Thursday emerged for the underground New Jersey scene in 1997, in a place that sprouted other alternative acts like Saves The Day and Midtown. They started a career that worked through a busy touring schedule that would make many other bands dizzy just at the thought. Their break through record 2001’s Full Collapse gave them MTV and Warped tour dates, but also gave them a turmoiled struggle with their new label, Victory Records. After the shaky affair, the band split and joined major label Island records and released 2003’s critically acclaimed War All The Time. But with constant touring brings the wear and tear of life on the road and soon the band was falling to sickness and ready to tear itself apart. 2005 bought a deafening silence that many fans thought might mark the end of Thursday.

Now in 2006, Thursday have just left Australia with fellow rockers Anti-Flag, Taking Back Sunday and Underoath for the annual Taste Of Chaos tour. They’ve released a new album A City By The Light Divided and the band have exploded into a another amazing tour schedule. So what did 2005’s break do for Thursday? And after nearly a decade together, how do they keep the inspiration coming?

I sat down with Geoff Rickly and Steve Pedulla in the blistering Sydney heat to talk about life in Thursday, just before they rip up the Sydney stage.

A City By The Light Divided came after a break for the Thursday, where it was pretty well documented there was a bit of trouble for the band. Do you think it helped air out any differences between you?

Geoff: Yeah, for sure. I think the last time we were down here, as much as we enjoy being down here, we were pretty much at each others throats and I couldn’t imagine still being in that band. Now, we still have differences and some of them are huge differences but now we’re back to being buds again where your like “Yo man! You’re crazy!” and you can turn around and say “That’s a stupid. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”. Last time, the littlest things would come up and you’d feel like “I hate that person.” but now, it’s back to being brothers. I think we realize, even if it’s a big deal, we’re a band, we’re best friends and we get to do what we love all the time. You get caught up in just how small your world is when you’re in a band.

Have you guys devised any plans to battle fatigue or illness this time around? Right after the Taste Of Chaos, you hit the road again for a co-headlining tour with Rise Against which is a pretty intense schedule for any band.

Geoff: It’s hard to predict what’s gonna happen. We’re all friends with Head Automatica and Glassjaw and for them, literally half their tour has been cancelled because they’re sick. All I can say is, we’ve gone through some past illnesses for the band and for the most part it’s done. But every so often you’re gonna get sick and have to cancel a show, but it’s not that often. And when it happens, it still sucks. But we’re touring 8 months this year, as opposed to 10 and just those two extra months just randomly in between, they make it so you can actually get healthy again and get back on tour. You end up turning around and going ‘I ate burger king for tweleve days straight!’ and after watching Supersize Me you can see just how bad it is for you. But when you’re on tour, you wish you could have three McDonald’s meals a day!

A lot of people turn around and call you Emo, despite the fact a lot of people have no idea how to define the genre. How do you guys feel when people start lumping you into Emo, Post Hard-core, Screamo and all these little genres that seem to appear? Is it something you embrace or does it just annoy you?

Geoff: It used to get under our skin a little more, but after we’ve been a band for as long as we have, people just kind of know that we’re Thursday now. Love us or hate us, we are what we are and we have been for a long time. It’s come to a point where people don’t even bother to describe us anymore. You’ve either heard it and you liked it or you haven’t and we end up getting compared to five bands that started in the wake of us or at the same time. It’s something you stop worrying about after a while.
Steve: There was a time, when we first started doing interviews. But you realise it’s a really dumb term.
Geoff: Emo. (Laughs)
Steve: And then you hear about the bands people associate with it and we’re nothing like that, we’re better or worse or whatever. It’s strange sometimes, it doesn’t really matter at the end, we’re doing what we’re doing. If you’re gonna call us that, go ahead, but we’re not going to get wound up about it.
Geoff: It’s funny too because the bands I would hear being called Emo when I was younger were bands like Rites Of Spring, Embrace and Fugazi and even then I felt that was dumb term for those bands. We don’t sound much like any of those bands, even though they were the bands that inspired us. Then Emo started being used for bands like Promise Ring and American Football and we don’t sound like those bands either. Now you get bands like Dashboard Confessional and we really don’t sound like that! I guess you can fall under any genre really. I’ve heard Converge called ‘Emo Metal’.

Another thing is, it seems after you release an album fans tend to turn around and revolt crying “Sell Outs!” and refuse to go to concerts and buy your albums anymore. How does that effect Thursday?

Geoff: After every album (Laughs). I think it just gets to a point, like after we put out War All The Time, it just felt insane and you think “Why would anyone say that?” and this time around, we made a way weirder record and you realize, it’s just what people say when it’s not the first record they’ve heard from you anymore. There’s not really any point to it. Steve: It’s like the genre thing, it just from person to person and there’s not much you can do about it.
Geoff: The funny thing is, is that people turned around and went “Oh, War All The Time was such a sell out record!” and then we released A City By The Light Divided and people were like “This is such a sell out, War All The Time was the best record!”, which is funny because they same kids said that when War All The Time was a sell out and before that they said Jet Black New Year was a sell out. It’s always the album before the new one which was the better record. Part of thing is, I think we’re just one of those bands that takes a while to get used to the way that we sound, so every record comes out and you have to give it a while.

You guys entered the studio with a fresh slate, so how was the recording process? Were there any songs in the studio you wanted to scrap but just ended up working in the end?

Steve: There were a couple of those that seemed like they just wouldn’t work one way or the other, but all came together while we were recording. Some of our favourite songs we’re stuff we didn’t think would work originally. Two of my favourites, Sugar in The Sacrament and Autumn Leaves Revisited fall under that.
Geoff: Three of the slowest songs on the record seemed like they were gonna be, whatever. And then they came together and the experience in the studio was so good and the songs came up so great that all of a sudden they were special and they had to be on the record. It was so strange, some songs we felt were killer songs and when we finished it didn’t turn out right. It’s just one of those things were it’s very unpredictable. Usually you go into it and you feel there are some certain songs that are gonna go on the album and you work on them so you can get them the way, but this time it was a little more free. It turned out cool, because we all trust each other more and sort of went with it. When something was turning out good, we all sort of turned and focused our attention on that. Sugar In The Sacrament was a continuous take, we didn’t work on anything else until we had everything down. And that was a very cool experience. The whole mood was just that song for a few days.

Geoff, you’ve started Astromagnetics with a few friends and you’ve signed and produced debut LP’s for new bands like The Blackout Pact. When you’re in the studio working with these new bands, does it spark and fuel your own desires for the direction you want to take Thursday in?

Geoff: Oh totally, it’s insane. Like I remember doing the first My Chemical Romance record and when I was in the studio with them, they were such a young band and playing wise… they were kind of shitty almost. But the ideas they had coming from a fresh perspective was so different to how I would do things and it was cool to just sit back and watch them. And it wasn’t that I wanted to take their ideas or anything like that, it was just realising there are totally different ways of doing things from how I think. And at any point of time where we think all the ideas for Thursday are used up, we can just turn a little bit in a different direction and there’s a whole other world of ideas. That’s the reason why right now I try to work with bands that are on their first record, because I love being around that first spark. And when you first start that first record you need somebody there who believes in you. You need somebody there that won’t question “Why are you writing this stupid eight minute long song?” or “Why is this song about this?” you need someone to go, “That’s a really cool idea.” and tell them they can make it cooler by pointing them in different directions and you make them feel as good as they can feel. And that’s the thing, you see it in them, they don’t see it yet because they’re still a young band, but they love your music, so they’re ready to trust you. It’s so cool to watch a band unfold and it makes me want to just go and practice after that. I end up turning to the band and going “Guys! We’re still good!”.

It’s just a matter of fact that you guys aren’t rivalling Madonna in CD Sales and Chart Positioning, but today, a lot of people count success through exactly that. So through Thursday’s eyes, what’s your measure of success?

Geoff: I think that part of it is, we’ve been a band for nine years and strangely enough we’re coming up to 1 million records sold in our career, which is insane, because we’re a really strange band. There are a lot of bands that sell their records all at once who haven’t had the kind of career we’ve had. Every time we put out a record, people care and they listen for it and we have some really die hard fans. We play shows and the kids came out and are really attentive and really passionate about the music. I think we’re one of those lucky bands, where even though we don’t sell a ton of records, our crowds are much better than out record sales. I’ve see bands that have gold records or platinum records and in concert they can’t bring out half the people we bring out. And I’d rather have people there at shows then sell records. I think a kind of measurement I always look to is, I want to be a Sonic Youth, not a Nirvana. Nirvana was like bang! and then they were gone and that was especially tragic because of Kurt’s death. But I’ve always wanted to be a band where there was never a huge hit, but releasing record after record of where every one is good. I can pick up every Sonic Youth record and find something good on it and that’s something that I’d love, that in 20 years, we’re still making good records.

It’s a pretty cliche question, but in the nine years you’ve been together, through all your ups and downs, is there anything you’d take back or just really regret doing?

Geoff: I’m sure there are a few things, but I can’t even remember them.
Steve: No, I can’t even remember them either.
Geoff: There are things like going on radio shows where the host is a jackass and you think, ‘Why did I even bother talking to that guy?’, or playing a bad show or getting into a fight with somebody, there’s stuff like that all time. But there’s no major decisions where I feel like it ruined the band.

Are there any future plans for Thursday to return to Australian shores in the next year?

Geoff: We’re gonna come back in the New Year and play clubs.

Thanks you very much for your time guys.

Steve: Thank you.
Geoff: Yeah, thank you.