house cleaning

one day, im going to make this place a bit more home-y. A bit more me. Until then, enjoy this passage from Thursday guitarist Tom Keeley. Yes, it is another music schpeel.

ps. i really need some new jeans

What are some of the influences for the new record, musical and otherwise?

I won’t speak lyrically. But sonically it’s kind of all over the place. I think we'll always have our roots in post hardcore. Bands like Far, and Quicksand will always be part of our musical vocabulary. But I've always felt that a song was a space, expansive and warm or claustrophobic and cluttered. I've always enjoyed playing with those spaces and treating them 3 dimensionally. So bands like Mogwai and Sigur Ros have acted as examples on how to create those vast open spaces with sounds acting more as shapes passing along a horizon or skyline. Whereas bands like Converge or Envy can often create claustrophobic spaces filled with growling and angular shapes. It’s not all about a melody or a lyric, it’s about density, texture, impact, velocity and using silence as a tool....that’s been a challenging one....figuring out when the hell NOT to play. So that’s all nice and conceptual, but a digression I guess......let’s just say the record is big heavy, dense, melodic, expansive, lush, dissonant, immediate, future shit. haha. compare it to whatever bands you think embody that stuff.

The song "Running From the Rain" was featured in a commercial for Saturn vehicles. Instead of backlash that would have hit hard in the beginning of your career, many seemed content that the band received mainstream exposure. How do you feel the scene has changed in the decade you've been a band?

I think the scene has transformed from a communal gathering in which we have face to face dialogues in real time to an increasingly digitally isolating, abusive self aggrandizing race for the number one spot. There are communities online for sure, but something scary happens when we are in front of the computer which happens less face to face. We get fucking mean. We feel like we can get away with saying whatever we want in the name of sarcasm, with no consequence. People become little Napoleons, promoting themselves as the most important, the most bitingly critical, cynical...fucking mean man. Music is supposed to be a unifying entity...it’s the oldest language, it’s supposed to bind us together, and that was true for us when we started in our little 'scene'. Not only were people accepting if you were different, but they celebrated those differences and wanted to understand your ideas, even if they disagreed. Now it seems, from behind closed doors and in front of a computer we feel like we can get away with being abusive of others ideas in increasingly exclusionary online "communities". We value post counts and making fun of bad grammar over possibly learning something important about someone who has different ideas than we do.

It’s a shame, because it’s been going on long enough now that bands actually write songs about it. Championing sarcasm and one upmanship and popularity over messages of humility, acceptance, and empathy. Not only boring to me, but offensive.

There’s room for all the glossy tongue in cheek dance jams in the world out there about who’s sneakers are cooler. But it’s getting too big and fat and tired for its own good...in the past there have been underground scenes in which people were making the new shit. Basement shows, kitchen shows, vfw halls...actual gatherings of people willing to exchange ideas openly without negating one another’s views....places where people make and share the music that changes the mainstream..if we're all too busy hiding behind a computer to get up and make a community happen, if we're all too concerned with pwning each other on a message board to realize the power of accepting ideas ulterior to our own...we're either going to undermine this process of change in music or miss it altogether.

I'm not saying basement culture is the only way to do it. I'm saying that online culture often eats itself, especially the online youth culture surrounding punk music. We disempower ourselves by getting caught up in, let’s face it, elementary school style whining and bickering over, what?? Difference of opinion and personal taste?? shit that means NOTHING if we aren’t actually willing to listen before we start barking. There are certainly exceptions to this idea, there is just a really strong, seemingly automatic switch that flips when we get online, that immediately makes it difficult to have a really inclusive, enriching and enlightened community....or scene. IMHO..........rofl?

What do you think about the current music climate? Changes need to be made to the way music is released and how record labels operate, so what do you think would be the best way for actual change and progress to be made?

I wish I knew. It would be great if everyone could pull a Radiohead and give it away. But not every band has spent time as 'the biggest band in the world'. Once you sell millions of records you can sort of afford to take chances like they did. We however have not sold millions of records, so. I've heard so many ideas about different models for music/commerce, i.e. selling it like cable, subscriptions services that give you access to vast libraries of music....only selling services AROUND the actual music, basically selling ACCESS to music....and they all sound legit, like they could work. But then they disappear or fail. I think what needs to change to a great extent is the mentality of those who consume music. It’s been a free for all over the last 10 years in which people grab as much music for free as their hard drives can hold...and who wouldn't be tempted to do that?

We've obviously supported file sharing, and still do, but I think there needs to be a slight yet powerful shift in everyone’s mind from FREE IS BEST, GOTTA GET MINE to WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES OF NEVER PAYING FOR ART THAT HAS VALUE? Everyone has a responsibility to strive for a balance between exercising their freedom of choice to customize your own experience with art and music, and making sure not to abuse or take advantage musicians and artists. Putting money into the industry helps labels make recording budgets, which pay for studios, which allows them not to charge an arm and a leg for bands to record...it is a cycle. And as a music consumer, we all play a part. no money= much harder for artists to make their art=less art for those who want it=everyone’s bummed. So strike a balance...download it...make sure you like it first...then go buy it and experience it usually as the artist intended it to be experienced. Music has value, it’s not wrong to expect compensation. And it’s not like we can't make informed decisions these days about exactly what it is we are paying for.