Interview

On my way home from work and heading down to Providence to see the show, my phone rang and my heart skipped a beat. On the other end was Steve Pedulla, guitarist for Thursday. Now, chalk it up to it being my first interview or the fact that this was one of my favorite bands, but I had forgotten to press the record button when I started my interview. Luckily I caught my error into the third question. The first question was about what to expect with the new record and Steve talked about it being distinctively Thursday but their best effort to date. Secondly I asked him about recording with Dave Fridmann who he said was amazing, was very laid back, and was a voice of sanity when things would get frantic. The third question had to do with the original intention of A City By The Light Divided to be a double CD and why that idea was scrapped. Steve was commenting on the difficulty of such a feat when I finally found the REC button…

Steve: “…Beatles, I’m a huge Beatles fan and I thing there are great songs on the White album, but even the Beatles they didn’t pull off a solid double album, on that record. Probably a lot of people will hate me for saying that, but oh well. In our eyes its like, ‘If the Beatles can’t do a double album and nail it, it’s a pretty tall order for us.’

EP: Exactly. What do you site as major influences on the new record, what inspired you or influenced you most in your song writing approach?

Steve: Are you saying musically, like what we were listening to?

EP: Yeah, what you were listening to, what helped shape the way you guys did your songs?

Steve: I think a lot of time and place stuff kinda helped that. You know, we got off tour from War All The Time and took I think 4 months off where we barely even hung out, just once in a while and everyone went their separate ways and just wrote on their own. Just really took a breath for a minute and just eventually came back together in a more organic way. It was kinda along the lines of how we wrote Full Collapse where we really had time to actually sit down and write and make sure the songs came out the way we wanted to. Whereas with War All The Time, we wrote that record in a month and a half and we’re super proud of it for sure, but something can be said for working under pressure like that. It can get to you after awhile. I think a lot of it had to do with the approach we took this time where we just didn’t want to go in and record until we were absolutely ready to go in and record. So we just, after the 4 month break, just wrote for almost a year and demoed a lot of songs and changed each and every one of them a million and one times until we thought they were exactly what we wanted. And then I think it was a combination of that and working with Dave Fridmann this time where it was an eye opener so that we didn’t kinda fall into the same go-to moves that we normally would do, you know. I think those are things that sorta shaped the new record.

EP: From what I’ve heard online so far, “Running From The Rain” is probably my favorite track.

Steve: Thanks

EP: What would you say some of your favorites are?

Steve: I think my favorite might be “Sugar In The Sacrament” and I don’t know, it’s hard. I’m really proud of a lot of the songs. “Sugar In The Sacrament”, “Autumn Leaves Revisited”, “Other Side Of The Crash.” I think this is our first record where pretty much everybody in the band loves every song. We’ve had songs in the past on records that one or two people were like ‘eh, that songs ok’ but this ones like everyone is super confident about all of them. So it’s hard to pinpoint but if I had to, I’d say those.

EP: Ok, so that leads me to my next question. Does the new album live up to our expectations?

Steve: For me personally, it’s definitely live up to, it’s surpassed my expectations I think. Some of the songs I hear, I’m kinda surprised that we were able to pull them off the way we did it. Like I said, it’s the record that we’ve been trying to make all along and we finally figured out what we want to do. It’s cool to try to go in a new direction, you know, just get new, fresh ideas happening instead of just regurgitating everything else. Although maybe some people want that, but if we were to do that it wouldn’t make sense for us to be a band really. It’s just gonna get boring. So it’s exciting to move forward. Stay where you are but try on some new clothes, so to speak.

EP: You guys were gone for quite some time. Do you think that your fans will genuinely find the record worth the wait?

Steve: I hope so. There’s no telling until it really comes out but in terms of the online community so far, the reviews I’ve been reading from actually writers or just kids on message boards, everyone seems to be really excited about it. It’s definitely reassuring to know that we’re on the same page still. We’re definitely nervous about that. We’ve been gone awhile, ‘Are people gonna care anymore? Are they gonna like what we’re doing?’ We don’t know, we just do what’s true to ourselves and hope for the best I guess.

EP: How about at the shows? Are the fans pretty responsive to the new stuff?

Steve: Yeah, it’s been cool. The first time we played “Running From The Rain” was during one of the Christmas shows we played over the holidays and it was the first time I actually saw a crowd respond to a new song the first time they were hearing it and they were all clapping along and everything. I was surprised because I was totally waiting for the arms to cross and everyone kinda stares through you like you’re crazy. But it was awesome. They couldn’t sing along, they didn’t know the words but they definitely clapped along and seemed very into it so it was cool.

EP: You guys recently added Andrew permanently into the band, what brought this about?

Steve: It was sort of a long time coming. I think ultimately, obviously we loved Andrew for it, we’ve loved him since the beginning, but we were just worried about it. We didn’t know how it was going to work. We didn’t want to add keyboards for the sake of adding keyboards. We wanted them to have a voice that was a major contribution if we were going to do that. I think we were a little worried that we didn’t know if that was gonna be the direction we were going in or not. The more we wrote, the more he was involved. It just sorta kept happening naturally where it just made sense. I think on the new record he’s definitely a pillar that shines through on a lot of the songs. That’s one of the new things you’ll hear on this record with a lot more keyboard stuff happening. It’s been a long time coming really, we just had to figure out how to make it work.

EP: It sounds good from what I’ve heard so far, I like the addition.

Steve: Oh cool, thank you.

EP: You guys seem to have songs that touch on bases that are surrounded by personal tragedies and losses. Is it difficult to perform these songs on a nightly basis and are you able to stay disconnected from the meanings behind the songs?

Steve: Sometimes it can be difficult. It’s easier for the newer songs cause they’re fresher, the topics are fresher in your mind, but sometimes the older ones will sneak up on you and really hit you in a way. I guess it’s not any different than everyday life where everyone has their problems and some days those problems kinda hit you harder than they do and don’t go away. So it depends on what’s happening in everyone’s lives that day or at the show specifically, how the crowds reacting to certain songs. I don’t think it’s every really hard. There’s just something about music that’s so powerful that just playing it is always cathartic on some level.

EP: You guys are known to put 100 % of your energy into every song at every show. How are you able to do this, where do you get your motivation?

Steve: We get to play music every day and share that with people and go to shows and try to create a dialogue between us and the people that come to the shows. I think that’s just inherent when you have that there. You have a choice, it’s what you want. You just kinda feel it.

EP: It’s kinda nice to see sometimes that a band is actually out there every night trying versus just going through the motions where at points it seems like ‘alright, these guys don’t seem to care that much.’

Steve: Yeah, there are definitely bands like that. It’s strange, especially now there’s six people. Even if there is one person that’s having a bad day and might feel a little bit disconnected, that basically the whole overcomes the sum of it’s parts and takes over. I think things would have to be really, really, really terrible for all of us at the same time just not be feeling it one night. Knock on wood, hopefully that doesn’t happen.

EP: As far as putting 100% of your energy into it, sometimes that can be a negative. I read that Geoff had problems with his throat lately and that you guys had to drop off some of the Taste of Chaos dates.

Steve: Yeah, we had to cancel 4 shows I believe which was unfortunate. You know it’s crazy, when you’re the singer of a band your instrument is your voice and it’s not like you can go and change the strings on your vocal cords. You have to take care of that and sometimes if your not even exerting yourself that can just happen, it’s just part of being human. That’s just how it goings unfortunately. Some people get away with it and never have a problem and some people it hits, but knock on wood so far he’s been doing better and he’s been trying to really take care of himself to make sure that that’s not gonna happen because we felt really terrible that we had to cancel shows. So that’s the deal with that, but he’s definitely doing better.

EP: A couple of years ago I picked up a book by Andy Greenwald called “Nothing Feels Good.” I don’t know if you have read it or not.

Steve: I haven’t read it actually but I know Andy and I think Geoff read it and he said it was good.

EP: You guys had a part in it and Geoff commented on the dove tattoo that a lot of your fans have along with his own Frail tattoo and there was a mention of the tattoos on your recent website updates. Are there any sentimental tattoos that you have or anyone else in the band of this nature?

Steve: I don’t have any tattoos actually. Some of the guys do and they have their personal things behind them but I don’t think anyone has a band tattoo, I’m not really sure though. They might and I just didn’t realize which would be funny cause (laughs) I should probably be aware of that, but I don’t think anyone has that. They only have tattoos that reflect personal things in their lives I guess.

EP: Are you ever shocked or amazed at how many of your fans actually have the dove tattoo and how your band has affected the kids?

Steve: Yeah, it’s definitely amazing. It’s funny since I don’t have tattoos. The reason I don’t have tattoos is cause it’s a huge commitment that that is gonna be with you. I could imagine myself going and getting something and the next day like ‘oh, why did I get that?’ and then the next day liking it and just going back and forth. So to see that kinda of commitment that I don’t even have from other people is really, just blows my mind for sure. It’s really, really flattering to say the least.

EP: What are some of your all-time favorite songs to perform live?

Steve: “Paris In Flames,” “How Long Is The Night?” are always fun. We just played “Sugar In The Sacrament” last night for the first time and I have a feeling that’s gonna be a new favorite. “Workforce” is fun, I enjoy playing all of them, you like to switch them up after awhile. I feel like there’s some songs you play at every show and sometimes you want to swap them around, but you don’t want to disappoint people either. So it’s hard, the favorites are revolved I think but in terms of ones that are definitely stuck, that I’ve never felt weird about are “Paris In Flames” “How Long Is The Night?” I really love playing “M. Shepard” as well when we do that. “Workforce” is another one that’s always fun. There’s a bunch, we were fortunate in that way.

EP: Do you guys have a set list with every tour, do you try to change it up a lot? Do you guys ever consider requests from the crowd if you hear kids yell out song names?

Steve: In the past we’ve stuck to a set list for most of the tour. We’ll change it up a bit here and there. Occasionally we’ll take a chance and play a song that someone might call out, sometime we’ll do that. It depends on how we’re feeling about playing that song at that moment. Lately we’ve been trying to mix it up a little bit more, just have alternating sets and hopefully change songs, add songs, and that’ll change once the new record comes out as well. I’m hoping we mix it up more show to show, cause to me that keeps it more interesting.

EP: Are there any songs you guys won’t play at all or haven’t played ever?

Steve: Yeah, there are some songs that, I won’t say we won’t ever play, but we don’t play much off of Waiting anymore. It’s just something that, I wasn’t around for that, I know the guys are proud of that record but it’s also they feel a little disconnected from it. They were just all really young and basically learning how to play when they wrote that record and it’s definitely a special record to them, but at the same time everyone has moved forward and really likes playing the newer stuff. Some of that earlier stuff we probably would play a little bit less than the other things. I think every song though has seen the light of day once, for the most part.

EP: On your current tour, you guys are out with Mewithoutyou and Minus The Bear, who each of you has a unique different sound. How was the line-up constructed, who put together the bands you are with?

Steve: We all discussed and thought about bands we’d want to tour with. Actually We’re All Broken is on the tour as well. They’re opening the show and then it’s Mewithoutyou then Minus The Bear. But we’ve all been fans of all these bands forever and actually We’re All Broken, it’s almost like a brother band cause their guitar player at one point was basically in the band, helping out and filling in even though he had his own band. Actually the way I came into to be in Thursday was Frank from We’re All Broken introduced me to those guys and he was like “listen, I’m gonna be in my band, you should talk to this kid Steve.” So I met them through that and it’s just been family. They played their first shows together I think and came up together and played in basements. So that was just sorta a family thing. Mewithoutyou is just one of our favorite new bands. To me they’re like basically if you took all of my favorite bands that broke up and put them all of them into one, that’s Mewithoutyou. I’m psyched on that. And Minus The Bear is just amazing, some awesome, incredible guitar playing and the melodies are awesome and they’re great guys. So we’re having a really great time on tour.

EP: What is the concept behind the Shirts for a Cure Tour?

Steve: Shirts for a Cure is run by this guy named Mark Beemer and the idea is bands donate a t-shirt design and then when those t-shirts are sold the profits go to fund cancer research. So it’s basically an organization that is trying to raise the awareness there and hopefully to help try to find a cure someday.

EP: Free time on tour, how do you spend your free time on the bus or in the different cities?

Steve: Sit around and read or listen to music, hang out with the other bands on the tour, explore the city generally that we’re in. Sometimes you get a little bored and get a little crazy but there’s usually enough to do.

EP: Do you have any favorite cities you like exploring?

Steve: I really love going to Vancouver when we play there, I love that city. I like Chicago a lot. And you know, we’re lucky when we’re home, New York and New Jersey are still some of my favorite places to play and obviously it’s different because we don’t have to explore them because we know them pretty well, but it’s always pretty awesome. And actually touring in Australia is probably one of my favorite things, one of my favorite countries to tour in outside of the U.S.

EP: There were discussions/rumors what have you of you guys permanently hanging it up during the break. What happened with you guys exactly?

Steve: I think in everyone’s hearts they knew that this wasn’t done but we needed some time apart. The future of scheduling of it all and the way things happened and it just being so full-on all the time, it had elements of feeling like a job. Not playing, playing always feels great, but when you are away from home that long and you are missing your friends and family, you sometimes feel like you don’t have your own life. Your part of this other thing and that’s it, you don’t have your own identity. You’re with the same people all the time and you’re traveling around together in confined spaces, whether it’s a van or a bus or whatever, you’re just always around each other. I think we just needed a little time away from each other mainly. I think a lot of that kinda got blown out of proportion. You never know with that kind of thing, when you are around people so much you can never tell if it’s gonna stay positive all the time or not. For those that are frustrated, we’ll get with each other and just play. We always have playing and that’s a very different side of it. We have no plan of giving up or quitting. We want to continue to do this. Things have been great, especially on this tour things have been feeling really great, we’re really super proud of the new record. It’s been a very positive experience.

EP: You guys said you wanted to take more time to write and record A City By The Light Divided. Does this imply that you guys felt you really rushed War All The Time and it didn’t fully meet your personal expectations?

Steve: The difference is we basically flip-flopped it a little bit. With War All The Time we wrote it in a month and a half and recorded it over 6 – 8 months whereas this time we wrote over more than 8 months and then recorded it in pretty much 2 months of actually recording time. We did 2 weeks sessions and we were in the studio for 2 months, but it was split out. That’s what we really want to do. War All The Time, it was like a rollercoaster ride, you know, where you just sign to a major label, and there was, regardless if you wanted to admit it at the time or not, there was all this pressure. We wanted to stay true to ourselves and do our thing. Of course you’re always worried ‘are they gonna try to make us sound different?’ or whatever. It was just a very ‘GO, GO, GO, ok, we can’t wait, we need to just get this out there.’ In a way I think that created a lot of cool things about that record that made that claustrophobic feeling, it made that sort of running forward motion, had that kind of feel to it to me. In a way I think it’s awesome, but that record when we look back on and there’s a bunch of things we might have differently. The thing I love about that record is it’s a very truthful document of a very specific time and place in this band’s history. We are definitely proud of it, it’s just we realized that’s not how we wanted to operate, that’s not how we wanted to write songs, that’s not how we wanted to record them. We wanted to do things a little bit more on our terms.

EP: As far as when you guys are out touring, as you get older do you find it gets harder to leave behind your friends and family?

Steve: Yeah, it definitely seems like that for me. When we went for the first leg of this tour, it was like ‘oh yeah, touring. oh yeah, I forgot about how this works.’ Especially with a new record coming out, you discuss it, but in the end you’re basically handed a piece of paper and your like ‘oh, on this little, tiny piece of paper is the guidelines for the next seven months of my life’ and it can be daunting. It’s exciting, of course, you’re getting to tour all over the place, but you also want to be around your friends and family. It’s definitely hard to find the balance between the two.

EP: You guys have your current tour which goes until about June?

Steve: Yeah, after this leg we go to the UK for a week then we have a tiny bit of time off and then the Warped Tour.

EP: So you guys are pretty busy until next fall?

Steve: Yeah, we have some stuff in the works that even in the fall there’s gonna be another tour probably. I have a feeling we know what we are going to be doing until just about the new year.

EP: What can we expect from you guys long term?

Steve: I don’t know, time will tell. Hopefully a bunch of records that people will like and that we’re proud of is definitely the goal. We’ll see, we kinda like to take things one more step at a time, see how everything goes. But we already have a lot of songs that we still didn’t finish from this last session that we’re super excited about. We have a couple different ideas for some projects in between records as well that we’re hoping to get together. Definitely a lot of music, we’re trying to keep that going, even on the road continuing to write.

EP: If Thursday were to end tomorrow, where would you be without this band?

Steve: Personally, I would eventually probably end up back in the film world. Before I was in the band I was working on different films and commercials and videos as a crew person but also as a cameraman. I’d probably go back into that world, I had a lot of friends in that. That’s what I was pursuing, I was an aspiring cinematographer. Definitely something I miss a little bit, but I love playing music so much that it’s totally okay (laughs). If that were to happen, which I hope it doesn’t, then I would probably go back into that world.

EP: Any final words for the readers of the website?

Steve: I hope you enjoy the new record. Please give it more than one listen and remember that it’s not Full Collapse, it’s a new record!

EP: Alright Steve, thank you very much.

Steve: Alright, thanks.

I want to say thank you very much to Andrew and Island records for setting this up and to Steve for taking the time to answer some questions. Thursday’s fourth full length release, A City By The Light Divided, is in stores now.