The following interview was conducted with Geoff Rickly (lead singer-Thursday) on October 4th, 2002 by Andy Hewitt. Andy was lucky enough to be able to get to sit down and chat with Geoff on subjects such as getting lost in Belgium, the concept for the “Cross Out the Eyes” video, and the bands recent success in the music industry.
Andy Hewitt – How did you come up with the name “Thursday”?
Geoff Rickly –Thursday was just at the time, a lot of the bands around us had some flashy names and like long names, and we just wanted something simple and low key.
AH – What are your musical influences as a person, and as a band?
GR - As a band it’s like everything from noise soundscape bands like Sonic Youth, godspeed you black emperor!, Converge, The American Nightmare, Pedro the Lion, stuff like that. Then personally I love bands like Death Cab for Cutie, and lately I’ve been really into Bright Eyes.
AH - What, in your opinion is the bands goal, overall to communicate to fans, or others where it’s their first time listening to you?
GR - Definitely to communicate, I think that’s the whole goal for most media, any kind of art and music is communication somewhat. You know even if it’s non-verbal communication, there’s still communication going on, and I think for us, we’ve already reached every goal that we have set, and now we are just kind of resetting things, and now were just trying to think of what we can do now that’s good and that’s still popular.
AH - How would you define Thursday’s sound?
GR - I guess like post-punk or post-hardcore, post-hardcore, it sounds like we’re more hardcore than we really are, and post-punk is not hardcore enough.
AH - Has becoming more well known, like having your “Understanding in a Car Crash” video being on MTV, how did it change you as a person or as a band?
GR - I guess for a while, it was really discouraging, just to go through all that stuff. To see how in indie, you can still be treated like, the downside of a major label. The upside is that you get a different appreciation for this kind of music, and you come through it, and you get to your good place again.
AH - What’s the longest set that you know that you guys have played together as a band?
GR - I think for probably like an hour, the other day, that was crazy.
AH - Were you in any high school bands?
GR - Yeah, they were all pretty bad, I don’t know, I was pretty terrible in all of them. Some of the other kids in them were good, I was so bad in them, it was like for me, we were just bad.
AH - What’s your favorite song to play live?
GR - For me personally, my favorite song to play live is “How Long Is the Night”, I enjoy that song a lot.
AH – Did you write that song?
GR - Yeah, I write all of the songs lyrically, “How Long”, is the song that I probably wrote the most musically. That song is kind of like my baby, but also, beyond that, there’s something about that song that I just love. I actually heard that this band I’m really into called Little Joe covered it; they did a version of it, like all cellos and stuff. It made me so proud, I was so happy.
AH - Do you play any other instruments?
GR - I can play guitar, I can play some guitar, but I can’t play with a band really. Even if I could play and sing at the same time, I wouldn’t be able to play with a band, just cause I’m not tight enough.
AH – What was the concept for the “Cross out the Eyes” video?
GR - Well, Darren Doan was a director that we all really liked the stuff he has done, all the bands that he’s worked with like Snapcase, Far, and stuff like that. So, he kinda came up with this idea of what the song meant to him, which I think is really interesting, because the song is partly about identity, and getting rid of your own identity, so for us having his take on the song, kind made sense for what the song was about. He saw the song partly about rebirth, and society as far as marriage and how marriage puts life in you. I guess it’s like an ancient thing, like how a woman is redemption, and relationship is redemption, and how you can get through anything as long as you fall in love, and I think it also holds innocence, like children, even though that may not be true. So, the idea behind it was, little kids see this guy that’s worthless in society’s eye, because he doesn’t have a job, he doesn’t have a wife, he’s not a useful member. So, they take him and burn him, and peel off all of his skin, so he’s like a new man, and they sell him to a rich woman, so that you get status and marriage, like giving him status, making him part of society, and at the end they’re driving away in that Mercedes, and you see in his eyes, it wasn’t a good thing, like placing that much value on innocence, and money and marriage and status, that’s kind of what his idea for the video was. For me, it went a lot along the lines of…that song is about identity and how you can lose yourself, like lose your own identity. I thought that it was kind of interesting to throw away my identity, what the song was about to me, and let him do it and about what he wanted, cause that’s kind of the idea for the song. I was really into letting him take over that video.
AH - Are there any funny or weird stories about tours that you have done?
GR - When we played in Europe recently, the thing that’s really funny about Europe is that it’s really small, everything is in driving distance, like anything that’s an hour away; they consider to be really far. So, we were in Brussels, in Belgium, and we couldn’t find anything, cause there weren’t any street signs. Everyone knows everything by landmarks, so we were looking at the map and we’re like there’s the church, we should turn at the church and make a right at the circle and this and that. We pull over and ask this guy where we’re going or how far it is to Hassalt, which is where we were going. And he was like “Aw, you will never get to Hassalt, it is too far, you are going there tonight? It is like 60 miles away from here”. And we were like; Ok I think we’re up for it. He wouldn’t even give us directions, cause they said it was too far. And they were just laughing at us like, “these guys are in trouble”.
AH - Do you or the band have something that you do as a ritual before shows?
GR - Yeah, we have a few rituals, the main ritual that we have is, right before we play, we all tell each other that we love each other, just kinda remind each other why we play together and stuff. After everything is set up and we’re ready to go, we just take 5 on the side of the stage, and just try to remind ourselves how great it is to do this.
AH - Did you have any problems getting here, cause I know you’ve always been sick the other times?
GR - Yeah, no problems this time.
AH - I remember the other time, for the Hey Mercedes, Saves the Day show, you were sick.
GR - Yeah, that was so bad, part of me almost still hates this club, just because I remember seeing it from the hotel where I was sick. I was in the hospital that day, it was so bad, I couldn’t eat for 3 days, and we were still playing. We would be like playing and we were playing in Prince’s Club wherever that is, Missouri maybe. I was out for the one show, because I was in the hospital and I couldn’t get up, like I couldn’t even just walk, and then I drank Ensure all the next day. And then 3 hours before we would play I would stop drinking it, and while we were playing, I was singing and I kept throwing up, but I hadn’t eaten anything so I was dry heaving, and I kept singing, it was just so terrible. Yeah, that was bad. That was some of the worst times I’ve ever had on tour, getting food poisoning, and having to go to the hospital, cause that whole night, I threw up for 20 hours, and once we got to the hospital, they put an IV in me and knocked me out. The doctor was like, you look really bad, and it was before we all got health insurance, we just got health insurance, so that one day cost me like $900.
AH – Do you know what you got it from?
GR - Boca Burger at Denny’s, watch out.
AH - At Warped Tour I remember you saying something about how there’s something about Cincinnati, every time I come, I’m always sick.
GR - Yeah, I was sick on Warped Tour too, wasn’t I? Man that sucks, but today, today I feel good. It’s our first headlining show too, so we get to play longer, and I won’t get sick and it will be cool.
AH - I think that is it, thank you very much.
GR - Thank you, man.
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