Interview with Andrew Everding

The release of your new album, "A City By The Light Divided" has been pushed back in Germany. Now it’s going to be the 14th of July. Do you know the reason?

I'm not actually aware of the reason. I really wasn't sure what was going on. I know that it was just released in the UK not to long ago, but I'm not really sure why they pushed it back in Germany. We kind of switched up who we were working with over there since the last time, at least in the UK we did, but I'm not really sure why it got pushed back.


Already in August 2005, a few THURSDAY demos like "At This Velocity" leaked into the net. How was your reaction when you realised it?

We weren't really to happy about that, to be totally honest. Sometimes, like when we play live and things get released afterwards, or when people download and trace things, that have been released, we understand that, but with this demo stuff, we weren't happy because those were stolen from the studio that we were in. They were completely unfinished and it was before we've even started working with the producers, that we were gonna work around with the record and we knew, most of the songs are gonna change, so it wasn't something we were to happy about, but these things happen sometimes...we had to go on our website and tell kids that they shouldn't get used to the songs, that these are not the finished new songs, that these were just the early version of the stuff that we have written for the new record.

Talking about the internet, what do you think about file sharing in general?
Well, as a band, we're cool with it, we think its fine, you know. That demo-stuff kind of hurt, but we don't have to much of a problem with it in general. We don't have a problem with it, especially because neither of us can stop it or anything. It would be awesome if everybody bought the record, just so you can see how many people like it, you know... Now you just don't have no way of knowing who has it. We're not selling millions of records, so... I could probably get in trouble with the record label by saying this, but I don't think we really care to much, you know...

You also had the whole album available on MySpace… Was that your decision or was it a label choice?

We decided that. We have a pretty good relation with MySpace and the label thought it was a good idea as well, so we just decided to put it out there a little bit early, to give kids a treat...

At first you had the idea of a 2 disc release for "A City By The Light Divided". What made you change this intention?

We didn't know if we were going to be able to have enough songs to do that, we ended up to have quite a few. We have written and recorded about 17 or 18 songs but we felt like it would be better to just put the good songs on one record, you know, it just didn't make much sense for us to put out all the songs on two discs. Sometimes if bands release a 2 disc album some of the songs a kind of just filler almost. And we just wanted to put out what we felt like the best representation of what we were writing.

You took quite some time to work on the new album. How much pressure do you feel in terms of commercial success?

Not really. Especially not with taking so much time as we have taken of. It took us about a year and a half to write the hole thing and record it. And the sense of doing that and taking that much time was to take some of the pressure away. But as long as you're on a major label you have pressure to sell records, because in the end a major label is a business and they want to make money. And its hard because it a division between business and art but you know, it seems like its doing well, so far. And we're not to worried about it. We don't feel to much pressure.



The title was taken from a poem by Octavio Paz.

Actually it wasn't! It came by Geoff sleeping on night. He woke up and had that title in his head and he thought it was an Octavio Paz Poem, like…, he thought it was from an Octavio Paz passage but it actually wasn't. He went trough all of his stuff and realised that it wasn't. It was just something that had popped into his head one morning after he was sleeping and it's kind of like something that Octavio Paz would write, so it reminded him of Octavio Paz, but it is not.

So what do you want do express with this album titel?

Retrospectively, if we had recorded two cd's, it would have been like each cd is one city and there would have been a middle ground where it had like been divided in two by the light. But now, that we put out the record the other way, we still see a separation with the instrumental thing in the middle and so it's kind of still happening. The beginning of the cd and the end of the cd kind of sound different, like it were two different parts. That was kind of what we were thinking with that.

Lyrically, what would you say is the main focus of this new CD?

I'm not totally confident with saying what the focus is, I guess people can always take from it what they want to. But it's still the same THURSDAY-stuff about inner personal politics and what we take from different situations that we're involved in. There is a song in there that is basically complaining about people that write love songs. And 'Sugar In The Sacrament' is about the catholic religion and having issues with god and such, you know. See, it's mostly about inner personal politics I would say.



Are the songs “Understanding in a Car Crash,” and the opener of the new album, “The Other Side of the Crash”, connected?

Absolutely, yeah! It's kind of about the after mess of that. Like, what happened... 'Understanding in a Car Crash' is from a friend, what he went through when he was younger and that was from his point of view. 'The Other Side of the Crash' is kind of from the outside and the others around. So yeah, it's tied to it.

I read that you wanted to make a song featuring a lot of friends like members of MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE, BLOOD BROTHERS or HEAD AUTOMATICA. Did you record this song and what happened to it?

This song is recorded actually, we just decided not to put it on the record because it's not completely finished. Our part we have done but we're still waiting on other peoples music-input. And we felt like we had to think around with it a little bit longer. But it will be released at some point.

And who exactly is on this song, who can we be listening to?

We're still waiting of some answers of some band. But had approached DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN, we had approached CONVERGE and CURSIVE and Steve’s brothers band called WE.RE ALL BROKEN did parts for it and another band called THE BLACKOUT PACT helped bringing up stuff, but we are gonna keep collecting things from people and see what we come up with and see if we can actually make it work.

Side projects seem to be quite popular these days. Do THURSDAY members have any?

No, not really, Jeff was tinkling around with some other people but he really hasn't done anything. He helps produce records sometimes. He produced THE BLACKOUT PACT RECORD and I actually do stuff for other bands sometimes, but more like helping out. Most of the stuff I help out with is keyboards. So we don't have any real side projects jet but I think in the future it will definitely happen.

What do you think about the flash game "Emogame" which features Geoff?

I think it's pretty funny. I've only seen it like one or two times. We’ve actually talked to the guy that made it, they expressed their interest. We think it’s hilarious. It's definitely like of-the-wall-weird, but it's also like kind of funny, if you like see yourself in that, you know. It's weird, but we enjoy stuff like that, it doesn't make us mad or anything.



Talking about Emo, a lot of bands hate being labelled like this. With "Full Collapse" being something like a "modern emo classic", what do you think about this label?

It was something that we weren't really happy with at first, but we kind of ignored it more than anything. You know if someone came up to us and was like: 'Hey that record was a classic'. I mean, as far as this genre goes... There are so many band, that ripped it of... We kind of avoid these situations. Because it's really like a silly time term... At least in my eyes, I mean what is music if it is not emotional, you know. And... I don't know... you could label 'NEILL YOUNG' Emo, if you wanted to or anything else ridiculous, like... THE BEATLES or whatever, you know. So I just think it's a silly term. And besides, I think that we are a lot different from what's out there right now, as far as the Emo music, you know.

When you started THURSDAY in '97 the band was more of a family with Geoff Rickly, Steve Pedulla , Tom Keely, Tim Payne and Tucker Rule living in the same house in New Brunswick. How did things change since than?

Yeah, some of them were living together, actually Steve wasn't involved with the band back then. There was another guy that played guitar. They just started touring and they all dropped out of college and before "Full collapse" was written, was when Steve joined and than he helped to write that record and than I joined the band after "Full collapse" was written and when we started touring on that album, which was like four and a half years ago. And we knew that’s how the band is gonna stay for a long time. And you know, it was kind of funny, all the people that were living together back than..., like the band, when we wrote this current record, we got a big warehouse-space in New Jersey, and I was living there and Tom was living there and Jeff was living there sometimes and Tucker, so it was kind of like we were roommates, being around each other all the time... it was fun.



Victory Records is still using your name to sell records from other artists. What do you think about this?

Yeah, we don't really talk to those guys at all, but we had the part with that label for specific reasons, just because we knew that it wasn't probably the best situation, but it is kind of like the same thing with the major label. Victory is a business and they wanna sell records just as much as everybody else wants and if that means that they have to put THURSDAY's name on records that don't sound like THURSDAY, well... you know...it's kind of a business move. We kind of expect that that kind of stuff is gonna happen. And our new label is also a major label, but they treat us different. They treat us really well, you know. They have done a lot for THURSDAY and I don't think that THURSDAY could have gone any further if it wasn't for the label that we are on right now. And if you get on a major label they can help you to get overseas. You can tour places like Germany and stuff and Australia and Japan and we would have never gotten there if it wasn't for what we have done right know and for the label that we are on right now, so... that's good.

Is it true, that you do not play any songs from "Waiting" anymore live?

Yeah, we don't really play 'em anymore. Jeff was just talking about that the other day, since I joined the band and Steve joined the band, you know, we didn't really have anything to do with that record 'cause we weren't in the band. And its not that we are never gonna play any of this stuff ever again, but it just don't seem right at the moment. We are trying to focus on playing the stuff of the new record.

How did you experience your German tour in 2004?

Oh, I don't know, I didn’t know what to expect from it, but I liked it. It was definitely on of the favourite places that we have been to because the kids really responded to or shows and they were some of the best shows on the tour that we did. It's always the people on our shows that make places important. So is for example Chicago one of the places I like the most, although it's in the States, just because the concerts are always awesome. But, yeah, Germany was good, but than again, we have never really played out of the of country except in the UK and its always fun and exciting to check out different cultures. So... Germany is pretty cool.

When are you coming back?

Not really sure yet... We are talking about some dates right know, but we can't really say. But we will be back, we promise!

Ok, we'll look forward to that, thank you very much for your time. Take care.

Thank you, it was nice talking to you, bye bye.