s the stuff that radio and TV when they hear it they’re like ‘you’re kidding right? We don’t play this kind of stuff!’ and they do play it for us for while but it’s sort of almost like a fluke, they’re like ‘wow look at this band getting so big playing this weird stuff!’ and then after a while I think they’re like ‘alright, you’re really not going to give us a real hit? Okay we’re not going to play it anymore’ haha.
Did you bring any particular records to play on the road for this tour?
Well I bring my ipod everywhere with me, so I have them all, but right now there’s the Bear Vs Shark record, the first Trail Of Dead record just cos I feel like lyrically he did some really cool stuff on the first record, like some really passionate stuff. Oh and there’s this mind blowing band from Japan called Envy that I’ve been listening to a lot, I love Envy they’re amazing. And then when I read and stuff I just listen to like Explosions and Godspeed, Mono and Mogwai and stuff like that with no words to distract you from what you’re reading.
So what are you reading at the moment?
Right now I’m reading Libra by Don DeLillo, it’s about the Kennedy assassination, but it’s like total fiction about a fictional third gunman. I just love the way he writes, you know what I mean it’s just like even when I get something of his that sounds totally uninteresting to me, like a subject that just sounds boring to me, I know it’s going to be amazing. At the beginning of this book the way he talks about history, it’s so incredible, he talks about the blank spaces in history that project the dark American unconscious, you know and this is a book about a man that lives in the shadow of these spaces in history, it’s great.
So far I’ve only read a couple of his books – Underworld...
Underworld is fucking brilliant!
...and White Noise - I loved that book.
White Noise is so good. White Noise in a lot of ways is really the inspirations for War All The Time, in a lot of ways like a lot of the big images are kind of based after the images in White Noise. Like I like that idea of the huge exploding cloud of bad will and nuclear fallout that just sort of hung there, sort of the idea was that cloud was sort of a projection of all the evil in peoples’ hearts. So like For The Workforce Drowning where it says ‘the silhouette of your own face becomes the black cloud of war’ it’s sort of like the idea that, like that internalised hate that follows the war that goes on in the world. I think his first book Americana is really amazing too. It’s weird I dunno, I enjoy firsts from people, because they’re like so unfinished and their style isn’t developed, but every so often when it peaks through they get that momentum and that force that they become known for later. And I can imagine how he felt when he was like thinking ‘here it is! This part is gonna be crazy!’ ...and then sort of ‘maybe I better step back a bit and just write’!
And that's when we're told that our time is up. 30 mins have flown by, there is still much to talk about, but time is pressing on. There's only a few hours till the doors open and the band must get to soundcheck. Reluctantly we say our goodbyes and emerge back out on the streets to await tonight's show...
MORE:
Click here to view photos from The Metro Club show!
Click here to read our review of The Metro Club show!
Click here to discuss this interview!
Interviewed by Alex, Antony and Dave at the Metro Club, London - 28th March 2007
© In It For The Money 2007