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An interview with Ed Breckinridge of Thrice
by Brittany Smith on 2005-11-03 |
With both the layout and with the lyrics, there is quite a bit of religious imagery. Was there any conscious decision to move from mythological imagery of The Artist in the Ambulance to a more lyrical, a more non-specific, almost vague storytelling in the writing process?
Um, I can’t really say because Dustin doesn’t really even tell us what he’s thinking about when he’s writing the lyrics. He really likes for everyone to take their own thing from it. I know that a lot of the morals that he believes in come from, like, a biblical standpoint. I just know that a lot of, a lot of the lyrics that he has written have been, especially on this record have been based on like realizing the value of human life and the main objective kind of, uh…I don’t know. I guess taking a step outside of yourself and looking back and kind of, I don’t know, studying yourself and trying to make yourself a better person in the was that you affect others, and I think that some of the… He reads a lot of C.S. Lewis who also uses a lot of religious imagery and biblical metaphors in his writing. I’m sure that some of it has come from there as well.
I picked up on some Chronicles of Narnia and Mere Christianity parallels, and some things from the Book of Revelation in the writing, which I thought was very interesting.
Thank you. I’ll tell him you said that.
How does the reoccurring theme of the ocean and the water and generally, the vast expanse fit into where you guys are as a band?
When we were first talking about the record, like, before we, I think it was on one of the last tours we were doing with Dashboard [Confessional> or someone. We were talking about concepts. We never really thought of doing, like, a concept album, you know? This ended up being almost an anti-concept album. We were thinking of something to base it off of, and we were talking. The ocean seemed perfect for us because we knew that a lot of the stuff that we were getting ready to write was going to be a lot more towards dreamy and atmospheric. The cool thing about the ocean is that it is deep and dark, but it can also be really heavy at times and at the same time really pretty. I know that beforehand, we were all talking about maybe having the ocean be a concept, and I know that Dustin wanted to kind of have the lyrics follow that concept. In the end not all of the songs are ocean based, but I think that a lot of that kind of ended up seeping into what we did.
I’m a very image driven person and I was looking at the layout of the packaging and the first thing I noticed were fish and squid…
Yeah…it’s a very nautical themed piece of art.
The first thing that I thought of was a very old, like, 1930’s carnival scene Ouija board. As bizarre as that sounds, that was the first thing that I thought.
Well, the guy who designed it…it was Dave Eggers. He wrote A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and How We Are Hungry and he does McSweeney’s. There was a cover of McSweeney’s, I forget which volume it is, but, um, that has basically the same layout in terms of the circular design. We contacted him and we were like, “Hey. Is there any way that you could, like, design our album?” and he was like, “Yeah, sure! I’d love to! Totally.” He ended up working on it, coming up with the first, basic ideas and then the actual guy who did the layout for McSweeney’s ended up finishing it up. It was awesome. We got to sit down and have coffee with Dave Eggers. It was so cool. It was weird, because, if you’ve read A Heartbreaking Work... then, like, it’s like the story of his life, you know? So, like hanging out with somebody that you know about their life…it was kind of strange, but at the same time, it was amazing. He was just a really funny, witty, amazing person, and he was just like he seems like in the book.
I talked to Dustin on Warped Tour over the summer and he said that there were plans to release an EP with songs that didn’t make the cut for Vhessiu.
Yes!
Is that, do you know if that’s still in the works at all?
Um, I know that we want to because there was a song that we ended up not having enough time to finish and time to record that we all really liked. The thing was that it was a lot mellower than anything else on the record, and we were already taking a step in making mellower stuff than we had in the past, and it almost seemed like it would have been an odd ball on the record. So we didn’t do that, and there was also four or so songs that aren’t on the actual record. Some of them ended up being on compilations or video games or whatever. We definitely have a lot of material out there with a lot of b-sides for this record. There’s no concrete plans, but we would love to be able to do it. We had a really hard time determining the running order and the song list for this record because we felt like all the songs were…there were no songs that shouldn’t be used, so that was, like, the EP was our plan for, you know…”The people need to hear these songs.” We can’t just throw them away.
Speaking of video games, the soundtrack for Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland, you guys covered one of my absolute favourite Minor Threat songs [Screaming at the Wall>. How did that come to fruition.
Easiest put, we were asked to do it. We, the initial idea was for it to be a west coast, old school punk rock kind of thing. We were thinking about bands that we would want to cover and like, it just seemed logical to do Minor Threat. I mean, we are all huge huge fans of Minor Threat and Ian’s…geez…I’m saying like too much. So we actually called up Vagrant and said that we really wanted to do these two songs. It’s the right time period, you know, is it okay for us to do this? They were like, “Well, I don’t know.” We kept bothering them and eventually, they said yes and I don’t know. I love that band and it’s, like, listening to The Complete Discography of Minor Threat it remind me so much of a specific time in my life where, like, playing those songs…We recorded it live, just in a little practice space with microphones everywhere, and it sounds kind of trashy, but we wanted it to sound that way, like an old recording almost. I don’t know…it was awesome. It was an awesome experience, and I’m really proud that they asked us to be a part of it. I mean, we might end up covering a song sometime, or whatever. –laughter-
This is the vinyl geek in me coming out, but I picked up the Image of the Invisible 7”, and when you hold it up to the light, the centre label, there’s a little cartoon, um, dude. I don’t know if you knew that…
No, I didn’t! –laughter-
There’s a little…he kind of reminds me of the Mest icon.
I wonder if it has anything to do with…I don’t know. I’ll have to check that out. It might be something to do with the company that pressed it, or maybe I was asleep or missed a memo.
You just came back from the UK. How receptive were the English audiences to the new material over, like, the Warped Tour audiences?
To the new stuff? Um, they seemed pretty cool. I mean, I can’t really tell because in the UK, it seems that people really go nuts for everything. Sot here really isn’t a dynamic to gauge on. I mean, they seemed like they were really getting into it. There are always kids who yell out for the old songs, they want to hear the older stuff, which is cool, but at the same time where were those kids when we wrote those songs, you know? They were really awesome, especially when we were playing some of the newer songs. I think some of our favourite songs on the record are some of the mellower ones as opposed to the more aggressive ones…they act as kind of like a break in the set. To see people actually singing along as opposed to moshing it was really, it feels really good.
Out of all the new songs, I think my personal favourite is Atlantic. I think that, while being one of the biggest steps outside of the so called mould, it’s the song that is the most Thrice. Having said that, what’s your personal favourite?
I think you hit the nail on the head. I would have to say it’s a song called Atlantic. It’s definitely the biggest step out from what we’ve done on the record, but I’m really proud of us that we can do that. We’ve kind of been cornered in this whole screamo thing, and there was never an intention to make it. The reason that our music ended up being that way was because we were, I mean, not because we were wanting to be a part of a movement, but because we’ve always loved bands like Fugazi or Minor Threat or Drive Like Jehu or all these different bands, and the only way that we were able to incorporate all of those styles was to have some stuff that’s aggressive that you can shout over and then have some stuff that’s melodic, so, um, being able to branch out and to make something that’s moving away from that feels really good. It’s almost because I feel like the whole screamo thing is kind of getting to be oversaturated. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, because I think that when a style of music becomes popular, then there’s something good in that. I guess I just want to be in a band that’s more than a genre, you know?
It’s funny. I was talking to a friend of mine a while ago whose band put out a record around the same time that Artist came out. He said the exact same thing. You know, we’re coming out…but us and Thrice signed around the same time, we both put out two comepletely different records around the same time, but we are getting stuck in with all these bands that neither of use sound anything like. Everyone’s being lumped into this whole hardcore / emo / screamo / whatevercore thing. He mentioned that it was just too much.
Yeah. It’s too homogenized to try, like, we don’t really sound anything like Thursday. Maybe a little, I guess, but the fact that people can’t get it out of their heads that it’s like a separate thing. I mean, I love those guys, but it’s kind of frustrating at times. I mean, being in a band, you want to be an individual, especially if you’re like, if you feel like you’re making music that’s, like, kind of new and exciting. You want it to be understood as being something different, you know?
I totally understand what you mean! Do you think that with the new sound of the record, that that was a conscious decision to move away from that scene that you were getting lumped into?
Partially conscious and partially not. I mean, with the last record that we did, we felt like we were really rushed in the writing of it and we were all really frustrated when it was finished. I mean, I’m really proud of that record, but when we were finished, it was like, “Arg! Look at all the stuff that we didn’t do…”
-Riley pops in-
R: Hey…oops. I’m sorry. Interview? Hi everyone!
E: Riley says hello. You know, look at all the stuff that we didn’t do and look at all the stuff that we love and didn’t get a chance to incorporate…some of the more dreamy feels or adding the Rhodes piano or keys or all the stuff that we ended up using on this new record. I know that this record might seem like a big jump to a lot of kid who have listened to us for a while, but what they didn’t know was that the last record was kind of like us being held back. So…it, I don’t know. I guess with all the records that we do, we try to make them different from the previous one, like a sense of progression so you’re not hashing out the same stuff. So there’s definitely a sense of us being all, “Well, hey. We’re not going to make another Artist or another Illusion of Safety or whatever.” That was definitely a thought that we had, but I don’t think that we were like “Let’s make a record that pushes us away from everything.” But we were more like, “Hey, let’s just make whatever comes out of our heads.”
Kind of where you are now…
Exactly.
You just came off a really successful headlining slot at Warped, and now you’re doing your own headlining tour. In a few weeks, you’re going to head out to Canada to do support. Do you, is the artistic pressure any different for you headlining versus supporting? Which one do you prefer?
I like supporting. I just like feeling like we’re playing to people that have never given us a chance or never heard of us before or, um, I think headlining shows is awesome. You get to play longer; you get to play more songs; you get to play for the diehards. I don’t know. Sometimes the focus gets to be more on…like…we ended up taking out lights on this tour, which is something that we’ve never really done before. It’s really cool doing that. At the same time, like, playing to an audience that has maybe never heard us before, like when we did the Dashboard tour. I mean, we’ve toured with Face to Face and Anti-Flag in the past, and I think that those tours were some of our favourite tours because it’s always awesome to have someone come up to you and say something like, “Oh, well…before I hated your band, but now, after I’ve seen you, I like you.” You know? Or “I’ve never heard of you guys, but now I like you.” At the same time, like, playing shows and having people say, “Dude. This is the seventh time I’ve seen you.” Or whatever. That’s just really cool to me. That’s amazing. I guess it’s more a comfort thing. I guess it’s easier being a support slot band because there’s less expectation.
-pauses-
That was a long answer for a short question.
I remember the first time I saw you guys play. It was on the Converge tour…
Oh, woah. That was forever ago! That was a really fun tour.
How is it that you can play a Converge tour, and they are like…
Super insane metal crazy…
And go over really well and then you can go and play with bands like Dashboard Confessional and still go over really well? Is it…?
I don’t know. I think it’s all a part of us. It has always been that way, though. We started playing shows, and it was with all these punk rock bands and then we started playing with all these hardcore bands, and neither of them we really felt like we fit in exactly. I mean, there wasn’t this, like, I mean, we were playing this metal influenced stuff with some screaming and some punk rock stuff and it was really weird. A lot of people didn’t like what we were doing at the time. There were some kids every once in a while and we kind of started to build a little following. We’ve never really felt like there was a tour where we fit in. It wasn’t like, “ok. Well. Here’s this group of bands.” Even on this tour, we feel like, I mean we’ve got some heavy stuff, but we’re definitely not the heaviest band on the bill. Veda, we love them. They’re such a good band. I’m really glad that they’re out on this tour because they balance us out. Did you hear about what happened to them?
No, what happened?
Their van and trailer were stolen last night in Detroit. They have absolutely nothing. They have no clothes, they have no equipment, and they have nothing. They’re using our stuff and have kind of moved into our bus and a few of them are staying on the underoath bus. It’s brutal.
I’m glad that they’re ok, though.
Yeah. We’re all really glad that they didn’t get hurt or anything. Stuff can get replaced, people can’t.
Did it happen during the show?
No, it happened afterwards. They had done load out and parked so they could walk over to get something to eat. When they came back, their van and trailer were gone. Anyone reading this, please support Veda, who might have to change their name after this tour cos I guess there’s another band out there who has a similar name.
What was the last great show that you saw?
I don’t remember which was before which, but I think it was These Arms Are Snakes and Isis at the Glass House in Pomona. I’m a huge fan of both of those bands. I’ve seen Isis live before, but I’ve never seen them headline, so it was amazing. These Arms Are Snakes, I’ve never seen before, but I’ve seen Botch. It…it was so good. It’s frustrating seeing bands like that and going to their shows and thinking that we’re in a bus and they’re in a van. I look up to them so much, it’s hard to…it kind of hurts my heart because all, well not all, a lot of bands that I really look up to and love, I wish that more people would love too and would know about them. I think people are so into, like, well, there are some people, maybe a majority that are so into what is on MTV or whatever is in magazines, and I just wish that more kids would look at our recommendations and maybe trace back where a lot of certain bands sounds come from. Usually the bands that influence them haven’t “made it” and aren’t really well known, and that’s kind of sad.
And speaking of recommendations…
My favourite band of all time, who are no longer together because they weren’t really making money and all that horrible stuff is a band called No Knife. They’re my absolute favourite. There’s another band that’s not together tha’ts called Frodus. They’re amazing. The album to get of theirs is called We Washed Our Weapons in the Sea. No. It's called …And We Washed Our Weapons in the Sea. I’ve been listening to a lot of Jeff Buckley and his album Grace. There’s another band called Bark Psychosis, which is a British band, as well as a band called Talk Talk. They were both kind of in the same scene of making kind of, they were…Talk Talk were making kind of pop albums and writing songs like “It’s My Life” that No Doubt covered. They ended up recording these two records after that, one called Laughing Stock and one called Spirit of Eden. Just amazing records that were almost like soundscapes, it almost seems like it should be, like, soundtrack music or something. I would say that Talk Talk was a huge influence on the making of the new record…just all of the ambience and the dreamy feels and the atmospheric qualities.
[ VIEW ALL INTERVIEWS ]
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