Interview by Jordan A. Baker Although I’m not one for omens, I do consider signs of them. This was my fifth attempt to interview THURSDAY’s vocalist, Geoff Rickly. After lost emails, general chaos, failed interview schedules and so forth, I like HATEBREED had perserverance, and would not rest until I got my chance to speak with the guy. So at the Black Cat in DC on April 12th, I hoped that the past four chances would be erased from memory and all would be cool. Of course, it wasn’t “cool,” as the venue and tour manager had no knowledge of any planned interviews. There’s a surprise… Never one to shy away from adversity, I kept to talking to people until I finally found my gateway to their dressing room. Woohoo! Geoff is the ultimate “nice guy” who just seems happy to be here, playing music, rather than being anywhere else in the world. I can’t thank him enough for his patience and in taking the time to talk to me, when he could have easily wanted to just chill and enjoy some privacy before going on stage.

Pastepunk: In many regards, your songs seem like a therapy session where you appear to be expelling much of your past to the crowd. After playing so many shows in the past year, do singing the songs over and over again still have the same rehabilitative effects, or have the meanings been lost or diminished?

Geoff: Yeah, it goes both ways. Certain songs, like off the first record, “Dying In New Brunswick” – we can’t even play that anymore because it has the reverse effect of being more negative. For most of the songs that doesn’t really happen at all. Some nights they don’t really connect at all, just because we’ve been touring so much. Last night, when we played one of the songs that’s more striking, it helped me out a lot though, so I guess it depends.

Pastepunk: With the band being on the road for most of the past year, has that provided a fuel for songwriting? Are you the kind of writer that like, takes mental notes and observations all along the way?

Geoff: Sometimes, but I have this fear of being the kind of band who writes a record while on tour and it’s just horrible, because it’s not focused. So I’ve been noticing stuff but trying to keep it away from the band. Mostly it’s just me watching how people interact with others and sensing underlying currents of things that bother people. I’m always making notes, but it’s usually just overhearing conversations and picking up on words. I saw this grafiti that said “survival pending revolution” and it’s so true. People throw around words like “revolution” all the time, but for some people, revolution is going to ultimately end up in death, like in countries that actually have them. And for the rest, it’s the concept of survival when the new government comes in. Words are just so powerful and I take my time analyzing them, three simple words like that, when strung together can mean so much.

Pastepunk: Are there certain things in your past that maybe have led you to be so observant about your surroundings? I don’t know if most people tend to pay attention to conversations that go on around them…

Geoff: I’ve been an only child all my life and I used to be really anti-social. So when I’d be like “leave me alone” when people wanted to pick on me and stuff when I was younger, I just kept to myself and just listened to what other people were talking about. Lately, it’s more because, you’re always around people, people who are also more like myself socially, and it’s a somewhat comfortable setting of people who understand how I interract.

Pastepunk: With the video getting widespread attention, the band all over rock radio nationwide, and just the overall attention, have you noticed that attention when you weren’t looking for it? Like, have you been touring in the van when “Understanding In a Car Crash” came on? What did ya think?

Geoff: Yeah, we’ve it played while in the van, it’s totally surreal. It’s really strange because you don’t quite believe it’s actually happening. It doesn’t mean anything to you because you’re not sure it actually exists. We just don’t know how to feel on stuff like that. When I got home recently in between tours, a lot of people I know asked me “how it feels to be a rockstar,” and it’s just like, “I’m not a rockstar, I’m not doing anything different, it’s the same thing I’ve been doing for the past three years,” but I guess more people can see it now.

Pastepunk: I really dig the video, it’s just beautifully honest…

Geoff: Thanks, it was something we did quick, filmed it like TV, and was super low budget.

Pastepunk: Did you ever think that THURSDAY’s sound ever had the ability to catch on outside of an “exclusively” punk and hardcore minded crowd?

Geoff: No…I mean, sometimes I thought maybe – everyone I think dreams that their band could be on the radio and stuff, but I never thought about it seroiusly. There’s plenty of bands I used to think about that should have been huge on the radio, and that makes it all the weirder, like “why us?” When certain bands I liked went major, like JAWBOX, I really hoped that they would get really big, because ya know, it’s much better to have music you like on the radio than not. If that kind of stuff catches on, maybe it will make other really bad music go away. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen anytime soon.

Pastepunk: I watched the segment you guys taped for MTV2 and heard that you guys didn’t get any kind of control over the videos selected, what was that experience like?

Geoff: They lied to us…and told us that we could pick the videos, but that wasn’t the case, as we only got to pick two of all of them. They played a RADIOHEAD video we wanted and a live video for “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” and that was it. Doing the show was so weird…beyond weird. They wanted us to do make-up and stuff, but we pleaded with them for no make-up, we didn’t care how we looked, we just didn’t want that stuff. If we look stupid, we’ll look stupid. The staff their asked us all these “real” questions, about lyrics and stuff, totally valid questions, which we weren’t expecting. It was pretty cool – I didn’t know what to expect, and that’s always strange going into new ordeals like that.

Pastepunk: Have you gone into a Best Buy or a Tower and seen the big displays they’ve had for the record?

Geoff: No, I haven’t seen them yet, but my friend has…

(Geoff’s Friend): I did, and I was going to play a big prank on him and take a picture with my arm around the cardboard cut out…

Geoff: We saw an ad that BEST BUY had our discs for 6.99 like one week, which is cheaper than what our labels sells them to us for, so we went and cleared out that store of our cds. Here’s what’s really weird – last week we entered into the Billboard top 200, which is insane…why the heck are we on there? It’s all good though.

Pastepunk: What kinds of breaks do you have in between tours? Do you feel that everything is overwhelming?

Geoff: It’s absolutely overwhelming – right now, and earlier today, I almost yelled at one of my friends who’s on tour with us taking pictures. It’s great he’s here and on tour with us, and he’s a great photographer, but I haven’t slepped in days, and I had like five days worth of facial hair on me and just felt gross. We were getting some food before and I asked for a vegetarian sandwich, and he didn’t want it to “get complicated” and told me to just get turkey, and I ended up just eating potato chips, but when your tired, dirty, feeling disgusting and worn down, and looking at these greasy potato chips, you just don’t want to deal with people, for like a few minutes you just want to get what you want and have some peace. Seriously, I almost felt like crying…

Pastepunk: And then of course, you’ve got like 800 people here tonight wanting you guys to have your best kind of night…not to put anymore pressure on you… (laughter abounds!)

Pastepunk: What happened in Canada a few nights ago? I read that you had some border problems?

Geoff: Yeah, we were detained for eight hours at the border and the patrol finally let us leave at rush hour. So even if we had went to finish the drive to the show, we probably wouldn’t have even gotten there in time. They also confiscated all of these shirts of ours that were made in the Domincan Republic because it was “against the crown.” Then they told us that we could go, but we had to leave our trailer, which made no sense because all of our equipment was in there, and then come get it the next day. If we even tried to get to the show and missed it, we would have probably missed the next day in Boston, so we just left and went to Boston. What sucks even more is that we got a call from SPARTA after the show and they said that the show’s promoter got on stage and told the crowd that THURSDAY cares “more about t-shirts than playing to their fans.” That was horrible, because everything was out of our hands – we had the proper work permits, which we paid $500 for, but then when you get shitted on again by an asshole promoter…

Pastepunk: You guys have your merch done through Merchdirect (awesome company!), and do you think there’s more “artist empowerment” with having full control over your merch versus through a label? I was at the MerchDirect HQ in March and I had to like fight may way through the day to get around all the THURSDAY boxes, heh…

Geoff: Yea, totally. We would have never signed onto a label that wouldn’t let us having total control over our t-shirts and stuff. Beyond the issues of being paid, we just don’t really trust anyone to make our stuff for us. Creative control is extremely important to the band, though at this point, we don’t exactly have complete control, because there’s always stuff that Victory does without telling us… like making Whoopie Cushions… THURSDAY whoopie cushions…but that’s another story. Most of it actually is really cool, I mean they certainly helped get our name out, but finding out that we were put on some split release without us even knowing is not cool, especially like when we’re not really fans of the other band on it.

Pastepunk: How does the band survive touring given the dynamics of the group? Are there certain buttons that each of you have learned not to push?

Geoff: Oh yeah, we’ve learned a lot about each other, and certain people learn exactly what buttons need to be pushed to annoy another person, and that’s rough, but it’s a part of touring as anything. I think we’re getting better at it, we haven’t tried to kill each other in awhile.

Interview ends abruptly as Geoff is called into action to solve a messy guestlist situation – being the essential “nice guy” that he is.