Part one of our interview with Andrew Everding of Thursday touched primarily on his band and their stunning new record Common Existence. Part two however, takes things in a much different direction as Everding offers his thoughts on the scene, the industry and how to keep that PMA.
P: How has it been headlining this tour so far? This tour in past years has been a much bigger event at much bigger venues? Was it already scaled down before you were attached?
A: Sure. That was kind of the deal with it. They didn’t want to do the arena thing, but I don’t know exactly why. I don’t think we would have been happy doing arena tours or attempting to headline because I don’t think we’re that big so it was planned out.
P: You guys are headlining over a number of younger bands who cater to a much different audience and you guys kind of stick out like a sore thumb.
A: That’s a good way of putting it.
P: Do you feel like you’re the elder statesmen at this point, even though you’re only in your late 20’s, or do you feel like you’ve outgrown the scene as it is right now?
A: When you say elder statesmen do you mean like with a sense of entitlement?
P: Not really. Not in a pretentious way at all. More like “we’ve been doing this a long time, we know what and who we are, we’re going to show the way…”
A: There’s a definite age gap but say like Bring Me The Horizon, who shows up to their shows are kids who are 14…I’m gonna be 30 this year. When Thursday started, those 14-year-olds were four. When Full Collapse came out they were 7. I don’t know if they were listening to Full Collapse when they were 7 and we can’t just assume that they were. I think on this tour, there’s a percentage of people who leave after they’re done cause they don’t know who we are and that’s fine and there’s a percentage of people who stick around because Taste of Chaos is a brand in its essence that people come to watch the whole thing. It’s like Warped Tour. There might be one band you like on Warped Tour but you come and stick around and check out different bands. These bands know what they’re doing though. They’ve been touring for a few years I think, I don’t really know. If they ever ask us questions than it’s fine. We do feel old from time to time but then again, we’re respected for what we do. Some of these bands grew up listening to us and now they’re on tour with us.
P: Over the years has your favorite part of being in a band changed? Has it gone from “we love playing live” to “we love recording?”
A: That’s exactly what I’d say. On this tour I’m like touring’s fine right now, and I used to love touring and playing shows every night…but I have to be honest I’d rather be home or writing or recording. I just don’t feel as productive. The hour I get to play every day is great but the downtime and the in between stuff and the traveling and the disadvantages to your health of being on tour is…it takes its toll. When I was 21 or 22 doing this, it was fucking awesome but now it’s like “ugh.” I don’t know how I’ll survive doing 75 days of touring in a row. A lot of us have some serious responsibility at home and the industry has changed so the money isn’t as good but if you believe in what you do then you’ll be fine. I think that you should spend your twenties doing what you love even if you get paid ten cents for it. You can be productive in your thirties if you need to be.
P: How do you view the changing industry? Yes, you were on a major label but you always had this carved out niche of kids…Thursday’s fanbase didn’t get really affected by that. What do you see happening in the future?
A: For Thursday or for the industry?
P: For the industry…
A: I continually say that the music industry is the wild, wild west right now. It’s like a gold rush. There’s still money out there. For us at this point, it’s not like we’re volunteering to do Thursday. If we were it’d be smaller shows and we’d play two shows a year or something but this is our livelihood and this is how we pay our bills so financial concern is a big thing for us and it sucks to say that to someone who truly believes in you. We try to write stuff with as much integrity as we can and then promote what we do but there isn’t a lot of money right now so the good bands will disappear. It’s us just trying to figure out how to go on tour and do it the same way we used to and have as much emotion involved in it and do it wise enough that we can still get a paycheck. Play really good shows with really good bands, get everybody excited about what we’re doing and tell them how much we believe in this stuff and then come home and be able to pay our bills. A lot of bands can’t do that. That’s why people stop touring all together. Some bands will fall off the face of the earth even if they’re awesome. Something happens and they just can’t do it anymore.
P: The Explosion…
A: Sure. I’m friends with one of those boys and it’s tough. It’s a giant pain in the ass. There’s gonna be some really good music out there that doesn’t ever make it. And then there’s stuff that’s the most terrible thing in the entire world and they’re rolling in it right now.
P: Is it disheartening to see as an artist?
A: No. I mean there’s sometimes where I’m like “I don’t get it.” But when I was super young I was particular about what I liked but it’s all opinion and it’s all perspective…everything is. If I don’t get something it might be I’m out of the loop and the music I write when I get older and getting more older it’s gonna be weird and no one will like it but that’s fine.
P: The new songs are really cool live. I really didn’t expect so many kids to be so into them so soon after the album was released. Why did you guys decide to play Full Collapse in it’s entirety in
A: Well they asked us to do some kind of promotion because there were four shows within an hour of each other and that show, there weren’t a lot of kids who bought tickets to it so they asked us. It’s kind of a card that we’ve had in our deck so to speak that we’ve never played before. We’ve never played it front to back before and people hold so dearly to that record so it would bring a lot of kids out and kids got excited about it. Unfortunately we couldn’t commit to doing it and people have been asking us now if we’re going to do it again. We will but we don’t know when.
P: Would you ever consider doing something like Coheed and
A: There’s songs we’ve never played live but we’d absolutely consider doing it. We’ve talked about doing stuff like that because it’s a great idea like the Clarity tour that Jimmy Eat World’s doing right now. It’s great, it’s a great idea. You know what an album people hold on to is, and I like the idea of doing everything too. We can’t play for five hours straight but we can do like two records in a night and switch it up. Play like Full Collapse or play Common Existence. I think you’re going to see a giant trend in that.
P: Why though?
A: It’s a cool thing. It’s like an evening with whoever. I’d love to see My Bloody Valentine play Loveless front to back. I’d love to see Radiohead play OK Computer front to back. It’s a lot of older records too, it’s a historical thing. It’s not current records because people don’t listen to records front to back unless you really appreciate something. If you’re checking out something new than whatever you’re like “this songs okay” but you’re not listening to it as an entity. For those bands and musicians that write records from a perspective of being a start to finish thing you’ll see more people doing that. It’s like an exhibit of sorts. Not a show where you’re like “how can we please everyone right now?” It’s a show where it’s really specific and you know what to expect. It’s not like you show up to the show and say “I have no idea what they’re going to do tonight.” You know what they’re going to do and you know it’s going to be great. We know Jimmy Eat World’s gonna play Clarity front to back and I’m psyched because I know every note and every lyric to that and I can’t wait to sing along to.
P: Last real question and I’m going to make it very specific. If you could set up a tour for the fall in the
A: With us headlining?
P: It doesn’t have to be…if you guys wanted to open for MBV at this point it would make sense to me.
A: I’d love to do that but I don’t think it would happen. I’d really just like to play a really, with our peers. I have dream tours where I’d love to open for Morrissey or My Bloody Valentine but it’s probably not going to happen in the near future. I’d say something like Cursive, Converge, Envy, us…who else? That would be a cool tour. Two heavier bands, two not so heavy bands. Maybe with Alexisonfire too. I’d like to do smaller tours with great bands that everyone wants to come see equally, that rotate.
P: Smaller as in venue sizes?
A: Sure. Back to what it was for us for a while. We have our best shows where everybody’s amped to see us. People who have been coming to see us and are our friends and want to see us in a good environment. We’ve always wanted to tour with Envy but I don’t know if that’ll happen. Some good ass kicking music right?
P: Any parting words of wisdom?
A: For who? (laughing)
P: For anyone. For humanity.
A: We have a new thing where we tell everyone to keep a positive mental attitude, that PMA.
P: No one got that last night…at all. That whole crowd was like “Who are these Bad Brains you speak of?
A: Exactly. We were all on the bus like “How many kids do you think know who the Bad Brains are?” but it’s a good thing. A good perspective. I think within
