Geoff Rickly - Thursday (18/02/2012)
In a very special interview, we recently spoke to Geoff Rickly of Thursday fame ahead of their last tour ever, heading to Australia for the annual Soundwave Festival. We spoke about the latest Thursday album, new United Nations material, and coming full circle and finishing their career with the album that started it, Full Collapse.
Hey Josh
Hey, how’s it going?
Good, how are you?
Not too bad Geoff, thanks. First off, I just wanted to say that Thursday have been my favourite band for almost ten years now, so this is an absolute honour talking to you.
Thank you so much, that’s so nice.
Seeing as your last American shows were a month or two ago, what have you been up to since then?
Well, let’s see. I have mostly been working, but right now I’m in Sydney, where I’m just relaxing.
Excited to bring the band back to Australia for one last tour?
Yeah, I am. I mean, I’m already here, but the band will be here in a little while.
Seeing as these are going to be the last Thursday shows ever, do you have anything special planned for these shows?
I think it’ll be a lot of fun to come back and play Full Collapse one last time, front to back for everybody, and throw in one or two of our favourite songs from the other records.
Full Collapse was your defining album, and even though you shouldn’t judge a band’s entire career on one album, that was definitely it for you guys. It’s fitting that that’s how you’re going out, playing that record in full one last time.
Yeah, it feels very full circle to do that.
So how was the experience of playing that album in full for the first time last year, and revisiting some songs that you hadn’t played in years?
Yeah, it was like stepping into a time machine, man. It was like, the second we started playing those songs; you can’t help but feel those same feelings you had back then.
It’s so fitting that you chose that album to end with, because that’s probably the most well-known of all your albums, and the one that would have gotten most people into the band.
That’s kind of how it works out. I feel lucky that we got to do it that way.
Congratulations on No Devolución, which was probably the album I’ve enjoyed most since Full Collapse.
Yeah, that’s the way I feel about it too.
That seems to be a pretty common view of the album; most people see it as the best work you guys have done in 10 years, and a pretty fitting album to release as your last.
That’s really nice. It’s good to go out on a high note, rather than you know, putting out a really terrible record that everyone hates, and then being like ‘sorry guys, we’re done anyway.’
No Devolución was stylistically pretty different; it was a lot mellower and had more in common with the Envy split than it did with Common Existence. Was that conscious choice, or was that just how it turned out when you wrote it?
Yeah, that’s just how it happened man. When you write a record in seven days, you don’t really dictate what it’s going to sound like, you know what I mean? You just kind of get in there and let yourself be free. I think that’s what most people hear on No Devolución, the band kind of just letting it rip. Not editing themselves, just doing what comes naturally.
It does sound like a more natural album. It flowed really well, and it just felt like the band was completely in sync.
That was the nice thing about just letting the band do what they do. It was just sort of this very free record.
So the writing process is more of a collaborative effort?
I’d say that this album is completely collaborative, you know? There wasn’t like one mastermind, or two, or three. (laughs) I was the only one who stayed out of the writing process, of the music. I would come in at the end and write the vocals and the lyrics. I just wanted finished pieces of music. In the past, I wrote lots of pieces on guitar, songs like Cross out the Eyes and For the Workforce, Drowning. This time I definitely stepped out, because my side of the songs are the more aggressive songs. Off Common Existence I wrote Resuscitation of a Dead Man and stuff like that. I really like the aggressive side, but I also really push the band in that direction, and I just wanted to see what would happen without me pushing them, to get something more natural. I think at this stage in their lives, this stuff that came out with No Devolución, even though it’s mellower, I think they do it better. It just sounds right.
It’s definitely the album you guys needed to release. This record let Thursday release the album that you wanted to, not the ones that the fans or the critics wanted.
Funnily enough, when it came out I said ‘everyone is going to hate this record.’ That was my joke, and every interview I just said that everyone was going to hate us. But instead, it’s the record that the fans have liked most since Full Collapse, so it’s one of those things that you think everyone is going to hate, but it turns out that everyone loves. Sometimes you just have to do what you want to do.
That must be a pretty rewarding experience, taking the chance and releasing an album that’s drastically different, and still having everyone love it.
Its super rewarding. It made me think that you know, there is some justice in the world. You can make a record that you love, and have other people like it.
Over the last few days, there have been hints from United Nations that they were back. What are the plans for UN for the rest of the year?
(laughs) Have they been posting from the United Nations twitter account or something?
Yeah, they posted something saying ‘The McRib isn’t the only thing making a return,’ and there were a few photos and posts saying ‘we’re back.’
(laughs) That’s awesome! Those guys have been recording some stuff. While I’ve been in Sydney, they’ve been recording stuff at home and sending it to me, and it all sounds awesome. I’m really excited to get home and work on it.
You guys have been quiet since the release of the last 7”, which was released on Deathwish. Are you releasing the new record with them?
We haven’t really gotten that far, but I think we might self-release this one. It’s just for fun. With UN, we don’t have to take anything too seriously; it’s not any kind of career. Most of what we do is just to piss people off. We’ll see what we do with the next one.
Is this record the long awaited full length, or is it another 7 inch?
It’s a 7 inch. We’re only going to do 7 inches and things like that for a while. The thing we said is watch out for another, and that means that it’s our last one. (laughs)
On your final American shows, you played This Side of Brightness, off Waiting. Any chance an older song like that will make its way into the Australian sets?
There’s nothing from Waiting on the Australian sets, just because we have so little time. We have 40 minutes for the Soundwave sets, and the sideshows we only have an hour, so we just have to pick carefully what songs we’re doing. We’re already committed to doing all of Full Collapse, and that’s forty two minutes right there, so we don’t have much time left after that.
Seeing as the sideshows are going to be Full Collapse in its entirety, can we expect more of a greatest hits set at the festival?
I think we signed up to play Full Collapse on the Soundwave shows as well. I think the Soundwave shows are just Full Collapse, and the sideshows are Full Collapse plus some other songs.
All the promotional material just says that the sideshows are Full Collapse shows, there was nothing hinting at the festival sets being Full Collapse as well.
I’ll have to ask AJ what the deal is. If the Soundwave shows aren’t Full Collapse, then we’ll play some Jet Black New Year and War All the Time. We’ll play a good cross section of songs. I think it would be more fun if we played those songs at Soundwave, because then the sideshows would feel more special.
Recently you started a band with two of the guys from Ink & Dagger, and Ben Weinman from The Dillinger Escape Plan. How’s that going?
It’s hard to tell. I mean, there’s something you have to know about the Ink & Dagger guys. They’re fucking crazy, those guys are just crazy. I never know what they’re talking about. Half the time they’re talking about music I don’t even know what they’re talking about. The one dude that writes everything is a genius, a crazy genius, so I don’t know how it’s going. I hear things, and I’m like ‘oh that sounds cool, but is it an intro or a song? What’s that supposed to be?’ I really don’t even know, but I always have trust in that by the time it’s ready to sing over it, it’s all going to make sense. It’s amazing though. Ben from Dillinger is playing drums in this band, and he’s amazing, it’s crazy.
How did this band come about? Thursday and Dillinger seem like fairly different bands.
This band came about because Ben from Dillinger is a huge Ink & Dagger fan, and then I played those shows singing for Ink & Dagger. We’ve played with Dillinger a bunch. Those guys are really good friends of ours, we’re from the same home town. I put on Dillinger shows before I was even in Thursday. We took them on tour, and it was us, Dillinger and La Dispute, it was a crazy tour. We’ve always loved Dillinger, and it’s good to surprise your fans. I think your average Thursday fan would be pretty blown away by Dillinger.
I think most people are pretty blown away after seeing them live.
That’s the thing. Even if we were to give Dillinger records to most of our fans, they’d be like what’s this, I’m not into this, but by seeing them, they would be blown away.
Thursday are known for touring with pretty diverse bands, like that tour with Circle Takes the Square and Portugal. The Man. How do those kinds of tours come about?
As soon as we were lucky enough to headline, like as soon as we knew that people liked us enough to come and see us regardless of who was supporting, we starting thinking we should pick supports that we liked, rather than bands that just sounded like us. Our fans are smart enough that they should like them too. The first thing that we did when we headlined was we took out Cursive, Murder by Death, Engine Down and Poison the Well. Kids went crazy and loved Cursive, so we just realised that we could bring out whoever we wanted to after that. We’ve played on a heap of bills, and like you said, with Circle Takes the Square and Portugal. The Man, and La Dispute. The thing is, when we took out a band that sounded kind of like us, it didn’t work as well. If we took out The Fall of Troy, it didn’t work as well as when we brought out Circa Survive. It was almost like fans wanted us to bring out someone really different.
People like your music and trust your judgement, so it’s like they want you guys to expose them to new bands that they might not have heard of.
Yeah, and that’s like the highest compliment a fan can pay.
Are you excited to play with Circa Survive and Saves the Day at the sideshows?
Hell yeah. That’s like the opposite though, that’s like us playing with two of our oldest friends, but I think it’ll be really good, because these are our last shows, and it’ll be like a celebration.
Who are you looking forward to most on the Soundwave line-up?
Probably Dillinger, and maybe Sisters of Mercy. I’m an old Goth kid, so it’s really cool that they’re playing.
It’s cool that bands like Sisters of Mercy get to play festivals and get exposed to new fans. Gang of Four played a few years ago, and most people at the festival had probably never heard of them.
Right, totally. It’s so cool man. When you’re in a band, those are the bands that give you inspiration, you know? Bands like Gang of Four, and bands like Joy Division.
Are there any new and upcoming bands that Thursday fans should check out?
I think Pianos Become the Teeth are amazing.
The new album was incredible.
Yeah, it’s like my favourite album from last year.
Unfortunately that’s it for us, thank you for your time Geoff. We’ll see you in a few weeks at Soundwave. Enjoy the tour!
Thanks for the interview man, it was great. See you soon.
Thursday are touring soon for Soundwave Festival, and it’s their last tour ever. If you’re even a casual fan of this amazing band, be sure to check them out at either the festival, or at their sideshows where they are being supported by Circa Survive, and Saves The Day.
Josh Mitrou
Hey Josh
Hey, how’s it going?
Good, how are you?
Not too bad Geoff, thanks. First off, I just wanted to say that Thursday have been my favourite band for almost ten years now, so this is an absolute honour talking to you.
Thank you so much, that’s so nice.
Seeing as your last American shows were a month or two ago, what have you been up to since then?
Well, let’s see. I have mostly been working, but right now I’m in Sydney, where I’m just relaxing.
Excited to bring the band back to Australia for one last tour?
Yeah, I am. I mean, I’m already here, but the band will be here in a little while.
Seeing as these are going to be the last Thursday shows ever, do you have anything special planned for these shows?
I think it’ll be a lot of fun to come back and play Full Collapse one last time, front to back for everybody, and throw in one or two of our favourite songs from the other records.
Full Collapse was your defining album, and even though you shouldn’t judge a band’s entire career on one album, that was definitely it for you guys. It’s fitting that that’s how you’re going out, playing that record in full one last time.
Yeah, it feels very full circle to do that.
So how was the experience of playing that album in full for the first time last year, and revisiting some songs that you hadn’t played in years?
Yeah, it was like stepping into a time machine, man. It was like, the second we started playing those songs; you can’t help but feel those same feelings you had back then.
It’s so fitting that you chose that album to end with, because that’s probably the most well-known of all your albums, and the one that would have gotten most people into the band.
That’s kind of how it works out. I feel lucky that we got to do it that way.
Congratulations on No Devolución, which was probably the album I’ve enjoyed most since Full Collapse.
Yeah, that’s the way I feel about it too.
That seems to be a pretty common view of the album; most people see it as the best work you guys have done in 10 years, and a pretty fitting album to release as your last.
That’s really nice. It’s good to go out on a high note, rather than you know, putting out a really terrible record that everyone hates, and then being like ‘sorry guys, we’re done anyway.’
No Devolución was stylistically pretty different; it was a lot mellower and had more in common with the Envy split than it did with Common Existence. Was that conscious choice, or was that just how it turned out when you wrote it?
Yeah, that’s just how it happened man. When you write a record in seven days, you don’t really dictate what it’s going to sound like, you know what I mean? You just kind of get in there and let yourself be free. I think that’s what most people hear on No Devolución, the band kind of just letting it rip. Not editing themselves, just doing what comes naturally.
It does sound like a more natural album. It flowed really well, and it just felt like the band was completely in sync.
That was the nice thing about just letting the band do what they do. It was just sort of this very free record.
So the writing process is more of a collaborative effort?
I’d say that this album is completely collaborative, you know? There wasn’t like one mastermind, or two, or three. (laughs) I was the only one who stayed out of the writing process, of the music. I would come in at the end and write the vocals and the lyrics. I just wanted finished pieces of music. In the past, I wrote lots of pieces on guitar, songs like Cross out the Eyes and For the Workforce, Drowning. This time I definitely stepped out, because my side of the songs are the more aggressive songs. Off Common Existence I wrote Resuscitation of a Dead Man and stuff like that. I really like the aggressive side, but I also really push the band in that direction, and I just wanted to see what would happen without me pushing them, to get something more natural. I think at this stage in their lives, this stuff that came out with No Devolución, even though it’s mellower, I think they do it better. It just sounds right.
It’s definitely the album you guys needed to release. This record let Thursday release the album that you wanted to, not the ones that the fans or the critics wanted.
Funnily enough, when it came out I said ‘everyone is going to hate this record.’ That was my joke, and every interview I just said that everyone was going to hate us. But instead, it’s the record that the fans have liked most since Full Collapse, so it’s one of those things that you think everyone is going to hate, but it turns out that everyone loves. Sometimes you just have to do what you want to do.
That must be a pretty rewarding experience, taking the chance and releasing an album that’s drastically different, and still having everyone love it.
Its super rewarding. It made me think that you know, there is some justice in the world. You can make a record that you love, and have other people like it.
Over the last few days, there have been hints from United Nations that they were back. What are the plans for UN for the rest of the year?
(laughs) Have they been posting from the United Nations twitter account or something?
Yeah, they posted something saying ‘The McRib isn’t the only thing making a return,’ and there were a few photos and posts saying ‘we’re back.’
(laughs) That’s awesome! Those guys have been recording some stuff. While I’ve been in Sydney, they’ve been recording stuff at home and sending it to me, and it all sounds awesome. I’m really excited to get home and work on it.
You guys have been quiet since the release of the last 7”, which was released on Deathwish. Are you releasing the new record with them?
We haven’t really gotten that far, but I think we might self-release this one. It’s just for fun. With UN, we don’t have to take anything too seriously; it’s not any kind of career. Most of what we do is just to piss people off. We’ll see what we do with the next one.
Is this record the long awaited full length, or is it another 7 inch?
It’s a 7 inch. We’re only going to do 7 inches and things like that for a while. The thing we said is watch out for another, and that means that it’s our last one. (laughs)
On your final American shows, you played This Side of Brightness, off Waiting. Any chance an older song like that will make its way into the Australian sets?
There’s nothing from Waiting on the Australian sets, just because we have so little time. We have 40 minutes for the Soundwave sets, and the sideshows we only have an hour, so we just have to pick carefully what songs we’re doing. We’re already committed to doing all of Full Collapse, and that’s forty two minutes right there, so we don’t have much time left after that.
Seeing as the sideshows are going to be Full Collapse in its entirety, can we expect more of a greatest hits set at the festival?
I think we signed up to play Full Collapse on the Soundwave shows as well. I think the Soundwave shows are just Full Collapse, and the sideshows are Full Collapse plus some other songs.
All the promotional material just says that the sideshows are Full Collapse shows, there was nothing hinting at the festival sets being Full Collapse as well.
I’ll have to ask AJ what the deal is. If the Soundwave shows aren’t Full Collapse, then we’ll play some Jet Black New Year and War All the Time. We’ll play a good cross section of songs. I think it would be more fun if we played those songs at Soundwave, because then the sideshows would feel more special.
Recently you started a band with two of the guys from Ink & Dagger, and Ben Weinman from The Dillinger Escape Plan. How’s that going?
It’s hard to tell. I mean, there’s something you have to know about the Ink & Dagger guys. They’re fucking crazy, those guys are just crazy. I never know what they’re talking about. Half the time they’re talking about music I don’t even know what they’re talking about. The one dude that writes everything is a genius, a crazy genius, so I don’t know how it’s going. I hear things, and I’m like ‘oh that sounds cool, but is it an intro or a song? What’s that supposed to be?’ I really don’t even know, but I always have trust in that by the time it’s ready to sing over it, it’s all going to make sense. It’s amazing though. Ben from Dillinger is playing drums in this band, and he’s amazing, it’s crazy.
How did this band come about? Thursday and Dillinger seem like fairly different bands.
This band came about because Ben from Dillinger is a huge Ink & Dagger fan, and then I played those shows singing for Ink & Dagger. We’ve played with Dillinger a bunch. Those guys are really good friends of ours, we’re from the same home town. I put on Dillinger shows before I was even in Thursday. We took them on tour, and it was us, Dillinger and La Dispute, it was a crazy tour. We’ve always loved Dillinger, and it’s good to surprise your fans. I think your average Thursday fan would be pretty blown away by Dillinger.
I think most people are pretty blown away after seeing them live.
That’s the thing. Even if we were to give Dillinger records to most of our fans, they’d be like what’s this, I’m not into this, but by seeing them, they would be blown away.
Thursday are known for touring with pretty diverse bands, like that tour with Circle Takes the Square and Portugal. The Man. How do those kinds of tours come about?
As soon as we were lucky enough to headline, like as soon as we knew that people liked us enough to come and see us regardless of who was supporting, we starting thinking we should pick supports that we liked, rather than bands that just sounded like us. Our fans are smart enough that they should like them too. The first thing that we did when we headlined was we took out Cursive, Murder by Death, Engine Down and Poison the Well. Kids went crazy and loved Cursive, so we just realised that we could bring out whoever we wanted to after that. We’ve played on a heap of bills, and like you said, with Circle Takes the Square and Portugal. The Man, and La Dispute. The thing is, when we took out a band that sounded kind of like us, it didn’t work as well. If we took out The Fall of Troy, it didn’t work as well as when we brought out Circa Survive. It was almost like fans wanted us to bring out someone really different.
People like your music and trust your judgement, so it’s like they want you guys to expose them to new bands that they might not have heard of.
Yeah, and that’s like the highest compliment a fan can pay.
Are you excited to play with Circa Survive and Saves the Day at the sideshows?
Hell yeah. That’s like the opposite though, that’s like us playing with two of our oldest friends, but I think it’ll be really good, because these are our last shows, and it’ll be like a celebration.
Who are you looking forward to most on the Soundwave line-up?
Probably Dillinger, and maybe Sisters of Mercy. I’m an old Goth kid, so it’s really cool that they’re playing.
It’s cool that bands like Sisters of Mercy get to play festivals and get exposed to new fans. Gang of Four played a few years ago, and most people at the festival had probably never heard of them.
Right, totally. It’s so cool man. When you’re in a band, those are the bands that give you inspiration, you know? Bands like Gang of Four, and bands like Joy Division.
Are there any new and upcoming bands that Thursday fans should check out?
I think Pianos Become the Teeth are amazing.
The new album was incredible.
Yeah, it’s like my favourite album from last year.
Unfortunately that’s it for us, thank you for your time Geoff. We’ll see you in a few weeks at Soundwave. Enjoy the tour!
Thanks for the interview man, it was great. See you soon.
Thursday are touring soon for Soundwave Festival, and it’s their last tour ever. If you’re even a casual fan of this amazing band, be sure to check them out at either the festival, or at their sideshows where they are being supported by Circa Survive, and Saves The Day.
Josh Mitrou