Thrice

Vorige week stond het viertal van Thrice voor het eerst sinds drie jaar weer in een Nederlandse zaal. De band maakte genoeg stilistische veranderingen door en werd zelfs in de Oude Zaal geprogrammeerd. Toch kan de band op genoeg bijval rekenen, getuige de gezellige drukte die er ruim van te voren ontstaat. Voordat de zaal open ging sprak ik met drummer Riley Breckenridge over het wel en wee van de mannen.

“My name is Riley Breckenridge and I play drums in Thrice.” De band is al een tijdje aan het touren, hoe bevalt het leven ‘on tour?’ “It’s been good, it’s always a challenge to get over here, you know, with jetlag. But the shows are great. We did some festivaldates and tonight is the first clubdate. The festivals are amazing, we got the chance to see very amazing bands and the feedback from fans is just awesome.”

In de lage landen speelde het viertal op Pukkelpop en Lowlands, hoe waren die shows voor de band? “Great. Pukkelpop was awesome, I got to see Iron Maiden and Band of Horses. At Area 4 Fest I got the see Queens of the Stone Age from the side of the stage, wich was mindblowing. And our sets went as good as we expected. The songs seem to over quite well and we didn’t had any technical problems. Well, there might have been some problems with the inputs at the Pukkelpop Festival, so we couldn’t play any synths.”

Speelt de band, zowel tijdens een clubshow als tijdens een festival, liever op een groot podium of op een kleiner, meer intiemer podium? “It’s kinda hard to choose, because the rush at the mainstage is so great. But just getting to play for that many people and then now that you’re playing on a stage that Iron Maiden is going to play on is just mindblowing. But then like on a festival we played, I don’t know wich one, but we played shortly after Comeback Kid and the crowd was so energetic. So, at smaller venues we can feel a greater connection to the crowd, but the thrill of playing a mainstage is awesome.”

Vanaf Identity Crisis is er een gigantische stap gemaakt tot aan Beggars, is dit een logische ontwikkeling? “I think it’s just a reflection of the music we listen to. Back when we did the first records we listened to a lot of punk rock, a lot of hardcore and a lot of metal and that showed in what we were writing. We’ve never been a band that wanted to stick to one genre. We’re just so excited to play and we hope that people like it.” Bij de muziek horen natuurlijk de teksten, heeft Thrice ook een bepaalde bedoeling met de lyrics? “We, as a band, don’t have any agenda. We’re not pushing a way of thinking. Dustin writes all the lyrics and we just let him do his own thing with that. Most of the time I agree with what he writes, sometimes I don’t. But we want him to put forth the most honest thing. He is christian and he is very inspired by the Bible, but we’re all free to believe what we want to believe and he’ll never push you with it. We’re more into having an intelligent dialogue. For me, I go to shows to listen to music, not to let someone tell me how I should feel or what I should do.”

The Alchemy Index zou eerst een uitgave van vier EP’s worden, maar uiteindelijk werden er twee dubbel EP’s uitgebracht. Waarom? “We were having difficulties with the costs of a four disc-package, so it went out as two doubledisc sets. But we did end up doing a limited edition vinyl with all four of the discs in different colors. That was an expensive project, but we like to do something special for the people who like that. And when we’re in the studio, everyone brings in some parts that they like, wether it’s a rhodes piano, something that’s electronically programmed, something that has an acoustic guitar, or something that’s very heavy and riffy. The challenge is to create something cohesive out of that. For The Alchemy Index we wanted to let the parts be what they are. So when someone brought electronic programming with a keyboard, instead of translating that into electric guitar and real drums, we tried to make that an electronic song. The Alchemy Index sounds experimental, because it was a huge experiment for us.”

“With everything we’ve ever done, I could go back and analyze very closely. And pick out parts where I think ‘I wish we’ve done this instead of that’ or I remember that we had this other part that we tried to fit and then I wish the we did fit it in. But there comes a time in the songwritingproces where you just have to let it go and let it be what it’s going to be. I’m really happy with The Alchemy Index, with it’s outcome and with everything we’ve learned, but I always wonder what would’ve happend if we took all those parts on the four EP’s and made that into a traditional Thrice record. For listening I like the Water EP the most, but for playing in a liveset I like the Fire-element. It’s more heavy and as a drummer I like heavy things.”

Na dat experiment kwam er toch een gewone plaat, Beggars. Hoe was dat vergeleken met elkaar? “Because The Alchemy Index was such an experiment, we really liked the idea of making a more cohesive record. Beggars was more jamming with all the guys in the same room and we were really focussing on the energy that we created with the four of us together. It’s more rooted in a band-dynamic and therefore more organic.”

Door de hele stilistische groei van de band, denkt de band fans te hebben gewonnen of verloren? “I think both, but we deffinately lost more than we gained. I think we lost the fans who wanted us to be more ‘metal’ and that we gained fans who didn’t like the metal stuff. The toughest thing for us right now is people with the wrong idea of what the band sounds like now. 2003-2004 was like the height of our popularity, people might have heard our songs on the radio and were like ‘I don’t like that band’. So now, they may listen so stuff that’s similair to Beggars and because of they didn’t like us back then, they wouldn’t listen to us right now.”

Komt het doordat ze meer fans hebben verloren dan dat ze hebben gewonnen, dat ze in de kleine zaal van de Melkweg staan? “Probably, but we can come here and play anywhere we want, that’s just amazing. Wether its a small room, a big room, a livingroom, a basement or whatever, I’ll play anywhere. It’s just amazing to play for people who like our music.” Het heeft trouwens een tijdje geduurd dat het viertal weer terug is voor een clubshow, waarom duurde dat drie jaar? “In the last three years, Dustin and Teppei both had their second kid and they needed to be home for that. The few times that we wanted to do a European tour, scheduling stuff came up. But we’re making a definitive effort on being over here more regulary.”

Hoe zit het trouwens met de toekomst van Thrice? “After the tour we’re taking some time of and relax a bit, we’re gonna start writing for the next record. I really have no idea what it’s going to sound like, my ideas of the new album incorporate a lot of heavy stuff and a lot of it is…dreamy. That’s kinda my two sides, I don’t write mid-tempo stuff. It’s either really dark and heavy or really dark and atmospheric.” Ik sluit het interview af met de schoenmaatvraag. “My shoesize is nine. I have small feet, but it’s allright because nine is the sample size. So anytime we have like a connection with a shoecompany I can have weird shoes that never made it to production.”