Looking back to the
beginning of summer, Thrice had to cancel the first
eight days of the infamous Warped Tour so they could
finish recording their fourth full length album, Vheissu
(pronounced ‘vee-sue’). Now 48 days later,
40 shows later, and about 20,000 miles later, they
will be taking the stage in about 25 minutes for their
last performance of the summer. “I’m definately
glad it’s over. It’s gone really good.
It is such a fun tour but it’s very tiring.
And we have so much hanging over our heads right now
with trying to get this record done. We just want
to get home and make sure it’s alright,”
Dustin Kensrue told me.
Thrice is gearing
up to start their own North American headlining tour
that kicks off October 4th at the House of Blues in
Las Vegas, Nevada. They will be bringing out Underoath,
The Bled and Veda to support them over the thirty-three
cities across the nation. Why such a diverse lineup?
“There are a lot of reasons. One thing is that
we try to take out bands that are good people and
we’ve known The Bled for a while and really
like them. We have had a lot of people speak very
highly of Underoath. We met them on this tour and
they are awesome guys but we hadn’t met them
when we booked the tour. They are awesome dudes and
their live show is amazing.” Kensure continues,
“We wanted a bill that still had some type or
rocking bill but had some diversity; Especially with
The Bled doing a lot of new stuff on their new record.
We weren’t really sure if we wanted to take
them because they are more of a heavy band and we
were trying to balance it out. But after hearing their
new record we are really excited about it. I think
Veda defiantly puts a good spin and a good balance
on it.”
In the midst of their
tour, they will raise the curtain on Vheissu –
their long awaited second release on Island Records.
It follows the band’s third album The Artist
In The Ambulance that was released in mid 2003 which
debuted at number 16 on the charts the first week.
The title Vheissu
was drawn from the book, V by Thomas Pynchon. Kensure
explains, “We basically thought it was beautiful
word and we wanted a one word title that didn’t
have a lot of meaning to people so it could take on
the meaning of the record. Kind of title it in the
way a word titles a band when you think. When you
think of U2, you don’t think of a spy plane,
you think of the band. Something that was beautiful
on it’s own that would take on the title of
the record.” Unlike a lot of artists today that
revolve their entire album, art, and websites around
one theme, Thrice goes into the writing with nothing
in mind, but by the end, a few different themes seem
to emerge. “The overall theme is affirming human
dignity and intrinsic worth. There’s kind of
a theme of… I don’t really know how to
generalize it- like a breaking out of something. There’s
a song that has a prison theme. Another song has some
metaphors and it’s just tied between the dark
and light. There’s a lot of smaller imagery
that is tied in between songs rather than a giant
theme on everything,” Kensrue said.
You can’t write
the same album over again. At the same time it’s
too risky to change your sound completely either.
Kensrue admitted, “It’s very different
from the last record in a lot of ways.” He continued,
“We were able to do a lot of things that we
wanted to do when writing it. Even some things that
we wanted to do in the last record and we just didn’t
get the time to do it. There’s also a lot of
different instrumentation like piano, organ and even
some acoustic guitar. It’s a little more versatile
or creative. I think there is a lot more of a sense
to space and letting the songs breath moving up and
down in dynamics.”
Kensure also said
that they will be releasing a special edition limited
to about 75,000 copies of Vheissu that will be released
at the same time as the regular album. There will
be a 32-page booklet will a gold plated cover. It
will also include a commentary on each song and a
commentary on the record. All for only a few bucks
more. “I would defiantly recommend picking that
version up if you are a fan of the band or if you
just want to dig more into the record,” Kensrue
states.
There will be a video
for their single “We Are the Image of the Invisible”.
There are rumors that Thrice is working with Gerard
Way of My Chemical Romance. Kensrue would not specifically
talk about the concept of the video. Only thing I
could get out of the lead singer, Kensrue is that
he’s rather have it be reveled in its full form.
He also added that he as excited about the video if
they can pull it off and have enough money to do it.
Thrice’s first
show ever happened to be a charity show. A bit of
foreshadowing? Yes, I think so! Before they signed
to Island Def-Jam, they new Sub-City Records as their
home. Sub-City donates a percentage of each on of
their bands album sales to a charity of the bands
choice. And when they signed to a major, they didn’t
want their contribution to the community to stop there.
With the release date Vheissu approaching they will
be donating money to 826 Valencia. Valencia helps
students 8-18 to develop their writing skills. In
the past Thrice has also worked with SSC which is
an endowment for people who cannot afford cancer treatment.
They have also helped out with events such as Race
For The Cure and have been apart of the Plea For Peace
Tour in the past.
Thrice’s
set time is just a few minutes away as I hear the
muffled sound of Dustin strumming his guitar in the
background wrapping up this interview. This is their
last performance of the summer and their last tour
supporting An Artist In The Ambulance. Vheissu will
soon be heard…
